Blogging Miz Daisy

Spring Break 2026 ~ Puerto Vallarta Day 4 & 5 {Resort time and Departure Day}

2026-03-27T12:42:00.004-05:00

Saturday was our final full day. The girls and I dressed appropriate and went to the 'fancier' restaurant for breakfast... we weren't impressed and preferred the other one that had a basic breakfast buffet. But they got their Nutella pancakes and were happy.

Back to the pool when it opened then the kids made bracelets at the kids club

Emma had lost her goggles in the ocean on Thursday, I checked the store at the resort and they had some for sale. Got her a new pair... which she hated. They were pretty crapy after all, but hey they worked. Luckily she has a very kind brother who let her take over his pair.

peacocks at the store

Some basketball playing that morning, not much cuz the court was kinda crappy. And of course pool time. Kyle, Isaac, and I played some cards poolside.

Then lunch. They sat us at about the same spot every time since there are six of us.

And back in the pool of course, lol. Looks like Mary got the crappy goggles in this photo.

Afternoon snack at the crepe station.

Then dinner as the sun went down.

Progression of sun setting.

Slowly walking back to the room after the sun set and enjoying a few more the resort has to offer: ping pong and rocking horses.

We had popcorn back in the room and began packing our bags. Not a super early flight but we planned to eat breakfast then get a ride to the airport. We had a noon flight but didn't want to be rushed. Grand finale as we left was Mr. Peacock shaking his tail feathers! Adios!

Third and final highlight video:

Pretty early at the airport, bags checked and hung out for a bit. Wishing we could have snuck in on the 11am direct flight to Minneapolis, but had to wait on a connector which was also full and they were taking volunteers to stay back. We boarded the loooonnnngggg flight to Detroit.

Once in Detroit we had to go through customs, getting our checked bags, checking them again and waiting in the security line. Not much time before our connecting flight but was able to grab food to eat on the plane. Long day of traveling on Sunday.

Arrived about 10pm, kids were super helpful getting the bags, now this we could get used to :-)

The pet boarding place picked us up and shuttled us to the facility where we retrieved our van and Oakley who was HAPPY to see us. Here are some photos of his time while we were away.

Looks like he made friends.

Spring Break 2026 ~ Puerto Vallarta Day 3 {Excursion to Las Calatas Beach and Adventure Park}

2026-03-27T12:23:00.003-05:00

Friday came and it was excursion day. We booked a boat trip to a private beach called Las Caletas. I think it's owned by this travel company; it's only accessible by boat. It was super fun and I highly recommend it! At first we felt rushed like we wouldn't have time to do EVERYTHING. But in the end we had plenty of time and the hour and a half after lunch we didn't realize we'd have was spent relaxing and playing in the sand... so yes plenty of time to do it all (well mostly - we didn't do many of the group things like the cooking class or mezcal tasting, nor the scuba diving lesson or banana boat ride. But all that we wanted to do with did)

First up was the port arrival. A quick 15 minute taxi ride from our hotel we arrived, got this photo taken, paid the port fair and got checked in for our boat. Oh and I bought this floatable GoPro attachment! Perfect for the day ahead.

First in line to load. We saw a family we knew from Edina in the security line to get through to the port! Small world.

Sat up top one the way there to see the views.

The ride to the beach was 45 minutes or maybe a little longer as the captain drove closer to the shoreline and talked about the town.

Mary started to get a little sea sick at the end of the ride. Isaac took a little nap.

As we approached the beach they had demonstrations of the adventure park options (zip line, blob, banana boat, etc) I was on the lower deck with Mary to get a barf bag (wasn't used) but Kyle said they had parrots flying over head as they docked.

First order of business was breakfast and why I think Mary wasn't feeling well. The kids all ate some cereal in the room before we left but it wasn't enough for her belly to handle the boat ride.

There was a little bit of a line for breakfast so I made a quick walk to the bathroom. Beautiful trails. Super yummy tacos for breakfast and pineapple juice. All inclusive with the trip.

After breakfast we walked over to the beach, the waiter gave us a tip to take a short cut through the restaurant seating instead of going up the hill through the trails. Lots of crabs on the rocks!

This was great except the tide was up and the beach path meant wading in waves, lol. But we made it through. Later that day we were back in this spot and there was plenty of beach space to cross in front of these rocks.

We were all interested in snorkeling so that was our priory. I went up to retrieve the gear.

Mary did some paddle boarding in the mean time then we got our stuff on. And at some point I messed up a setting on my GoPro so these next few photos are wonky. I mainly used my go pro on this trip so check out the video at the end of this blog post for the better highlight.

View of the activities beach.

Fun in the sun. Girls each got to hold a bird.

Next order of business was to check out the adventure park which was on the other side of the bluff.

Turns out you have to be 9 to do the big kid adventure park. There was a kid park, but we had to make a reservation on the boat and at the time Thomas did not want to do it. So while the other four went off and did the zip line, dunk tank, rattle snake water slide, and tree stepping stones Thomas and I found our own fun.

He wanted to explore this adventure gym.

Then we went back down to the beach and snorkeled. I had returned 4 of the 6 pieces of gearing thinking we might want to go again. We snorkeled out to this hammock island.

Parrots flying overhead.

Sun bathing

Snorkeled over to this little floating pad thing.

This second round of snorkeling I found much better fish! That was probably my favorite part. Loving my new GoPro and its ability to capture underwater. Can you spot the eel in the second photo?

I didn't get any photos of Mary paddle boarding earlier (there's video) but Thomas and I did a little circle on the kayak.

Back at the beach the other's returned from their adventure, we had a little bit of time in the water. Girls borrowed life jackets to float out to the hammocks. Then it was time for lunch - 1:30.

We were thinking we'd have to load the boat right after lunch but turns out we didn't load the boat til 3:30, so plenty of time to do whatever else we wanted.

We ended up hanging out at the small beach and the kids played in the sand and swam.

Back on the boat they were passing out the drinks and provide entertainment on the boat deck.

Kids are loving the all inclusive life of smoothies, Shirley temples and drinks galore.

Zoomed in view of our resort! You can see how lushious and green it is. They do have amazing foliage.

After a big walk around the port to finally find the exit to the taxis, we were able to get in a bigger van with another family.

Sun kissed and happy, we're back at the resort. Thomas got a LOT of sun. He also was a stinker when I tried to get sun screen on him that morning, now he knows why we wear it.

You'd think we'd had enough, but nope Mary and Thomas went straight to the pools. Emma followed shortly after. I'm sitting at the pool looking up at our room:

Cleaned up for dinner and caught the sunset on another wonderful day.

Look at that moon.

Oh almost forgot the highlight video:

Spring Break 2026 ~ Puerto Vallarta Day 2 {Walk through town}

2026-03-27T10:09:00.003-05:00

Thursday morning Mary and I were up bright and early and got to watch the sunrise. We played a game on the balcony and waited for the restaurant to open at 7:30am so we could go get breakfast.

The resort had two restaurants and they changed the focus each evening. The breakfast and lunch menu stayed the same but dinner would rotate. There was the restaurant by the beach and then the other one had a dress code and you needed evening reservations. We stuck with the first one so that we could go straight to the pool after eating.

Again lots of pool time, we claimed some chairs for our touch down spot.

The girls loved the lazy river that connected the front pool and back pool. It was pretty warm, too warm for my liking.

They also had a kids club, Thomas checked it out this day and attended the noon video game session. Lunch doesn't open til 12:30, so we retrieved Thomas when it was time to eat lunch. (iguana in the tree)

I think we changed before lunch so we were dry and after lunch we caught a taxi and had it drop us off in the town so we could walk the Malecon (sidewalk that runs along the ocean) The el Centro is the middle of a town in Mexico. They were doing some construction near the start, but we made our way over to the beach sidewalk. It was pretty warm, hottest part of the day.

They had lots of sculptures along the way.

We made it to the sign and turned back in land to walk back on the road next over. Had we known we should have walked a bit further and we would have seen the famous pier. But we were getting tired, cranky, and hot.

Anytime I mentioned we were in Puerto Vallarta everyone asks "did you feel safe?" and the answer is YES! Of course we did! PV is a very touristy town, even Isaac said "I'm surprised how many signs are in English" They thrive on tourism. But a few week prior there was a big uproar with the cartel, their head guy was killed and they had an uprising and PV was a hot spot. They had burned busses and vehicles as well as many of the Oxxo's. Oxxo is their chain convenient store, kind of like a seven eleven. We saw them a lot on our Mexico Moto trip two months ago. Anyway, the only thing we saw was the aftermath of that... which when we were looking for a bathroom for Emma thinking we could run into an oxxo but as we neared they were all burned and empty. We were wondering why they targeted the Oxxo and my brother had asked his friend that lives here... he wasn't sure either but thought maybe it's because they wanted to make a statement but didn't want to harm local businesses and since Oxxos are chains or perhaps ran by the government?? who knows But that was all we saw, we felt safe the entire time.

Here is what AI has to say about it: Cartels burned Oxxo convenience stores primarily as a retaliatory tactic to create chaos, protest the arrest of high-level bosses, and disrupt military operations. By targeting these ubiquitous, lightly secured, and widely recognized, the groups, specifically the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), aim to create panic and force the government to cease security actions against them.

We did find a bathroom in Starbucks thankfully.

Made it back to our hotel. They had a crepe station in the lobby which was delicious. We sat and watched the staff trying to shoo the peacocks out of the lobby, lol.

Kids wanted to hit the beach then pool. Attempt at a family photo inside... not good, let's try that again :-) These were taken with the GoPro.

Little bit of beach time, then the pool.

Then back to the room to clean up for dinner. We had reservations at the other restaurant: Auora and needed to dress nice. It's mainly for the boys, collared shirt, close toed shoes. Girls need to be in dresses, skirts, or something nice. My girls don't like dresses but they do love jumpers

Isaac hates dressing up most of all. He's wearing Kyle's shoes... which are too small and was walking like a duck by the end of the night. lol.

But we all looked nice.

Greeted at the entrance.

Honestly wasn't took impressed with the food here.

But an end to another beautiful day. Excited for our excursion tomorrow.

Spring Break 2026 ~ Puerto Vallarta Day 1 {Travel day}

2026-03-27T09:42:00.000-05:00

Spring Break didn't start as we had hoped... when we picked up the kids from school on Friday we learned that our Sunday flight had been cancelled due to a forecasted HUGE snow storm. We were surprised they cancelled based on forecast alone, the storm hadn't even started yet and here are thousands of people's travel plans getting disrupted. We were out to eat and while Kyle was on hold with Delta, I was also searching for alternative flights. We had empty dreams of maybe catching a Saturday flight before the storm hit... but in the end the earliest we could book was Wednesday morning as flights were getting filled and sold out by the minute. So I secured Wednesday while Kyle was still on hold and he was able to have the lady extend our return flight from Friday to Sunday; which unfortunately meant a late home arrival and no down time before everyone is back at it on Monday morning, but at least our trip was only shorted one day in the end. But with that we also had to rebook our resort which the one we had planned to stay at could not accommodate our change, which was a blessing because we found a better place. And we had to rebook Oakley's stay, they didn't have room but thankfully made it work for us for him to stay through the weekend. Oh and domino effect we rebooked our Tuesday excursion to Friday at no charge.

So Wednesday FINALLY arrived we were all kinda bummed Sunday... Monday... Tuesday... thinking "ugh we could be in Mexico right now". At least there actually WAS a snow storm, not quite as epic as they predicted but we did get 18 inches and it put a damper on everyone's travels.

We had a 7am flight so up at 3:45am Kyle got the shoveling done because of course the big snow was Saturday night into Sunday with another couple inches Tuesday evening. Got the kids up about 4:10am, our shuttle from the pet boarding place was set for 5am. There was lots of talk about airport wait times due to TSA not getting paid and homeland security shutdown so we were hopeful it wasn't going to be too big a wait. I had TSA precheck and was able to get the kids through security faster with me, Kyle went through the long line himself but still only took about 20 or so minutes. Made it to our gate, grabbed some breakfast then got on the plane.

Everyone, and I mean every ONE was seated and ready to go when we get the announcement that the plane had something wrong and we all needed to get off, go across the terminal to another gate where a plane would be waiting for us, so an hour or so delay...

Finally made it in the air! Thankful for a direct flight.

Yah we arrived!

Left 20°F and arrived to 80°F

We walked across the bridge at the airport to take a taxi to our resort. They way overprice taxis if you get one FROM the airport (we learned this via the numerous YouTube videos we watched). Price from the airport was $755 pesos and just by walking out of the airport, up a ramp to a bridge across the highway and back down we were able to get a taxi for $300 pesos. Our hotel was only about a mile from the airport so a nice quick ride. Thomas was concerned about our luggage which was on top of the vehicle but it made it fine.

We were early for our room check in but they said it'd be ready soon. We got our resort bracelets and walked the grounds to explore. Beautiful!

They had peacocks, iguanas, lots of birds, and koi fish.

Walk up to our room on the 7th floor. View from the hallway outside our room door.

Wasn't sure what this place was in the distance but it looks fun.

Just looked it up and looks like it is this place Vidanta World which is the Cirque de soli resort and is not open yet.

Time to get swim suits on and go to lunch

Lunch by the ocean.

Then some beach time

We picked up a GoPro a couple days before we left when I realized my waterproof camera bit the dust on our Hawaii trip. So I spent some time playing around with it. It's much better for videos and underwater, but I took a few photos with it. It was fun to make some highlight videos and showcases our trip a little better.

Followed by pool time into the evening.

Great first day! So glad we finally made it.

Beginning of March 2026

2026-03-26T08:42:00.002-05:00

Isaac and I are signed up for the Goldy Run 10K in April, Kyle is doing the 10 mile. So Isaac and I have ran together a couple times.

Taking him on this run, down to the sculpture garden. It's one of my favorites when not going around the lakes. Get some hills in and it's a perfect 5K distance 1.5 miles there.

Last weeks of volleyball.

Kids were out of school for March 3rd. Winter is nearing an end (but still here) so we utilized our free rental passes to hit the slopes at Hyland hills.

(Emma not happy about her helmet fit)

After I gave her the hair tie from my head she was better.

Took a fall and knocked the wind out of himself... and he wanted to stay another couple hours - but had a basketball game later that evening. he learned the hard way how a day of skiing can effect your energy and playing performance.

We went out to eat Wednesday evening but was running short on time to get the girls to their activities. So I left driving Emma to gymnastics while Kyle and Thomas walked home - taking a shortcut across the lake.

Mary's last volleyball practice was a fun family vs. players volleyball game. Isaac came, family team won and it was a lot of fun.

The boys won Tuesday night, which meant they had two games on Friday for championship. They won the first and lost the second putting them in 2nd place for the season. They did great! We celebrated with DQ afterwards.

Mary's volleyball season was wrapped up with 10 hours at the courts on Saturday.

Isaac and I on another run, with in a mile he was running ahead, longer legs = faster runner.

Dinner at Yum! with a beautiful rainbow on our way out. This jumper.... The girls ordered some clothes off amazon for our trip, Emma wanted this jumper. After one wash it SHRUNK considerably. Was able to return it and order another.... THEN she got a stain on it in Mexico so I washed it in the hotel room. It was still wet as we were packing up Sunday morning, I asked her to hang it outside to try and dry a bit more before we put it in the suitcase... well Monday night as I was looking for it to continue to work on the stain we realized we never grabbed it from the balcony. OOPS. Thankfully it was only $12 and we ordered another. HA!

Now that volleyball is over Mary is skating twice a week. It was fun to finally stay and watch her practice. Before this I was running other kids around in this time. (she had a yellow tie around her waist. This means she is the one doing the song at practice. Whoever has the song playing and practicing their routine wears the ribbon so others know to give her the right away. She started private lessons at the beginning of the year)

Mary got a shamrock shake recipe at school so decided to make it for everyone.

Super bummer news to start our spring break!!!! Sunday's flight got moved to Wednesday.

Saturday Emma had a fun time bowling with her soccer team.

And the storm did actually come, 18" of snow.

Well since we were home... Monday took the girls to open skating.

Next up, our spring break trip.

February 2026

2026-03-24T15:34:00.002-05:00

Amazing full moon to start off the month.

Isaac had a bridging concert in band, the 8th grade and 9th grade played together. First time playing at the high school auditorium.

Someone enjoyed the show :-P

Emma got a haircut, professionally...not just mom trimming it after a shower.

Thomas is enjoying basketball on Saturdays

Oh and here's a picture of his current set of spacer retainers. I turn the top every Monday night and the bottom every five days.

The annual luminary loppet (pronounced: low-pet) took place Saturday evening of February 7th.

Fire dancers:

Mary is doing LOTS of volleyball every weekend. I usually just get videos of her serving, but here are some photos!

Kyle's dad passed away on February 15th. We drove down to Missouri that week for his funeral. We knew it was getting close, he wasn't doing well in the end. This photo was from February 11th.

Shopping with the girls to get something to wear

We headed down on a Tuesday

I didn't get a photo of all of us, but I did get the kids. They did great at the visitation and the graveside funeral was very meaningful with the veteran send off, taps, and gun salute.

Grandpa Del's parents site:

We made it home that Friday in time for Isaac's 7:30pm basketball game. Saturday right into soccer practice, volleyball, and Thomas's basketball.

The next week Oakley had his annual check up, all is good. He loves running off leash on the lake.

And another band concert for Isaac. This time it was the 8th grader playing with the 5th graders.

Mary is doing lots of ice skating. And we are preparing for an office remodel. Got rid of these book shelves to make way for a new set of builtins on the adjacent wall.

Mary had her first ice skating competition, she was in a partner jump-spin event. She did a bunny hop and her partner did a two foot spin.

Another weekend full of sports.

And a Lunar New Year Celebration for Mary's Chinese class. She sang a group song.

That's it for February!

Minnesota NoIce

2026-03-24T15:05:00.003-05:00

I decided this needed its own post. I tried to document a lot around town the end of January into February all the anti-ice happenings. This sculpture was made in our neighborhood after the artist was disqualified from having another sculpture in the festival competition.

So many protesters around the cities, encouraging to see. This guy was there pretty much EVERYDAY on our drive home from school. Prob everyday for at least 3-4 weeks.

They added onto the snow sculpture since I first took a photo. And the names had melted a bit.

The annual luminary on our lake was February 7th. Someone had sculpted a beautiful portrait of Renee and Alex into ice. Someone was coming back every night for the next week and lighting many of the luminaries again. Mary and I walked over there mid-week to get a closer look.

Some poems posted around the ice.

Our city was greatly impacted and we're proud of the stance we took to stop the violence and illegal actions to our American Citizen neighbors.

Mexico Moto Trip Day 5 {Tijuana Grande Finale}

2026-03-24T14:40:00.003-05:00

We didn't have to have the bikes back til 6pm and I wanted to get more riding in since I was finally feeling comfortable on the bike. We rode north back to Tijuana, dealing with more traffic than we had yet to experience but it wasn't bad at all. I'd much rather be on a moto than in a car. We were following Josh, it was fun ride in a 4 bike group. I think we missed the turn - he was taking us to a 'hiking trail' so we re-grouped at this gas station to make an illegal turn (yes lots of honking at us but hey a perk of the moto) to make our way back around the highway to get to the road we needed to be on.

Another pit stop at the top of the hill where supposedly this trail was suppose to start... haha! But we had a great view. According to Josh's map there was a road that could take us north leading back to the north west corner of the country and where our bike rental place was.... little did we know what we were in for, lol.

But first one last photo shoot on the bike. :-P

As you can see we are now on dirt roads, which I actually preferred because I just stayed in first gear, no clutch work it was FUN! As crazy as the next stretch of road was it was probably the funnest part and I'm VERY glad this was at the end of the trip when I felt good on the bike verses that first day. From the point above the road straight ahead went straight down and straight up... so we turned the corner and there was no straight up but it was mostly straight down. Josh went first, then Juan, I was next feeling good, going slow, riding the clutch. I was about midway through when I saw Josh going back up, Kyle had laid it down at the top and he went back up to help. The way it felt and with the slope it was super heavy and took both of them to tip it back upright. I had to break my camera out. You can barely see the two of them at the top of this hill.

Kyle made it down:

We traveled on, road much like this... when you think of poverty in Tijuana... well this was it. We were in the BOWELS of the city. Unable to take photos while riding, really wish we had a GoPro running for this trek. We passed PIGS and Josh just had to stop. Have you seen the movie deliverance? Well that was running through my head about this point, HA! It was fun riding, but I also did NOT want to stop, get us safely out of here.

There were two guys pulling nails out of pallets and were very nice when Josh asked if he could take a photo. As you could imagine the smell riding next to this.

We continued on as it was really only big enough for one vehicle, we had to pull off a little when an approaching car/truck came by, everyone looking at us like we were crazy. Three fancy bikes (not really fancy but they did look brand new since they were rentals and matching). Josh had a tendency to stop on a hill to re-group which I was not a fan of because I'd end up killing it trying to get going on the incline. I did say my feet could touch... well my tip-toes could touch on flat ground, much harder on a slope.

We started to make our way through a little bit more civilazation... well shanty's side by side. We'd ride by and the children would look at us and run inside... til eventually we made it to the top again and a paved road and road signage, yes! We'd made it out, phew. It was fun. We took the city road down around through a little tunnel but had an amazing ride, riding into an ocean view. Which landed us at the northwest corner of the country where we made one final stop at friendship park. The park that lies right at the wall of Mexico and United States.

Read this, very interesting:

We sad our goodbyes to Juan and returned the bikes :-(

Hailed an uber which took us back to the hotel we had stayed at the first night. We had talked about staying somewhere else but we really liked that one and the included breakfast was great so decided to book it again. We were looking forward to getting in the rooftop hot tubs that we didn't get to experience the first night... unfortunately due to the anticipated weather the rooftop was closed :-( so we settled for the sauna... however it took a half hour to heat up and by that time we were done and ready to head to dinner. All was not lost though because another couple walked in and I was happy we got it warmed up for them.

One other place Josh had on his food list and in walkable distance from our hotel, just 1 km, was a place called Tras Horizonte by Kokopelli. He had heard the octopus was good.

We were celebrating a great trip! We all felt stuffed from the food the past few days so we shared a couple things. Didn't get a photo of the octopus taco before we at it.

Back at the hotel and our final rest of the trip. Oh here was the final map of what we rode on Friday (technically day 4 of our trip)

The next morning I woke up and got a workout in, then we had the breakfast buffet before heading out. Josh had parked his car at a friends house that first night, then we learned the hotel had free parking so he went to get the car while Kyle and I attempted the hot tub (turned into cold sauna sit) and left it parked in the hotel parking garage. So we just went down, loaded up and prepared to cross the border.

Weights in kilograms.

In preparation for this trip we had applied to get global entry. Mine processed pretty quickly and I was able to get the access, Kyle's is still processing. So I was able to stay in the car with Josh, we let Kyle hop out and go through the walking border crossing and picked him up on the other side of the border.

Back in the US, we drove to San Diego to do some sight seeing before our plane departure.

We explored North Park. Stopping in at this book store.

Isaac sent us a photo of Thomas at his first basketball game.

I had a hankering for tres leches cake... which was pretty difficult to hunt down. Thankfully there was a grocery store next to this bakery where we scored a decent looking piece, grabbed that and some fruit then drove over to Balboa park for a little snack picnic and walk around.

Made the mistake of looking at our phones to see the moment Alexa Pretti got shot... not fun to be away from your home city and seeing it splashed all over the news!

Josh dropped us off at the airport where we continued to tune into news events, not looking forward to going back to Minneapolis and kinda disappointed at the buzz kill of a great week. But we didn't let it get us down, we morned the events the next few days, I took a few days to let the grief pass through then picked up on the high of the trip and what a wonderful time it was to get away. Also going through it again two months later reminds me how fun it was and reliving the memories. Can't wait to do it again.

We arrived home, fairly late it was 10 or 11 pm. The house was clean, everyone was alive and well and we knew we could do this again, maybe even a once a year tradition!

#noloentenderias

I'll share the three maps of our three days of biking again:

Mexico Moto Trip Day 4 {Rosarito}

2026-03-24T09:18:00.004-05:00

Just before our lunch stop in Rosarito we rode through a fishing village. Fun dirt roads again, no photos since we didn't stop but fun to explore. Then we arrived in Rosarito and had some time to kill before we were to meet up with Josh's friend, Juan, at the restaurant so we parked and explored the Rosarito Hotel and pier.

The restaurant was fun and unique it was like eating in a green house. Birds flying around, turtles crawling on the floor and fish to watch in the surrounding moat.

Josh's friend joined us for the remainder of the day that we had with the bikes. We rode back north to Tijuana.

Next up, final hours on the bikes and Tijuana adventure grand finale.

Mexico Moto Trip Day 3 {Ensenada}

2026-03-24T09:07:00.007-05:00

We made it back to the coast on Thursday January 22nd. We stopped just north of Ensendad to take in the views. We were able to snap photos and listen to the water on the rocks for about 8 minutes before someone came over saying we're welcome to park there if we pay.

Hopped back on and followed Josh into town where he took us to this little place he'd been before for fish tacos. The best in the world! Had to drive around a bit to find some parking, but squeezed into a spot and walked down the block. This place was THE true definition of 'hidden gem'. As you can somewhat see from the photos, you can't see it from the road, you turn into an area that just looks like houses and garages and there it is!

Tacos Marco Antonio

No website but here's the map link

We each had 3-4 tacos, soo good. I liked the Ramses Especial. Rang in at $55 pesos, that's about $3 USD

Belly's full, time to explore Ensenada. Rode over to the pier/marina area and found another spot to park the bikes. Walked through a fish market.

Then out to the marina area where there was a statue.

Over to where the huge monumental Mexica flag usually is, but it wasn't flying that day. There was the Ensenada sign and water fountains with music.

Walked inland across the main road to check out some shops and an area that looked fun from the satellite view.

Back to our bikes and on the road, stopping for gas on the north side of town.

Next stop was a look out point called El Mirador.

That was all the driving for the day. We made it to our hotel on the coast, check in and explored the beach. It was chilly so no wading in the ocean. I was wearing two layers of pants and 2 shirts plus my jacket.

The hotel was between La Mision and Rosarito in a really small town called Alisitos. The staff was incredible kind. The forecast was calling for rain that evening; we'd lucked out and had dry weather the whole time, not the warmest but we could deal with that, thankful we didn't have to ride in rain. Anywho the staff at the hotel offered up their nearby personal garage space to park our bikes for the evening.

These signs were in the hotel restaurant. Cool to see a map of the area we were just in the night before.

View room before we opened the shades to the balcony.

Castillo del diablo (castle of the devil) We didn't go around and see the front side but if you look it up on google maps you can see all the crazy gargoyles and statues. This was the beach side view:

Dinner at the restaurant was meh... not the best we've had.

We did see our mom's doppelgänger!

When the kids saw this photo they even said "Was grandma Judy there?" lol.

The map from today's riding:

The next morning we listened to the ocean waiting for the restaurant to open so we could have some coffee. Too bad we didn't have a coffee maker in our room again.

Searching for that drink Josh was looking for we walked into the tiny town. And by town I mean it consisted of just an Oxxo (their convenient store)

I need a little something in my tummy before we hit the road so I ordered a simple breakfast before hitting the road. More ocean views.

Back on the road with one stop before our next destination, quick view of the large Jesus.

Next stop Rosarito

Mexico Moto Trip Day 2 {Valle de Guadalupe}

2026-03-23T19:39:00.002-05:00

Picking up where I left off here.

Wednesday morning we picked up our bikes about 9am. We were each riding identical Royal Enfield 450 Himalayans.

Got them all loaded up. The boys had saddle bags on theirs and we all had a box on the back. I had them take my saddle bags off in hopes to make it a little lighter. It felt pretty heavy at first, and these bikes have more of an adventure frame on them which make them top heavy. My feet could touch, barely... but to be honest I was totally used to it all after the three days and felt really comfortable on it by the time we returned the bikes, haha.

Got out of the rental parking lot, phew. Stopped just a few blocks down the road at Walmart to pick me up some new zapatoes. The shoes I were wearing were killing my feet, too small. Found some that felt much better for the remainder of the trip.

We headed up to the highway, which had an incline of an on ramp. The guys made it up... but I was certain this was the hill I was going to die on, LOL. I finally made it up, kept killing the bike while trying not to let it roll down hill and get it going. Takes some learning. Oh and I failed to mention Kyle and I got our moto licenses this past summer. We both took a super fun weekend course, passed the test and I've been driving our shiny red vespa to work all summer. But it'd been since June that I'd used a clutch so needed to get the hang of it again.

First stop just to regroup on the highway stretch.

First official stop was in the little area of Puerto Nuevo. Josh knew of a lobster place for lunch.

My first (and only) time I laid it down. We were going up hill then I followed Josh in a sharp left into this parking spot facing downhill. Couldn't handle the weight of the bike and the turn and drop it on its side. No big harm done, just a minor scratch and bruised knee.

We walked down hill to the corner spot so we could sit and watch the ocean while we ate.

Some food in our belly's and time to get back on the bikes.

Our next jaunt was south down the coast, then we took Hwy 1 inland at La Mision through beautiful hills, wind-y roads, gorgeous views. We stopped when we turned off Hwy 1 onto Carr. Francico Zarco.

This was a back road that led us to our next stay for the night in a winery called: Don Tomas Vineyard

We were there off season but the cabins were super cute and beautiful vineyard.

We walked down to the tasting room and restaurant. The restaurant closed at 5 and the tasting room had already closed. They did sell us a bottle of wine though.

Josh met a cat.

Went back to our cabin for a bit before heading out for dinner.

The dinner drive was exciting. It was dark... which I'd never ridden in the dark before. Wasn't too happy about it at the time, actually I was quite pissed. But in the end I'm thankful we did it and it ended up being super fun and a very memorable dinner. It was only about 9 kms away, which would normally be about a 13 minutes drive but we were going slow so prob took us more like 20. Problem was my face shield caused a glare and wasn't the cleanest at this point so every time an approaching car came by it blinded me and I couldn't see anything. We turned off the paved road onto a washed out dirt road. And when I say washed out I mean big RUTS. The road back to our cabin was also a sandy, dirt road but felt smooth compared to this one. We finally made it and feeling like it was going to be my last meal, not sure if I would survive the ride home.

The restaurant was called Finca Altozano, while it was dark and we couldn't see past the edge of the seating deck, I bet it had an amazing view.

It did have dogs. Dogs everywhere, which was very comforting giving the near death day I had riding a motorcycle across parts of Mexico :-P

And the food was AMAZING!

We tried the grilled octopus (soy sauce, citrus, ginger, cilantro and roasted peanuts) and brussel sprouts for an appetizer both were fantastic.

I had the risotto (right), Kyle had spicy shrimp (middle), and Josh had the lasagna, maybe (left). The menu has already changed because I was going to list what we had but even the brussel sprout item has changed.

worth the trek

Oh and tres leches for dessert!

Cool bathroom sign and I noticed this sign about the dogs on our way out:

I wanted a photo incase I didn't live to see the next day.

But we made it back to the cabin, phew. :-P

Map from the first day of riding:

Got some rest and had coffee at our cabin on the porch the next morning. So thankful they had a coffee maker in the cabin. It was a little chilly but it was beautiful and being it was two full days without the kids I could finally hear myself THINK!

Found this little guy hiding under my jacket in the cabin. We got the bikes loaded again and said goodbye to our vineyard place.

Stopped at the main area to return our key and do a little photo shoot before heading into the town to get a better view of the little town of Valle de Guadalupe.

We rode north the same way we did the night before, just able to see this time. When we made it to the tiny village we turned back southeast on the smaller road through town. This was fun to explore and we stopped at a little side road tent. Josh was looking for a breakfast drink. We didn't find what he was looking for but had this amazing banana oatmeal drink instead. It was so good!

That was it for the Valle. We continued east back to the coast.

No lo entenderias means "You wouldn't Understand"

Next stop Ensenada.

Mexico Moto Trip Day 1 {Tijuana}

2026-03-23T15:53:00.001-05:00

Kyle and I FINALLY got a trip just the two of us. It took a LOT of planning, but it was worth it and way overdue. The kids stayed with a friend and the plan was four of the five days they'd be in school so really it was just driving them to school and picking them up... however it was SO cold, school was cancelled one of the days.

We left on a Tuesday after we got the kids to school.

We flew into San Diego, where my brother picked us up at the airport. He actually caught a video of us flying in!

We stopped for some lunch at the San Diego location of Tacos El Franc. SOOO GOOD!

Then we drove over into Tijuana after stopping to convert some money into pesos.

We checked into our hotel for the night.

Walked a couple blocks to this statue of Abraham Lincoln... yes Abe in Mexico. Then caught an uber to get us closer to walk the Tijuana strip.

We shared the ORIGINAL caesar's salad. It was so good! They serve it with the romaine leaves whole and they make the dressing from scratch right at your table.

Left the strip and got a little closer to the hotel for dinner at this basic Mexican food place.

The next morning I woke up and got a workout in at the hotel gym, then we had the buffet breakfast. Which was the best breakfast ever, non-traditional breakfast food.

We took a town bus to the farmers market- $15 pesos per person which is about $.84 USD.

Lots of sculptures all around town.

The market was just opening, so it wasn't crowded.

Hailed another bus/taxi/van. He had this cool handle rigged up so he could open the side van door from his driver seat, haha!

Checked out of the hotel and got in an uber to the motorcycle rental place.

Driving along the wall of Mexico/US border.

There's the ocean!

We arrived at the moto rental place! Time for the adventure to begin.

January 2026

2026-03-23T14:57:00.006-05:00

Christmas cookie making on New Year's Day

Been a while since I ran... but got one in slow and steady.

Ice skating on the outdoor rink on the lake by our house.

Watching a hawk tear apart a bird in our front yard

Church youth group game of 'Where's Waldo' at Mall of America.

Big kids had their ski camp again Friday night, this time we went bowling with Thomas

Saturday, January 10th Isaac had his solo fest.

Mary had volleyball all day.

She wanted her hair to be curly so we put braids in to sleep on.

Our city getting attacked by the f3ds during this time... tough month on our beautiful city.

I've been reading the kids a book before bed, Percy Jackson and now Wrinkle in Time. Thomas usually makes it through the chapter but this night he didn't. (reading in the girls room)

Drive home from a morning swim view.

Mary and her volleyball team.

------Kyle and I took our first adult only trip!!! I'll blog about that separately -------

Loose tooth

Lots of speaking out about what's happening in our city and in our country. Someone had placed these lights on the lake so I went home and got my drone to get some photos <3

And if we didn't have enough activities... Isaac joined in with his friends on their rec basketball team. He had a lot of fun. First game was last Friday in January.

Saturday we had Thomas's basketball, Mary's volleyball and the neighborhood winter party at the ice rink.

End of December 2025

2026-03-23T14:41:00.000-05:00

Blogging seems to have become a quarterly thing, haha. Here I am middle of March and need to catch up on the past three months.

Which results in a photo dump of Christmas break.

December 19th the big kids had their Friday evening downhill ski club, so Thomas went on a date night with me and Kyle to CanCan Wonderland for indoor mini-golf.

Saturday night Kyle and I had a date night for his birthday. We went to Little Tijuana (in preparation for our upcoming Mexico Moto trip) and to an amazing little restaurant that was about to close down and rebrand called Petite Lion. The mussels were SOOO good!.

A little forced family fun walk over the weekend to get out of the house.

Oakley didn't growl, but it was hilarious how the photo captured as he was licking his lips.

Cookie baking on Christmas Eve

Then church service

Followed by our Christmas Eve tradition of eating sushi.

Christmas Morning

For our final Friday donut tradition we drove up north about 20 minutes to the only (new and biggest) Krispy Kreme

Then a trip to the Children's Museum followed by Cosetta's for lunch. Keeping these kids busy because they just bicker at each other if we stay at home.

Since we didn't get our walk across the lake in on Christmas Day we did it on Sunday Dec 28th instead.

Thomas had two orthodontist appointments on Monday, got his attached retainer taken out, scanned and then we returned later that day for his new set of removable retainers.

Ice skating at a local apartments rink as well as New Years Eve ice skating at the indoor rink.

Followed by tradition of fireworks on the lake for New Year's!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

December Week 3

2025-12-19T09:33:00.002-06:00

I'm feeling much better this week and it felt great to get in a Monday swim. Beautiful sunrise on my drive home.

Girls had their last swimming that evening.

Thomas was home sick on Monday and Tuesday so lots of couch time together. Monday I had to teach my barre class and I had a dermatology appointment to remove a mole on my back, so Thomas was alone for a bit of Monday. But Tuesday it was just him, me and Oakley. He was sad to miss swimming but we didn't want him to over do it. He was back to school on Wednesday.

Oakley liked the snuggles.

Emma spotted this opossum on our drive home from school. Crazy it was out at 4:30. We had to turn around and take a good look at it.

Kyle's birthday was Wednesday. We had sushi Wednesday and then he took the girls shopping while I had my Spanish class call. We'll go out on a date night this weekend to celebrate.

We had an oddly warm week after it's been freezing for most of December. But it all came tumbling down with crazy winds on Thursday and a little dusting of snow to cover us for a frigid Friday morning.

Post-swim view Thursday.

Thursday much of the same, swimming, volleyball, and snow. Today - Friday- kids have skiing after school so not sure what Thomas will do with Kyle and I. We'll have to think of something fun, or maybe just hang out at home and play video games, he'd LOVE that.

December Week 2

2025-12-19T09:26:00.000-06:00

Must like the first we started off with girls swimming then rushing to volleyball practice. They are taking lessons in the same pool that I swim at in the mornings with the masters group. So I'm there at 6am and 6pm. But not this week because I was sick and barely holding on. No sick days from motherhood but I did take a break from workouts.

Mary dancing in the SNOW!

Tuesday night Thomas had swimming, it was pretty blizzard and the teachers were bringing in snow and putting it down the kids shirts, haha. He got a kick out of that. Also it was Isaac and Emma's go to get MRI's done at the children's hospital. I'd signed them all up for a research project that was looking at healthy hearts via MRI imagine. They each got paid and got to experience what I do at work every week (prepare kids for MRIs) Only pic I got of Emma.

Wednesday was the other two's turn.

On our drive home we spotted an OWL! just off the parkway from our house, we pulled over at watched him for a while. The photo does NO justice. It was pretty cool seeing him fly around.

A little bit of lazy Oakley.

Thursday night Mary had her first orchestra concert. We all had fun listening, it was quick I think only a 15 minutes concert!

Friday the older kids had their first Ski club night. After school a bus takes them to highlands for 3 hours and they get to down hilll ski. Which meant it was a night with just me, Kyle, and Thomas. We did something special with him. He wanted a hamburger so we found this new to us place nearby called Le Burger - French take on burgers. It was delicious!

Then we went to Dave and busters for some arcade play.

Kids had fun at their ski club, no pics, but it was cold and they all came home happy and probably slept hard that evening.

Some cookie baking over the weekend and no church because Thomas woke up with a terrible cough Sunday - he has what I had earlier in the week, but his accompanied a fever.

December Week 1 {Isaac turns 14}

2025-12-19T09:15:00.002-06:00

October and November flew by, as is December. But it's not over yet and I'm getting a blog post done, woohoo! Activities have been manageable but still keep us busy. The girls started a 3 week swimming lesson, which also happen to be the same night as Mary's volleyball practice so they'd swim then we'd rush to change and get Mary to her practice at 7 (til 8:30 ugh late!). We tried a Minneapolis Community Ed swim lesson... which is a fraction of the price of the foss ones that Thomas is doing and there's a reason. But mainly I wanted the girls to gain experience in a full length pool and they did great. We will probably do more swimming when Mary is done with volleyball since she's also doing ice skating.

Peak at Thomas during his after school programing time, enjoying the arcade.

My photo from a couple years ago made it in our local paper. Second page above the fold.

Isaac's birthday was on a Thursday and we had lots of activities that evening so we did the main present on Wednesday evening...

Which was a phone!

He knew, thanks to Emma spilling the beans, but I had wrapped up the empty box because the phone was upstairs charging and getting ready for data transfer... He thought we played a prank on him giving him an empty box. lol

We had cake Thursday night but not everyone was there. Thomas had swimming, Mary had volleyball, and Isaac had Tria.

Wintery mess on Friday morning. But I did happen to capture these swans as I drove by on my way home from swimming.

Saturday Mary had her final group ice skating lesson. She'll start private lessons over winter break and into the new year. She's excited to be out on the big ice and not this little rink anymore.

Sunday we had brunch after church at Red Cow and they're all decorated for Christmas.

And that evening Mary had a volleyball social gathering. Getting to know her teammates.

November 2025

2025-12-18T10:06:00.002-06:00

The day after Halloween Kyle and the boys headed south to give his dad a visit. Breakfast stop at McDonalds.

Meanwhile the girls and I had a girls weekend of picking up round one of leaves!

And candy bingo

Some beautiful fall views after my morning swims. Oh I had taken off Sept and Oct from swimming to focus on running since I did the 10 mile on October 5th... big mistake. The swimming was helping my aerobic and I missed it a LOT! It felt so great to be back. Even if it means waking up at 5am.

November 4th the kids didn't have school. Thomas went to a friends for a playdate and I took the 3 bigs out to lunch at a pinball place.

Much needed hair cut!

My Fall 2025 GOTR team, I helped out over at Bryn Mawr Elementary, we had a great group of girls. I loved getting to know them.

Emma and Mary are studying Minnesota history in Social Studies. Mary was doing a report on the Bdote so we paid a visit to Fort Snelling. The tour was mainly outside and it happened to be the first COLD weekend of winter... which means of course the kids did not listen when we said to dress warm. They froze, haha.

November 8th was Thomas's Elementary's PTO PNO (lol PTO Parent Night Out Fundraiser) So we got to dress up all fancy for High Stakes and High Heels (Casino and Cocktail attire)

Came home to this sweet note.

Sunday was the GOTR 5K and it was COLD! BRRR So cold I was so frozen by the end. Since I didn' have my girls to run with I stayed on the side lines and cheered on my team.

Loved some of the signs out there

SO COLD! I had feet warmers and hand warmers and still was an ice cube at the end.

Haven't shared these guys in a while but they are still flapping and yapping away.

November 11th

Isaac had a band concert

We came home to visible Norther Lights! So cool! This was in our backyard.

This one was on the way home from the concert over by Cedar Lake.

Thomas has been watching lots of Mark Rober and when they talked about slime I said hey why don't we make some cuz I have all the stuff. They loved it.

So many leaves! This was round 2 with Kyle and Thomas of collecting leaves.

Isaac went to a fun birthday party - amazing race themed when they had a scavenger hunt all over the neighborhood.

Beautiful morning views after a run and after a swim.

Thomas broke his bottom retainer a few weeks prior, but good news at our check up he didn't need it anymore and they glued the top expander. He's getting his second expander in a week over Christmas break.

Our school's High School made it to State! And won - football. We all attended the championship game at US Bank stadium. Attempting to take a pic of Isaac sitting over there in the student section.

Morning run with a mid-way stop at the dog park for Oakley to burn more energy.

Post swim fog.

Thomas started a 4 week swim camp just before thanksgiving.

A neighbor coordinated a neighborhood 5K run on Thanksgiving morning. Grateful because it was just the motivation I needed to get out.

There were walkers and runners, I ran with this amazing group of mamas.

Our thanksgiving meal. Make all requests from the kids, so basically everything. We cooked a ham and had sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cheddar biscuits, Hawaiian rolls, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and turkey gravy. Oh and apple and pumpkin pie! Kyle and I ate this for over a week. lol.

Friday we went to see Cirque du Soli's 'Twas the Night show. It was SOOO good. Kids complained the whole way there, but they all ended up loving it and we've been listening to the soundtrack ever since.

Saturday night we went to a movie

The rest of the weekend we decorated for Christmas, got the tree up and lights up outside. Last year at this time our front yard was taken over by the dormer remodel so we didn't do lights outside. This year we tried something new, Emma and I got them up.

Fall and Halloween

2025-11-13T11:55:00.000-06:00

Saturday October 25th we drove up north to Open Door's trunk or treat. We weren't quite ready for halloween costume wise yet but we wanted to make it and see our friends that we've done this with for the past two year. We stopped a couple places on the way to look for a Steve Minecraft costume for Thomas with no luck... so he didn't wear a costume. Emma wanted to wear last year's ooggie boogie costume and Mary wore the stick man costume from two years ago which barely fit.

That evening Isaac attended a Halloween party at a neighbor friends.

Then Thomas and I got started on his costume. We decided to just MAKE a Steve costume.

The first day we got the box ready and I prepared to paint

I gathered all the teal/turquoise paint I had and worried about it looking shaded... BUT then remembered well he is actually pixelated so this would work out PERFECTLY having various shades of the color.

Thomas loved wearing it around the house. I ran out of the paint I had on hand so had to make a run to the craft store.

Still a work in progress but we needed a head box. Thankfully a friend had a helmet box that worked perfectly.

Mary lost a tooth.

Had to capture the fall colors while they were popping.

Almost there, a few more finishing touches to go.

Kyle trying the head on, lol.

Halloween Eve, got the finishing touches and cut an opening to see out of

Kids got two pumpkins carved on Thursday evening (Halloween was Friday)

Halloween came and Isaac had another party at a friend's house while our kids trick or treated in our neighborhood.

So much candy UGH!

Oakley turns 2

2025-11-13T11:42:00.001-06:00

We estimate Oakley's birthday is around October 21st. Not entirely sure but now he's TWO!

Fall is in full swing.

"Maybe if I pretend I'm not here she'll be done making me wear this hat"

MEA weekend - Cabin Getaway {Savanna Portage & Crow Wing State Parks}

2025-10-22T15:26:00.001-05:00

Well look at that! I am CAUGHT up with my blog. This only happens like twice a year :-) But when it does it gives me hope that I'm doing what I can to document life, share with the distant grand parents, and well I enjoy going back through photos. I also clean off my phone of photos after I blog so it's a house keeping - mind declutter act as well :-) Maybe the kids will go back and read through the thousands of blog posts, haha. They do come in handy when something comes up and we want to look back through. Like just this weekend we weren't sure if we'd been to Crow Wing State Park before or not, I searched the blog and we didn't see it so we hoped it wasn't a repeat.

Anyway, okay a few years ago, well when we came back from living in Kansas we started a transition of cabin camping over MEA break. MEA break is a Minnesota thing that stands for Minnesota Education Association. It's a weekend conference for Minnesota Educators... however some attend workshops, others get the days off... not quite sure. But it's a much enjoyed break a few months into school and before the holiday chaos. Some schools are out Wednesday, Thursday and Friday but our school is just out Thursday and Friday. I work every Wednesday so it worked out that we didn't head up north until after we got the kids from school Wednesday evening. In years past we went really RUSTIC cabin camping in Michigan in the U.P. 2022. So the thing with cabin camping is in Minnesota the state parks do not allow dogs in the cabins.... so this year - we still had Harpo so I looked elsewhere and found that Michigan allows dogs. They had a big snow dump just before we arrived. Our cabin had a wood stove but no electricity or running water. It was actually super fun, go check out the blog amazing drone photos of the UP (upper peninsula). In 2023 we didn't have a dog at that time. Harpo had passed the previous March and we hadn't yet got Oakley so we were able to experience two different cabins in Minnesota State Parks. We stayed at Big Bog which is WAY up northern Minnesota near Red Lake (gorgeous!) and a night at Lake Bemiji State Park - where Thomas broke his arm just moments before we started our drive home (good timing). Last year was a little pause in the tradition and we went to Kansas City to see grandparents. We were excited to pick it back up this year and since we had Oakley we opted to rent a cabin (house) through AirBnB and try to hit a couple state parks as day trips.

This cabin was less than two hours north, just west of the big lake of Mille Lacs ("mill-axs"). We arrived after dark on Wednesday so didn't get to see the pretty trees, but did get to explore the fun cabin!

The boys slept in the loft area (sleeps a total of 6 just up there)

Kyle and I had a bedroom downstairs and the girls had a bedroom each with their own bed in a bedroom next to ours. We had two bathrooms which is GREAT for our family - with two showers. There was also a game room above the detached garage that we checked out the next day.

We had Oakley sleep in his crate, which he whined about the whole first night. While the cabin was pet friendly they did ask that dogs not get on furniture or beds and carpeted areas = upstairs.

The next morning Thomas was up about 5:30, which meant so was I... so why not start playing games bright and early. Well not bright because the sun wasn't even up yet.

Once the sun was up we got to see the beautiful view!

screened in porch facing the lake

Game room above the garage

Drone view:

This cabin was on Smith Lake. You can see Mille Lacs off in the distance in this photo:

Catch in the yard. Oakley LOVED running as fast as he could.

LOTS of games! and movies! Thursday we did not even leave the cabin.

Friday breakfast was monkey bread - re-invented in cookware they had. Kids devoured it.

Then we set off on an hour drive farther north to Savanna Portage State Park to hit the hiking club trail. We always try to guess what the password is before we hit it - mid trail. And if someone guesses it then we get Dairy Queen! No correct guesses this time... although it was kinda obvious.

The weather was perfect. Although cloudy it was about sixty degrees. And while the trees were probably past prime colors, they were still gorgeous!

We went out to eat at Zorbas after this hike. We'd eaten at a Zorbas before and swore we'd never go again but it wasn't as bad this time. This restaurant replaces all their S's with Z's... Mary said "I couldn't read right for a week after we went to that place last time" LOL.

Back at the cabin for relaxing. Oakley working on his HUGE birthday bone.

Saturday we took another short drive, just thirty minutes this time further west to Crow Wing State Park. We packed a lunch this time and ate before the short hike.

This park was at the point where the Crow Wing River met up with the Mississippi River.

Pretty fall colors.

This time Kyle did guess the password so we stopped in Brainard for some DQ before heading back to the cabin.

Thomas taking some photos while I cut up apples for Carmel apple dessert.

And Sunday we headed back home.

Beginning of October - TC10M and Final Football

2025-10-22T14:05:00.002-05:00

October 1st and 2nd

Kyle came and had lunch with me at work after he got off a flight - we went to midtown global market.

Games with the kids, being goofy.

Scootered to work, covering PICU for a few days.

Packet pickup for my ten mile race!

Out to eat, dinner then lunch the next day and BOTH times we got 6-7!!

Race day! Kyle had to get Mary to her ride for a 7:30am volleyball game so I decided to just rent a scooter which we can always find around our house/the lake. Well I didn't really leave enough time so I was booking it to make it on time, HA!

Gorgeous morning!

Super fun race! The Twin Cities Marathon also happens, the ten mile is said to be the 'short cut to the capital' but the last 6 miles is the same last six miles of the marathon so the spectators are AWESOME!

We traded in the beamer for a new vehicle. (well new to us - 2025 X7 three rows of seats better to fit the kids) At the start of the school year we quickly learned they were out growing the car. This year we take all four of them at the same time, Kyle usually does morning drop off then he heads to work and three full sizes kids in the back mixed with grumpy mornings was not fun for him. Now they have room and it helps make the mornings go a little smoother. Well as smooth as you can get with 3 middle schoolers and an energetic third grader at 7:15 in the morning.

Handsome Oakley, walk with a friend to puppy dog tails.

Final football game for Isaac.

Can't believe he'll be in high school next year! So long Middle School football.

September {Volleyball, Soccer, Baseball, Football, Repeat}

2025-10-22T13:53:00.000-05:00

School has started and it has felt great to be back into a routine, the maternity leave I was covering at work ended the week before school. But all-the-sports were going. Mary was doing volleyball Tuesday and Thursday night practice with one double match on the weekend at the Burnsville Volleyball Warehouse (thirty minutes south of the cities). Emma was doing soccer, Monday and Wednesday practice with games sprinkled here and there. Thomas was doing baseball and Kyle coached that was Monday and Saturday. And Isaac was doing football which was practice Mon, Tue, Thur and a game on the weekend (mostly he had a couple games that fell on a week night)

Now that the roof was fixed we had the damage inside repaired and painted.

Thomas losing his teeth! And homework, homework, homework. Quite the adjustment to 6th grade.

With all the things I was also having to train for a ten mile run I was doing beginning of October.... Sunday Emma had a game and I was running out of time to run so I just ran to her game which was 5 miles from home and met the family there. It was perfect and just what I needed with the "I don't want to" attitude.

September 10th, beautiful sky for a football game. This was one of those late weekend night games.

Managed to even have a garage sale with our large neighborhood sale.

Last long run before race day!

Garage sale find from our neighbors

We'd played initial trivia a few times at our local Pizza Luce... we finally WON! All three rounds.

Kyle had a trip to Spain.

Mary lost a tooth!

Concordfest at Thomas's school - we ended up leaving early to avoid the storm.

I was asked to capture the peace circle with my drone at the kids' old school. I was so happy to be able to do this for them again.

Isaac sat in as score keeper for one match.

Baseball wrapped up at the end of the month.

Took advantage of time and went for a run before Emma's soccer game started.

We finished September with a crazy weekend of soccer tournament, baseball tournament, the usual volleyball games, and a football game!

Rest of August into the Start of School

2025-10-22T13:33:00.003-05:00

Capturing Thomas's toothless smile.

Met up with my gals for one last dinner at Rojo, this place closed down and opened under a new brand.

Trip to the Children's Museum as summer nears its end. August 19

Roof work happening at the house, hence the desire to not be home, lots of noise!

Night at the Saints game with Isaac's baseball team, we had super close seats right behind home plate.

August 20, drove out to Chaska area for Isaac's football scrimmage before the official season started.

Video Isaac catching a pass.

Views on a morning run

Thomas's open house to meet his new teacher for 3rd grade.

August 21st

Clean dog = trip to bogarts doughnuts (ice cream this visit)

Curriculum night at Middle School. It's a night where parents get to walk the kids schedule and hear a 10 minute blurb from each teacher... which would be great if I just had one schedule to follow. But I had three schedules that are not the same so I had to pick and choose which class to attend each block so quite the mix match.

August 23rd

I volunteered as a swim angel at the Maple Grove triathlon. Which meant I waited t the swim start and if a participant felt anxious about the swim they could ask one of the swim angels to swim with as support. I ended up doing all three distances with different athletes! Whoa!

Went down south for Isaac to get some batting practice in with his new bat. The girls and I did mini-golf while the boys did the batting cages.

Roof still getting worked on:

August 24th, church then brunch at the Breakfast Club followed by dog day at the saints game.

First day of school for the middle schoolers! The girls had a full day, Isaac didn't need to go until 1pm

Girls are growing up!

So is Isaac, here's his first day pics all three years of middle school.

After we dropped Isaac off Thomas had his get connected day where he got his school picture taken and we dropped off school supplies. Then we went to Dave and Busters while we waited to pick up the kids after school.

Football season officially started!

These pics taken by a high schooler from school

And I took this one :-)

Oakley is missing the yard with all the roof work happening. He was SOO happy to be rolling around outside.

Trip to target while the bigs are in school

Thomas doing late summer baseball. He catches and pitches.

Thomas started school Wednesday, August 27th

Third grade!

Finished roof! WOOHOO!

Thomas had his orthodontist work put in on Thursday, August 28th. Spacer on the top and spacer retainer on the bottom. We turn the top every other night and the bottom every 5 days. He'll have these in for a few months then metal to help everything in place until all his teeth grow in and he can get braces. His mouth was so crammed the doctor said he wins the award for smallest mouth he's seen! It's already made a huge difference in just two months. He started to lose teeth fast after we made room, he wasn't losing teeth because the big teeth didn't have any room to drop into place.

Picture now for reference

October 2nd

More baseball, so much baseball this summer!

Batting, then on first

second, third

and home (video)!

Kyle and I took a morning walk around the lake to a coffee shop. Felt great to have an uninterrupted conversation

Labor Day weekend hike

August 31st took a quick drive south to Sakatah State Park

We killed a lot of mosquitoes along the way!

August Adventures (part 1)

2025-10-14T15:32:00.006-05:00

Having my drone out for Bayfield gave me the bug to capture some more so I brought it to one of my last out door swims to capture the pool. Fun to see it from this angle.

August 5th was National Night out. Thomas had a baseball game but joined us at the neighbors when he got home. Lots of big kids taking over the baby splash pad slide.

Isaac's football practice started. He made both these collages that were shared by one of the coaches.

Training has shifted to running now that I have a ten mile to prepare for. Oakley likes that. And ran a little father than planned. Wanted less than four but ended up doing four and a half.

Thomas lost a tooth! It's taken him a bit to lose teeth, probably due to them being all crowded. He got an expander at the end of this month (August).

Top tooth is wiggly and then seven hours later he pulled it out!

10am - then 5:25 - then 5:28

Family shopping trip to scheels.

One of my swimming buddies has been inviting me to the monthly full moon swims they do at our nearby lake. I'm usually just too tired from the day to make it, BUT we finally did! Kyle came with me and served as a safety paddler on the paddle board. It was a gorgeous night. Took longer than I thought for the moon to come up, but it was fun. And we looked so cool with lights in our swim buoys just bopping across the water. Like little colorful bubbles swimming.

August 9th

August 10th we took Oakley to the dog park down by the Mississippi River.

We used to take Harpo here. He loved running around, he's not a fan of swimming but did get his feet wet - which led to lots of sand and a dirty dirty dog. We went straight to get washed after this.

Trivia night at Pizza Luce

And... BACK TO SCHOOL! Middle School kids had their get connected day on August 12th. Which was picture day and walk your schedule time. School would start in two weeks. We now have THREE middle schoolers - Jesus take the wheel.

Celebratory malts afterwards.

Thomas's late summer baseball league started. This is his first season of kid pitch. Kyle was one of the coaches.

And would you believe it!?! A whole two years after the hail storm and exactly one year to the DAY our roof tile finally arrived for our new roof install.

For my birthday I wanted to finally check out this sauna and cold plunge place called Portal Thermaculture. Kyle and I made a little date night out of it and went. Pretty relaxing. The cold plunge was miserable for the 2-3 minutes you're in there but it actually left our bodies feeling amazing. They recommend three cycles of 15 minutes sauna then 3 minutes cold plunge. We'll def be going back.

Then out to eat at Freehouse to use one of my birthday perks.

The next day on my actual birthday I wanted to go to the arboretum because it had been YEARS since we went. The kids all complained but I think they had a good time. It was pretty hot walking. But we got a shuttle ride for a little of the ways back.

Stopped at the shrub maze the kids remembered going to when they were little.

For my birthday cake I was craving an angel food cake with strawberry whipped frosting. I also made a tres leche cake but I took that to a work picnic the following day.

This is 43 :-)