Gabe and Courtney's Fall Visit!

My last post was about our visit to Gabe and Courtney and this one is about their visit to us :) I did the first day of school post/end of summer post already so here we are in FALL! A fav season of mine...esp in MN. The colors are pretty and there are endless family fun activities to do. 

We ended Linnea and my first week of school at the final public outdoor movie. 

It was Paddington and boy was it cute! We were quite chilly and tired by the end but of course we stayed.

Linnea had her first soccer game of this fall season with Emma. Us parents had a great time watching together and the lil siblings had fun watching and the teammates had fun too :)

Gabe and Courtney and the kids met at our house for some pizza before heading to the Monarch Festival at Lake Nokomis. 

The kids did some crafts, held some caterpillars, wrote messages for the butterlfies for their journey to Mexico and went in a "cocoon"

The coolest thing we did though was tag a monarch and release it!

Our Monarch! I should check our number and see if it he's made it!

We played at the park for a bit before going to a childhood fav ice cream shop...

We used to live just a few blocks from here in Mpls so it was fun to go there and reminisce :)

We headed back to my parents for dinner with the Dwight's, the kids played a watched a movie and us adults I think just visited this time...no cards!

Sunday we went to a new Apple Orchard and playground before Gabe's headed back to Stevens Point. Erik and the boys met up with us as well. It was a beautiful orchard but didnt have as much for kids as other orchards do. They didnt seem to mind though. 

There was a real dog that looked like this stuffed one the girls are holding. Emmy was her name and she was very sweet. There were also chickens and new baby goats! The kids all put a name idea in for the goats. Im not sure if any of them won. I should check. 

We used these neat old wagons to pull some of the kids into the orchard!

We did a lil apple picking and then headed to play. 

Family picture time!

Next time we will go down the road to another apple orchard with a bit more to do, but overrall it was another fun weekend! 

Steven's Point!

In mid August we took a trip to see our cousins in Stevens Point again. It was another wonderful time and Chris was able to join us this time...

And I had to make some caramel puffcorn for the occasion too :)

all set for their slumber party in the loft! Well maybe they werent quite ready with this goofball being so silly ;)

We spent our first morning at the Farmer's Market since it was too chilly to take advantage of the free day at the pool...however they got wet here anyways ;) My mom and dad met us there and after trying some delicious egg rolls and cherry tomatoes, buying a bouquet of flowers and sweet corn we headed back to their house for lunch and deciding what to do next.

We decided to head to a State Park about a half hour away to go for a little letterbox hike and swim since it had warmed up enough.

There were some very pretty views along the way :)

And we had success with the letterbox and even ran into some other people doing the same thing. Unfortunately they arrived at the spot right as we were stamping so they didnt get to find it on their own. They had some more planned for later in their trip tho so we didnt totally ruin it for them.

Selfie!

a cold but fun swim!

We decided to do Belt's before dinner :)

The pork shoulder that was in the new smoker all day wasnt as tender as Gabe wanted it so ended up working out ok that we had Belt's first since dinner was a little lighter. We had sweet corn, pizza and some of their fav cheesy breadsticks from a place in town. and watermelon :)

Us adults actually got to play some hand and foot with minimal interruptions while the kids watched Annie :)

Harper LOVES their golden retrievers!

The morning before leaving we made it to the community pool for their free 2 hour swim. Again, it was a lil cool but we had a great time anyways once we just got in!

There arent pictures of it but there was a waterslide and diving boards so those who were tall enough and wanted to took advantage of those activities :) So me, dad and Caleb from what I can remember :)

We had the pork shoulder for lunch and it was delicious! I am glad we waited until it was just how chef Gabe wanted it. 

We had another wonderful visit and made plans to see them again in September when they visit MN for some apple orchard fun :) Since I am so behind in this blog that has happened and a post will come soon :)