We drove to Minnesota to visit family earlier in July. We took three days, enjoyed the hotel swimming pools (not so much the 102 degree weather through Montana) and saw lots of rest areas along the way.
Our first morning started early, so we stopped along the freeway to enjoy "breakfast" out of the van. The girls had their books, readers and headphones, as well as a movie set-up to pass the time on the road.
We got to stay at Aunt Sharon and Uncle Arnie's farm for a couple nights and the girls were shown around and entertained by cousins Jonny and Nick. We had a blast out there on the "new" golf cart, the four-wheeler, and the combine.
The Fourth of July was spent on the lake with more cousins, kayaks, fishing, boating, surf-boarding, and skiing.
It seemed like everyone was setting off fireworks around the lake that night. The kids had sparklers while we watched the show.
Silje got up on skis!!
The most important part of our trip was visiting my grandmas. We got to spend the 4th with Grandma Hazel, then visited her in town one day too.
We spent a day out at Grandma LaVerne's lake cabin too.
Aunt Vicki kept the girls very busy with dress-up galore.
We got some "quieter" time at the lake with just us and Gma Linda and Gpa Mark. The girls really enjoyed swimming in the lake.
Later we also had lake-time with cousins Luke and Sam.
(A rare moment when we weren't in swim suits.)
The Minnesota sunsets are some of my favorites.
Uncle Dan had us fishing, skiing, surf-boarding and boating. Including the remote-control kind. I think the below is my favorite picture from the whole trip: Uncle Dan looking on as Ailey drives the boat.
Despite our moving back and forth from the farm to the lake to other visits, it was a really relaxing trip. And we are really grateful that we got to see as much family as we did considering we were only there for about a week. Hopefully it won't be three years before our next visit.
