July Weekends

 

July was all about hiking Saturdays, movies, and swimming Sundays at the local water park. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was all perfect, beginning with our extra long 4th of July weekend (read about that here). I'm spoiled by my kids who cook. The boys, particularly the oldest, have been cooking a ton. We we've been treated to baked french toasts, homemade salsas (with veggies from their gardens), and creative smoothies. 

Finding new-to-us trails close to home is challenging as we've seemed to hike them all. We checked out Yellow Banks Park for the first time and gave a few of their trails a try. We typically avoid the parks with smaller hikes as we're now consistently hiking over four miles at a time. However, we paired all of the trails together and wound up hiking over four miles on this Saturday. The minis are convinced that every hike should end with a treat. I don't necessarily disagree with that, so we got pho and ramen for lunch.

We spent a Saturday night at Flix Brewhouse watching Thor Love and Thunder. Theater and movie are both recommended by all five of us.

We fit a whole lot of fun into a few hours of Sunday. We arrived to a very uncrowded Adventureland. We spent a few hours at the water park enjoying the pools, slides, lazy river, and my new favorite cheese curds (not beating Sully's cheese curds, but they're a good grab while at the water park). We were shocked to find no wait times at all of the rides throughout the park, so we took advantage and hit up the rollercoasters. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

I came to our chairs to drop off my (water proof) phone case so I could do a few water slides with the kids and discovered dog poop bags laying on our chairs. The middle one, who is the official poop picker-upper had them in his swim trunks when we arrived and just threw them on the chair. I'm sure a few passing people had questions.

As I mentioned earlier, finding hiking trails we haven't been on is challenging. That's one reason we've been spending a decent amount of time in southern Minnesota checking out their state parks. On this Saturday, we went into the Twin Cities and hiked at Fort Snelling. We saw the point where the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers converge, even walking into the rivers a bit. The five mile hike was on easy, flat terrain. While the river was crowded with boaters, the trail wasn't busy. 

At the beginning of the month (read about that here), we discovered the glorious Myre-Big Island State Park in Albert Lea, MN. After Fort Snelling, we stopped at Myre-Big Island for a quick dip in the lake at a secret swimming spot along a trail. 

Mom and Dad managed a weekend mostly to ourselves! We had my high school reunion one night (no pictures, but wonderful drinks and company), visiting friends quickly before the kids were off to grandma and grandpa's for 24 hours. Hubs and I did a late brunch at The Breakfast Club and hung out for the afternoon at Adventure Bay sans children. It was amazingly relaxing and refreshing! Being the super exciting people we are, we went to bed early and slept the night away peacefully.

The last weekend in July, we hiked at Brenton Arboretum, ate ice cream at Home Sweet Cone (highly recommend if you're in the Waukee area), got all of the school supplies, and did a quick visit to Adventure Bay. The Arboretum was incredibly peaceful until we realized it was right next to a shooting range and things got rather loud. The minis haven't had an actual supply list since 2019, so the youngest two went overboard and picked out all of the fun pencil bags, new backpacks, and 1,000+ colored pencil packs. This year I fully supported the supply shopping craziness.

A Special Day Out

 

I turned our three day weekend into a four day weekend by taking July 5th off. I initially took it off to sleep in because I know how exhausted we are after our usual Independence Day festivities, but we celebrated early on the third. I decide to turn July 5th into a special Mom and Minis Day. They had yet to spend any of their birthday money and gift cards from the month before thanks to a busy June. Our special day out has now been deemed The Extreme Shopping Spree Day for many reasons.

We began our day with a walk around the neighborhood, then lunch downtown at Spaghetti Works. I am not a fan of this restaurant, but it's the mini's favorite, so that's what we got. The never-ending-pasta-bowls and Italian sodas are their go-to meals each time.

Our next stop was Target for new Legos, a ridiculous amount of Mini Brands, board games, and clothes. I decided we needed to stop into Old Navy as well so I could look at dresses. I wound up with one, but the minis also wound up with new swim wear, gym clothes, $1 tees, $4 shorts, $6 sweatshirts, and so much more. I got them each a back to school wardrobe for a total price of $115! I was amazed. This kicked off our massive shopping spree, where I spent far too much money on things we didn't need, but use all of the time.

I loved watching Elizabeth give fashion advice to her brother's. At one point she picked shirts out for them and made them put a couple back because "that is not your color."

Starbucks was a must on the hot day as was a stop at our favorite locally owned cupcakery, Scratch. Not only did we get cupcakes, but we tried the mini cookies and they're definitely a must!

The oldest was thrilled to use his REI gift card. We had a blast shopping for hiking supplies. After getting swarmed by mosquitos on our hike a couple of days prior and needing to cut a hike short, I was determined to find a better bug spray. The oldest picked out a fanny pack with a water bottle. While I had no plans on purchasing anything other than new bug spray, we left with a new kayak and a National Parks Pass.

I couldn't pass the kayak up when I discovered it in their damaged or used section. We've passed up shopping in that section in the past, but this one was a steal! My husband and oldest fixed it up and we've taken it out to the lake a few times throughout the month.

We finished up our day by displaying all of the goodies and scarfing down Michael's pizza (the youngest's favorite pizza place). I've gotten many special times with my minis thanks to the pandemic and homeschooling, but this day was perfect in so many ways. I often think of what things I can do with them that we haven't done before (shocker: the list isn't long) and a shopping day with zero no's was one of them. Our day may have ended with a storm rolling through and losing power for 6 hours, but we danced in the rain under a rainbow. I honestly couldn't think of a better way for our day to have ended.