Country Jam USA

Thursday morning I headed to Eau Claire, WI to meet up with a few college friends for Country Jam USA. We had some wonderful quality friend time, listened to some top notch country music and were incredibly dirty and grungy the entire time! I really missed Charlie and Tony A LOT! The second day there I got a little teary eyed, and luckily another girl in our group has a toddler the same age as Charlie so we could bond over our tears a bit!

I didn't have hardly any cell phone service so I did a quick 1 minute call every evening to talk to Charlie. He spent the first two nights with my parent's and the second night at Laur and Jill's. Tony had to work and he played piano for a wedding, so he was not home at all while I was gone! Thank goodness for our wonderful babysitters!

Here are a few pictures Jenna took on her phone.

Here I am with Jenna's husband. We had matching kissy lip bandanas! Very stylish!

Livia, me, Kelly and Jenna before we got all gross and dirty! 

Watching our favorite country cover band: Tim Sigler!

At the tent

We couldn't resist

5150-Dierks night!!

Liv and I were beer pong partners. However, we weren't drinking. We had a bit of an advantage over our opponents. 

Country Jam is quite the festival! There is WAY TOO MUCH drinking going on, but we decided to keep it cool and stick to water and Diet Coke! This made people watching quite enjoyable...

Jenna made us all promise that we're going back again next year; I guess we'll wait and see if I can leave Charlie again!!

Oxbow Park

Last Wednesday on our last day of family vacation, we went to Oxbow Park in Byron! We enjoyed a picnic lunch and did some playing on the swings before we headed to see the animals. Tony had the camera, and I now remember why I like to be behind the camera. No critiquing of self photos! Ugh...oh well! I'll share them anyways snow white legs and all!

Charlie wanted to climb right in with the badger.

Hanging out at the prairie dog home. 

We saw some kiddos that were pretty cute, so we both smiled a little! 

This was the area we could not get Charlie to leave: the cow! He loved her! 

The birds weren't as interesting as the fence! 

We had a very fun day together! Hopefully we can head back again soon!

More Northshore Vacation!

Here are the few pictures I captured from my phone while we were up north.

The order of these pictures is off thanks to Blogger, but we'll just go with the flow!

My mom and grandpa were traveling home from a visit to Babbitt, MN, so they stopped to visit us! Mom captured this picture of us by the lake.

This was Charlie from Duluth to Two Harbors. We had to finally flip him forward because his legs are so long. I know they recommend rear facing until 2, but his legs had to be straight up to stretch out. He was pretty fussy from Stewartville to Pine Island, so we chose to flip him while we were waiting to leave Pine Island. The rest of the trip was great. However, since he could see a lot more, he didn't sleep much. That is until he finally covered up his eyes with his lovey! 

Maya and Charlie were very interested in watching the ships coming and going. Charlie would clap and clap! At breakfast, they saw a big one!

Here's Charlie and Great Grandpa Arnie! 

Mom took this picture of us at lunch at Grandma's. 

Charlie loved the boat ride!

On the boat, Maya got a hold of my phone. 

We had supper at Clyde Ironworks, and they had some fun toys for the kids!

Jay Cooke

Walking across the swinging bridge. 

My "I survived the bridge" picture!

We came across this fire on our way home. It's right by the "stinky place". The fire had just started because there were no emergency vehicles yet! By the time the other car with Laur, Jill, Cher and Maya came through, traffic was backed WAY up! They ended up taking a detour to avoid it!

We got home right at supper time, so we hopped on our bikes and headed downtown for wood fired pizza. This cart is open every Tuesday! It was our first time having it, and we loved it!

Jay Cooke

On our way home from Duluth, we stopped in Jay Cooke State Park for a picnic lunch and a little hike.

Maya and Charlie posed for a cute picture during our picnic.

Then we went exploring on the swinging bridge. I wasn't a huge fan of it, but it wasn't as swingy as the bridge in River Falls, so I survived just fine! When I told Charlie to smile, he blew me a kiss instead! 

There's Laur walking across the bridge. 

Tony, Charlie and I hiked around on the rocks for a while. They were checking out the falls over the big rock.

Duluth

Once I downloaded my pictures, I realized I didn't take that many in Duluth. I will have to do a phone post once I download my phone pictures!

Right when we got to our hotel, we suited up and hit the pool! Charlie wasn't so sure of it at first, but he warmed up to swimming once Aunt Laur and Aunt Jill joined us!

Monday was quite rainy, so after breakfast we did some more swimming. After Charlie's morning nap, my mom and grandpa stopped by on their way home from Babbitt! We had a delicious lunch at Grandma's and sent them on their way right before a big downpour!

After Charlie's afternoon nap we went on a tour on the Vista Fleet around the harbor. It was a really fun way to spend our afternoon!

Supper at Clyde Ironworks ended our night.

The adults enjoyed beverages and Phase 10 into the late hours of the night!

Here are the few pictures from my camera:

Northshore

Sunday morning, we left home quite early to meet up with our "caravan" to head north! We met Laur, Jill, Cher and Maya in Pine Island, and made our way to the Northshore. With only 1 bathroom break, we made it to Two Harbors in record time! After a delicious lunch in Two Harbors, we continued on to Gooseberry State Park.

The weather was just a little cool when we arrived there. We loaded Charlie in the backpack and made our way to the lower falls. There wasn't a lot of water there, so we could walk around pretty freely without worrying about slipping. Charlie kept pointing at the falls and saying "oooo". He was impressed!

Here's our family in front of one of the main photo ops at Gooseberry.

 Falls in the background. I got a little warmer as I hiked around!

Charlie and Tony sightseeing. 

Traveling with family means the opportunity for help with numerous family photos! 

After we walked around enough at Gooseberry, we headed to Split Rock Lighthouse. We stayed below on the beaches, and I got this shot of some kayaks. 

Charlie loved watching his cousin Maya throw rocks into the water. I'm not posting a lot of pictures of Maya because I know Laur and Jill will post those! 

Charlie was impressed with his daddy's rock skipping!

However, he really wanted to get down and explore the rocks too! It was difficult for him to walk, so he eventually planted himself and just played with the rocks. He loved this! It started to rain pretty hard, and he just screamed when he dragged him back to the car! Guess we'll be going back again!

After we had exhausted ourselves, we headed to Duluth to spend a few nights. I'll do another post about Duluth!

The Little Mermaid

Last weekend when my cousin Jacque was home for the 4th, she had mentioned that she had an extra ticket for The Little Mermaid at Chanhassen Dinner Theater. I've never been there before, and I absolutely love Disney anything, so I immediately said yes. There was a stipulation to this ticket, however. It was Jacque's friend Kendra's bachellorette party, so I was the official photographer. I took pictures for them throughout the evening, so they could all be in them!

Everyone dressed up similar to their favorite Disney characters, which was really fun! Since I had just gotten home from vacation, I didn't have much time or resources to figure this out. But after finding my black dress and sea shell necklace, I decided I would be Ursula!

The food was absolutely amazing! Jacque and I split our meals. So I had a half of a steak and half shrimp rotini alfredo. It was the best steak I've ever had. It melted in my mouth! I could go on for hours about the food....Instead, I'll share a couple of pictures I took, so you can all see the outfits.

When I say dress like their favorite Disney characters, it was more like a same colors/theme as your favorite. A few people went all out though!

From left to right:
Belle, Pumba, Dorri, Belle, unsure..., Ursula, the bride to be Elsa, Nala, Jasmine, Queen of Hearts and Cruella Devil

Inside the Chanhassen

These were my table mates. Jake, her friend and I bought awesome collector cups! Totally worth it! 

After the show! 

Here I am with my Pumba! 

The show was absolutely wonderful! I had goosebumps, tears and laughs through the whole thing! I would go back there for sure!

Jellystone by Phone

I posted some of these pictures on Instagram/Facebook, but I figured I should do a Jellystone from the view of my phone post. I had this with me more often than not.

 Our first night there, we didn't really have time to make supper at the cabin, and it was raining pretty good outside. So, we headed up to the Yogi Restaurant! It was actually quite delicious!

Lots of games were played after little Charlie was slumbering peacefully. We taught Cher how to play Farkle, and she got this awesome roll on one of her first rounds! Lucky! 

We also played some Scrabble. I did pretty darn good!

Slide fun! 

These were our stuffed potatoes grilling nicely. There were so yummy! I sliced slits across the whole potato and stuffed each slit with bacon, ham and cheese. 

Poolside fun! 

 Heading to see the bears.

I thought the sky was so beautiful in this one. 

Cooking our banana boats. We took bananas still in the peel and slit them down the middle. Then we stuffed it full of chocolate chips and marshmallows. They were delicious!

One of the days, we took a break and headed into Warrens to the Cranberry Discovery Center since we were camping out right in the middle of cranberry country! It was a very neat exhibit. I also bought some cranberry salsa that is extra good! 

There's a little train that runs around the park for a few hours every day. We took a ride one night. 

Pigs in a Blanket over the fire. 

Just your average couple selfie. 

Listening to story time. 

Cher, Charlie and I went and played candy bar bingo. For every full size candy bar you bring, you get a card. You can have as many as you want. They play this for a good hour or so! It was fun! Your prize is a little package of 3 candy bars. 

The pizza roll I made for over the fire. 

I cannot wait to go back again! Stay tuned for one more Jellystone post in the next few weeks!