A few of our favorite people

Have I ever mentioned that I love Target? Because I do…a lot.  SO much so that my ONE criterion for moving is that I won’t live somewhere that doesn’t have one.  But then I have weekends like this past one and think maybe I could live in a small town without a Target if it meant being near some of our best friends in the world.  The jury is definitely still out on actually moving to McCook, but I’m glad we at least get to visit every now and then so we can see Staci and Jason (and Jackson and Axel)!!!

This visit we were actually able to visit Friday-Monday, which gave us an extra day to play compared to normal and that was really nice! Somehow that ONE day really seemed to help us feel more like we were on a mini vacay and less like we had to cram things in before we turned around and drove home.

***Warning...a million pictures are coming...:)***

One of the great things about seeing the Blomstedt’s is that we had our bowling buddies back! We haven’t been bowling in what seems like forever (because we lost our bowling buddies…) and we couldn’t have been more excited to go. PLUS it was Hayden’s FIRST time bowling. She and Jackson had their lane (with a bumper) and then me and Ben and Staci and Jason had our lane. Now here’s the lowdown on the bowling situation with us: Staci wins most of the time. Jason and I have a rivalry that ends up pretty even in the win/loss column (though we both pretend we win more often than we do).  Ben is the wild card...you never know where he is going to end up.  If you take a look at the scores below you'll see that we pretty much stayed on track with that. It was pretty hectic between helping the kids bowl, feeding the younger babies, bathroom trips and our bowling game, but it was still a lot of fun!

P.s. usually our scores are higher than this, but it’s a girl’s win all around so I’m ok with it!

Hayden’s first time ever bowling and she got a strike!

 

Ben helping Hayden…

Staci looking all professional like :)

Grossest thing ever! Staci went to use a ball and there was a bunch of ketchup in the thumb hole!

(although I think that ball is like 13 pounds!)

Cute bowling buddies!

Just hanging out :)

Question: What does the number 2 mean to you? Maybe it’s your kid’s age (Hayden WILL be 2 in a few weeks…) or the number of years you’ve been married (I have been married for 2 years until Sep. 1^st rolls around) but to ME the number has been a little more of a taunting number. As in, it has made me slightly bitter, because 2 represents the number of summers in a row I have been pregnant and rendered unable to tube. Obviously I have been slightly traumatized by this fact… Not that I don’t love my girls, because I do, it’s just that being pregnant 2 summers in a row was pretty rough for me.  But not this summer! THIS summer I am pregnancy free and I was NOT going to miss out on some serious summer fun! SO out on the boat we went, and it was a blast!

Bryar’s first time boating!

The view I had of Jason ;) cute huh?!

Adorable daddy/daughter moment!

Axel and Bryar

Ben skiing!

Staci slaloming…if that’s even a word…

Me! However this is the only pic you will see of me trying to ski, because I never actually succeeded…Oh well, maybe next time!

Cooling off!

Me and Hayden just relaxing…although I think we were actually like that because I had issues NOT floating with that ridiculously powerful life jacket on!

Hayden driving while Jackson is on flag duty…man they grow up quick ;)

I think Breezy was just grateful to get the life jacket off for a while!

Haha Hayden looks so evil-eyed here! In actuality she just was refusing to smile for the camera…ah the terrible twos…

Hayden’s first tube ride!!! (and YES, I was terrified the WHOLE time)

Cute sister moment on the beach :)

Another “I’m not going to smile” moment!

Haha…a little awkward!

And then my favorite picture of the trip…I took the liberty of pointing out Ben, just in case you missed him :D

Other than that we just spent some good quality time with our friends, which would have been worth the trip by itself. I was heartbroken when we had to leave! It’s ok though, you can bet we’ll be back soon :) We love our  Blomstedt’s!

And last but not least, here’s just a few cute shots of the kids throughout our visit:

Bryar, red eyed from a day of boating!

 

Playing ring around the rosy!
  

THE END!!! I told you there were going to be a million pictures! At least I warned you, right?!