Minnesota.

Last week Mark and I boarded an airplane to fly back to Minnesota for my sister's wedding. We survived the flight there and back and I think they should give some kind of refund to parents who must sit on planes for longer than two hours with kids. It was very stressful to keep the kids happy and QUIET. If you think it might be easy...try sitting at your kitchen table for over three hours with a few snacks, a DVD player, and maybe a few things to do. Make sure everyone is pretty quiet! You can get up once in awhile to go to the bathroom but otherwise, you just sit there and worry that the kids might start crying, etc...that is what it is like to fly with kids. The weather in Minnesota was perfect. It was about 75 degrees everyday and it cooled down at night. Sydney had so much fun playing outside. She told us she wanted to go back to Minnesota once we were home because it was cooler there...however, I reminded her that it entails a very long plane trip (which she decided against). While we were there we managed to fit in Mall of America and the indoor amusement park there. Sydney had so much fun on all the rides.

As you can see from this picture, Mark doesn't fit on the kiddie roller coaster. He had to squish his knees in and the bar didn't go down far enough to keep Sydney in (so she just slid all over during this ride). Then I decided to let Mark take the pictures and I went on rides with Sydney.
Here we are on the race cars. Actually this ride wasn't too bad! It whipped us around the curves and we were both laughing!
Congratulations Ben and Auralee! They were married in the St. Paul Temple, August 31st. This was also the day the Dave and Jilynn's baby girl was born and it was Mark's Mom's birthday! Ben and Auralee will be leaving soon to move to Columbus, Ohio so that Ben can complete a Masters in accounting at Ohio State. Good luck newlyweds in your new state!
Here is a cute picture of both of my Grandma's at the reception. I think they enjoyed chatting with each other at all the wedding events.
Sydney was getting a little bored during pictures at the temple...so she gathered all these sticks up and decided to make a pretend bonfire. Mark and Ben came over and pretended to roast pink and chocolate marshmellows with her. Of course she was delighted.
That night we decided to have a real bonfire and make s'mores. This was so much fun for all of us. We can't build bonfires anywhere in AZ so we all enjoyed this, plus who can resist yummy s'mores. We put one of Auralee's shirts on Sydney so the mosquitos wouldn't bite her...but it turned out that they just weren't that bad anyway.
Here is the sticky remains.
The next day we went to the "beach" on the lake by my parents house. Again this was another beautiful day and it felt so good to be outside breathing air that had lots of oxygen in it (as opposed to dust and smog). Everything is so green and beautiful there. Sydney had fun making sandcastles and hunting for rocks in the water...since there were no seashells on this beach!

Look at that view...who wouldn't want to live in a place like this!


These are the rocks Sydney wanted to take home, but I told her I would just take a picture of them instead...since I can't imagine how we would haul them home! We loved being in Minnesota and it was fun to see Auralee and Ben and get to know him. I can't deny that we loved the weather there and the lack of traffic and all the green grass and trees. When we landed in Phoenix, the pilot announced that it was a cool 104 degrees (at about 8:30 pm). We just laughed because of course that is cool for here!