4th of July

This year's 4th of July holiday was spent in the Twin Cities with our families. We had a great weekend! My sister and her husband welcomed their second child in mid June and it was out first time meeting our new nephew. I couldn't wait to meet him! Surely, you can see why.

This is Thomas and we are all so blessed to have another addition to our growing extended family! I love his name. He was named after my mother's family, as her maiden name is Thomas. I think family names are great and I hope he's as proud of it someday as my mom is.

We started out our trip on Thursday with the long drive down to Minneapolis. After several hours in the car Ben could take no more, so we decided to stop for dinner. We drove past a sign for Charlie's Cafe in Freeport, MN and decided to stop. For those of you Public Radio listeners, Freeport is the town that Garrison Keillor modeled Lake Wobegon after. For Mike, it was like visiting his homeland. And the food was really delicious and cheap! It was a great way to start out the trip.

Friday morning, we had pictures of Ben taken by our friend Jason. I intend to post as soon as I get them. We went to a park and Jason took a bunch of shots of Ben just being a kid. I think they're going to turn out cute!

That night we headed to St. Paul with Leah, Nate, Will and Thomas to the Taste of Minnesota. Mike had been planning ALL week for what we were going to eat so he prepared his tickets for purchase right when we got there.

The main event for Mike was a quest for things he sees on the Food Network. So, we ate a Juicy Lucy from the famous Minneapolis 5-8 Club. It was every bit as delicious as we had hoped! In addition to that we had mini doughnuts, corn, a turkey leg, ice cream, a corn dog, grape leaves... Maybe it would be easier to tell you what we DIDN'T eat. But seriously, it was really good. We also gave Ben his first cheese curds! He loved them!

On Saturday, we headed down to Eagan to join Grant and the crew for the 4th of July festivities. We went to the Eagan parade, and the kids had a great time seeing each other. You can tell that Kade and Syd really love Ben, he is after all their only cousin so far. They tend to forget about personal space when he's around, but it's so cute how much they like him!

After the parade, we headed to Grant and Lisa's where the kids had some time in the backyard kiddie pool. They had a great time, after Uncle Grant hauled about 20 buckets full of hot water outside to warm the pool up. What a nice uncle!

After dinner, we headed back to Leah and Nate's house where we lit off a few small fireworks. Will was so funny about the fireworks! He's almost 4, so he's probably hasn't had very much experience with fire, except to know that it isn't safe. And he doesn't like things that aren't safe. Mike handed him a sparkler and he was okay with it. Until Mike lit it, at which point he dropped it on the ground and bolted. I kept asking my sister how I can make Ben as concerned about safety as Will is. I love it!

Sunday morning it was time to head home, but not before having some more awesome food. We went downtown Minneapolis to Key's Cafe and had a great breakfast before hitting the open road. Overall, a great time was had by all!