Shadow

Ladd learned about shadow's today, sort of! I'm not sure he know's what they are but he loved playing with my barking bird creature. I have a long way to go in developing my shadow animal skills.

Lots of new posts..

I finally finished a bunch of posts from the last two months. Now if I could just finish the couple I have from when Ollie was born..... another day.

Walks, runs, and bike rides

While my parents were here we also took advantage of the beautiful trails surrounding our house in every form.








This is my dad finding out that Ladd had made a poopy. I must have been laughing when I took this picture, but it was such a classic Grandpa face I had to include it.



This is how Ollie enjoyed the trails.


We can't wait until the next visit from Gampa and Shama. We love you guys!

Lake Wobegon

For anyone that has actually heard of Lake Wobegon, you might be a little interested to hear we went to a live airing of A Prairie Home Companion in Avon, MN on the Fourth of July.





Oliver spent most of his time under the shade of the makeshift tent we made to sheild the sun. He loved it.




A Prairie Home Companion is a down home radio variety show performed in front of a live audience aired on NPR. Thanks to my dad for trying to cram some culture into his 4 daughters as we grew up listening to Garrison Kiellor telling stories about people doing mundane things in towns no one has heard about and singing silly songs about Bee-bop-Rhubarb Pie.

The city of avon (population 1200) hosted the event for 10,000+ fans so it was very crowded and hot, but despite these things we had a great time and got a nice tan!

Annual Berry Picking

We spent one morning picking berries at Apple Jacks. Ladd was very counter-productive- I picked one strawberry, Ladd ate one strawberry. We realized the hopelessness of picking strawberries with Ladd and a baby after about 30 minutes and sent my mom off to entertain the kids. Ladd even got a ride on the cow train.







Thanks to my mom and dad we picked about three flats of strawberries and made 8 batches of jam. On the ride home we couldn't help but pull-over at another berry farm for a couple of pints of rasberries!! We made some delicious rasberry shakes for dessert.

Music in Plymouth

Shortly after we moved to Plymouth, MN it was named by Money Magazine the number one best place to live. See here .

We have been taking advantage of all there is to do here and we were anxious to attend the annual Music in Plymouth featuring the Minnesota Orchestra.





My parents flew in the same evening as the concert and were good sports to come directly to concert from the airport. We packed in a picnic and had a great time. Ladd was so excited to see his grandparents and we all enjoyed the orchestra from some great seats I had saved at 5 am that morning.





Sword fights with Grandma.





Ladd and Ollie both loved the fireworks afterwards. Ladd's comments were "ohhhh... pretty" and "cute!" What a great night and what great company!!

Ladd claimed the best seat in the house to watch the fireworks from: