Beach Week

We spent our week long vacation in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

It was amazing.  It's outside of Orlando so there are not huge crowds of people.  We basically had our own little plot of beach/water in front of the condo we were staying in.

I sure do have the vacation blues after coming home from that blissful place.

Besides our one day at Harry Potter World, we spent the rest of the week relaxing on the beach.

We went out to eat a few times, ate some seafood, enjoyed each other's company (I think I enjoyed their company the most...6 adults to 1 baby gave me great odds of having a nice, relaxing week), and played lots of farkle.

We all had some raw oysters.  Love Steve's reaction to having them for the first time.

 

Loving our view of the beach.

 By the end of the week, Carson's knees and feet were all scabbed over from the sand, and his crawl turned into this:

Our last night of vacation.

 

Such a fun week, and such great memories.  Miss it and you guys already!

You're a Wizard, 'Arry

This past week, my family and I flew out to Orlando to enjoy a week at the beach and a day at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

I will save the beach for another post.

For now, I will just share pictures from our day with Harry Potter.

I apologize for my awful pictures, they were all taken with my phone.

It's all about the memories though, right?

Cue Harry Potter music.

First thing on the agenda, grab butter beer.  We got one of each, frozen and regular.  I still can't decide which one I liked more.  Both were delicious!!! I think I found my new favorite drink.

We ate at the Three Broomsticks for lunch.  OMG amazing.  See our feast below.

Ollivanders wand shop.  Check out all those wands.  Steve purchased one (Draco Malfoy's to be exact...ew!)

It was fun to browse through all of the shops.  We, of course, had to grab some Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans.  The vomit ones really taste like vomit, am I right?

 

My favorite part of all was riding the roller coaster inside of the castle.  We did it twice!

What a fun vacation!  More on the beach later.

Birthday Weekend

My family and I had so much fun celebrating birthdays last weekend!

To get a full recap of Carson's, click here.

My birthday was the day after Carson's.  I had been wanting to check out Stillwater for a long time, and it proved to be so much fun!

Stillwater is a little town about 30 minutes from Minneapolis and a very touristy destination. 

It is right on the St. Croix River and is home to one of the last three lift bridges in the U.S.

We walked across the bridge into Wisconsin (first time to set foot there!)

 

We went to Leo's Diner for lunch.  It has the most delicious cheese curds...never thought I'd say that!

We had a fun afternoon window shopping around Main Street and enjoying the nice weather.  Next time, we'll have to try the trolley tour and Nelson's ice cream!

On Saturday we checked out Minnehaha Falls.

I had heard great things about this waterfall located right in the middle of the city.

It really was beautiful and we had fun hiking down to the bottom of the waterfall and walking along the river.

We had such a fun weekend with you guys! Can't wait to see you Saturday in Orlando!!!

C Money's Birthday

We had a low-key family birthday for Carson this year.

We were lucky enough to have my mom, dad, and brother fly in for our birthday weekend.

(Love that Carson and I have birthdays one day apart! I love celebrating, and now Carson's birthday is even more exciting than my own!)

So, my family flew in that morning and we all met up at the Mall of America to hang out and do some rides at the amusement park, Nickelodeon Universe.

I think Carson had more fun just being held and interacting with my family than he actually did on the rides, but it was fun to do something memorable for his birthday.

The big kids enjoyed some of the rides too.

Steve and Matthew did a ropes course that looked very frightening.

That night we had a birthday celebration at my apartment.  Carson opened presents and had fun smashing his cake.

Happy birthday, sweet boy.  We love you!