Jodie's Birthday

Such a fun day today!

Jodie is lucky enough to have her birthday on the longest day of the year.  This year, Steve decided to rent a pontoon on Lake Minnetonka for the day to celebrate.  It was so fun!

We've had a ton of rain this year.  Because of that, there is a No Wake rule on the lake right now.  It was super nice because normally Lake Minnetonka is pretty crowded, but it was so quiet.  No JetSki's, no speedboats, beautiful!

We had a great time just puttering around the lake.

Laurel and I switched sunglasses and here is the selfie with Jodie and Aaron in the background.

Shortly after this was taken, we got pulled over by the Lake Patrol.  Apparently, you can't walk on the front of the boat while it's moving.  Oops!

We made our way to Maynard's for lunch.

A family or two of geese!

Birthday Girl!

Then we went to the big island to swim.  It was the one crowded place on the lake.  We all had a great time floating around in the water just hanging out.  Esme decided that she wanted to do Chop, Chop, Timbers into the lake.  Basically, jumping in and swimming around the boat, just to crawl back in and do it again.  I bet she jumped in 20 times!

Getting ready to jump in!

At first, I was putting the noodle out for her to grab when she jumped in, but after awhile she just jumped on her own.  She was so comfortable in the water.  Those swimming lessons are paying off for sure.

On the way back, the cupcakes came out.  Esme absolutely doesn't like cake, but she's recently decided that she likes frosting.

That's some bright green frosting!  And each of the cupcakes had a ring on it.  Esme collected quite a few from everyone's cupcake.

And finally at the end, a picture of all the girls together.

Cousins

 Such a great day!  We will all sleep great after a day of sunshine, swimming and fun!

Soccer Star Number 11

We are entering into a new chapter of our lives.  That of the family with scheduled activities.  We have had it pretty easy up until now.  We had swimming weekly, but other than that just a few things here and there.  I sense that things are changing...

Today Esme started soccer for the first time.  She was so excited to go.  And in case you didn't notice, she really loves pink...

Just a girl and her soccer ball

We were supposed to start a couple of days ago, but there was a huge thunderstorm so practice was cancelled.  This spring it just doesn't seem to want to stop raining!

The first thing that happened when we got to practice was that the girls got their uniforms.  There are four teams.  The Butterflies (Esme's team), The Blue Birds, The Grasshoppers and The Ladybugs.  You can guess what three of the four colors of uniforms would be and you would be right.  While we were driving to practice we tried to guess what color the Butterflies might be.  Aaron and I thought yellow.  You will not be surprised to hear that Esme guessed pink.  We were all wrong.  Somehow Burnt Sienna (????) was not a color I would have ever guessed.

Lovin' soccer!

Oh well, she was happy because she knows that orange is my favorite color. :)  It turns out there are two girls that Esme knows on her team.  Elena and Morgan.  How fun is that?!?

Tonight's practice was a lot of dribbling and playing games that encouraged dribbling.  I can only hope it gets more exciting.  Forty five minutes of dribbling is a lot to watch!  But Esme seemed fine with it.  

As a North Dakotan who had never watched a soccer match until I met my husband, I have a lot to learn.  And today I learned two new terms, the first of many I'm sure.  Dancing on the Ball and Nutmeg-ing, both from Aaron.  The coaches called Dancing on the Ball - Toe Tapping.  I don't know if they had a name for nutmeg-ing.  I will definitely try to get a video of Esme demonstrating.

But for now, here are a few more pictures of our little soccer girl!

I think Esme's going to love soccer.  It's definitely in her blood.  I'm excited to see where she goes with it!

Esme's 5th Birthday

For Christmas, Esme wanted a Barbie Remote Control Helicopter.  Santa did his best to get it, but it showed up on our doorstep long after Christmas.  I guess that's what happens when Santa orders things from China...

Anyhew...

Esme never forgot about it and when you asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said the same thing.  A Barbie Remove Control Helicopter.  It was so fun to see her open all of her birthday presents but particularly this one.

Next it was time to take it out to fly.

Sadly, it only really goes up for a bit and then back down.  We have to work on the remote control because it appears to only be for show.  It doesn't drive the thing whatsoever.  Aaron tried to see if he could make it work but it will take a bit of work.  He has some ideas to fix it, so hopefully we can get it flying soon.

One of the other things that Esme really wanted when we were at Disney was a Merida wig.  When she got her makeover and picked Merida, she was really disappointed that she didn't end up with long, red, curly hair.  I was able to find one once we got home and she was thrilled with it!

And finally, this girl loves Legos so we had to get her a Lego set.

I think she was very pleased with her birthday.  For dinner, we invited Nick, Andi and Lydia over and Esme and Lydia had a great time playing.  It was a nice, low key birthday.

Happy 5th Birthday my love!

Tots???

Invitation

Response

And it was off to Serum's from there!

North Shore Day Trip

We decided to take Esme to the North Shore.

It's funny because before she was born, we went there all the time.  She'll be 5 years old in less than a month and we've never taken her there.  If I think about it, I would guess that Aaron and I have only been there once since she was born ourselves.  Needless to say, it's past due.

We thought a day trip would be fun so we got up early and started north.

We went straight for Gooseberry Falls.  It's one of our favorite spots.  Then we worked our way back towards Duluth from there.  That meant that we had to drive through Duluth on our way north.  There are several tunnels that you have to drive through in the city of Duluth.  Esme loves tunnels and loves trying to hold her breath through them.

That's a lot of breath holding!  My question is, how do those tunnels and that whole area not fill up with snow in the winter?  It seems to me like the whole thing would have to shut down.  But I digress...

Gooseberry Falls...

Some of the areas made me nervous.  Esme was crawling on the rocks and getting very close to the river, which was rushing by the way.  Aaron was much calmer about it than I was.  Then I saw this sign that made me feel so much better (insert sarcasm here).  The good news is that Esme is good at following written rules so then she stayed a little closer once I read it to her.

See!  Rushing water!  I know it looks like it might not be rushing, but believe me, it is!

After we safely left the falls, we headed south towards Two Harbors.  We walked around the water's edge for awhile.  Aaron tried to teach Esme to skip rocks.  If she's anything like me, that's a hopeless endeavor.

We even built a cairn.

 After that we hung out in Duluth for awhile.  I didn't have my camera, so no pictures.  We sat by the lake for quite awhile while Esme climbed around on the rocks.  Then we headed home.  As you can see, Esme was pooped.

We will definitely be going back again for a longer visit.  Esme is truly our child, because she loved it as much as we did. :)