Summer Fun

I was recently looking at all my picture folders and realized I need to do some serious organizing and deleting. Plus, I found a bunch of pictures of our summer that I haven't shared. So without further ado...

Lake Calhoun

I don't know what prompted us to hit up Tin Fish at Lake Calhoun, but I know it was a last minute decision which I'm glad we made. I've been here, but never actually eaten here before and wasn't sure what to expect. Everyone seems to talk about how awesome Sea Salt is over at Minnehaha Falls, but I don't hear much about this place. I loved it waaaay more than Sea Salt. I had the calamari taco (I forgot what taco Jesse had) and we both had ceviche. Oddly, the ceviche did not come with chips as we are used to, but it was still mighty tasty. And Riley loved the calamari. She sure surprised me on that one.

Minnesota Zoo... again

Yes, we went to the zoo again. I know you are probably getting sick of me posting zoo pictures. Every time I go I am sure that I won't take any new pictures because what's the point, right? Never fails that I end up snapping off a few pictures anyway. With this family membership I think I've been to the zoo more times in this one year than I've been in my whole life.

My two little ham-bones

Speaking of the zoo, my husband recently went with Riley and his mom while I was at work and they decided to video tape their excursion. When I viewed their work I couldn't help but laugh because about half of what was taped was unintentional  - you know when you turn on the recorder when you think you are turning it off - yeah, they did that A LOT. One video was of my husband's knee. Another? I got to watch my mother in law walk for about 5 minutes through what appears to be the mesh storage area on the stroller. Makes me wonder how many times they thought they were taping, but actually weren't. I make fun of them, but in truth I am totally guilty of this as well.

Here is the compilation video Jesse put together (which also includes a little of our Easter egg hunt for some reason) (it's a little long): 

Camping

We are also planning on camping at the end of August so we decided to have a practice run with Riley in the back yard. We only have a two person tent so Riley and I slept in the tent while Jesse had the entire house to himself. I was sort of jealous about this, but I had so much fun that I forgot about being jealous.

We didn't get out to the tent until almost an hour after Riley's bedtime so I was hoping it wouldn't take long for her to fall asleep. I even brought my iPad (with headphones) as I thought I might be bored after she fell asleep and would want to watch some netflix. So naive am I. I think I might have fallen asleep before her, but even so she was awesome. It started raining around 4 am which woke us both up, but neither of us really cared and fell back asleep.

I woke a little after 6 am and snapped the above pictures. I rarely ever get to see her sleep so this was a bit of a treat for me. Plus, I was able to fall back to sleep and sleep in until 8:30. Simply a miracle that Riley slept that late (even with staying up until about 10 pm). Now we have a larger tent that has been lent to us, our reservation at the campground has been booked, and we have the confidence that our kid will do just fine.


Mall of America

We're not 'big mall' people... or 'any mall' people for that matter, but we've gone to the mega mall a few times this summer. Last time we were there we bought tickets for Riley to go on one of the rides at Nickelodeon Universe, but she decided she wanted to go home at that very instant. Since we still had the unused ticket band we thought we'd try it again. Jesse had taken Riley to the Como Zoo and Como Town a few days before and she loved the rides there so we thought we might have success at the mall. Not so much. I did get her on the train for one ride, but even then she asked to get off midway through. She was obviously overstimulated and did much better when we just walked around. I'm guessing the ticket band we bought will probably last us the entire year.

Apparently, we are a serious family.

Having fun at Lego Land

Randomness

I'm not sure what was happening here that she had this expression on her face... perhaps it was something I said.  

Just another summer day kicking the ball around in the backyard. This is perhaps a second favorite to drawing with chalk on the sidewalk.

Riley is allowed to take one book to bed with her at bedtime. I used to pick one out for her, but lately she's become picky and turns down every book I select. This night I told her if she didn't like her book she could get up and pick out a different one instead. She apparently took that as approval to grab as many books as she desired as this was the resulting scene I found when she woke in the morning.

Summer has been busy and full. Having a child certainly makes us more active as we like getting Riley out of the house so I am sure there were still be more photo dumps of things yet to come this season... now if we can just figure out how to use the video recorder correctly.