Go, Go, Goers!

Never a dull moment!  Never a chance to be bored!  NEVER!  I remember the days when I had down time, both in my personal life and at work...and I can confidently say that those days are long gone.  We started off the week with an emergency HOA meeting...the tension was high near the end of the meeting, so I was happy to head home, and let the board do what we elected them to do. Tuesday night was Ava's literacy assessment for 3rd grade.  We never find out exactly how she does, but she informed me that she got all of the words right, except for a few that she didn't know.  I'm confident in her reading ability, so I have no doubt that she did well.  Earlier in the summer, she had told me she was scared of third grade, since she was going to have to learn both cursive and multiplication.  After meeting with her new teacher, she is pumped about learning cursive!  She begged me to teach her how to write an "a" so she could start practicing....

What a great family vacation we've had this past week!  All of the planning and the prepping was totally worth it...and now I can't wait for us to start planning our next vacation.  Plus, I haven't checked my work email this entire time, so I feel like I truly have had a break from things (I was at work until 10pm the night before we left, so I definitely needed that break!) We're on the road...and fast asleep! Except for Ava...she was awake and chatty for the entire drive there... We stopped and had lunch on a waterfront patio in La Crosse.  Ava was quite taken with the baby ducks in the river. We finally made it there!  The line to check in was super long...I'm so glad Scott and G stayed in the truck while Ava and I took care of things. After settling in, we decided it was time to explore. I had done my research on the resort, and decided that Ava would like the MagiQuest game (searching for different items in order to collect ru...

We had a low key week, which is rare in this house. Oh sure, there were fun field trips at Summer Power, a visit to the splash pad on a hot day, and a few crazy, rain storms, but it was an easy week. Well, there was that one time when we were out for dinner with G (Ava was with Grandma Karen and Grandpa Doug for an overnight stay and a trip to the Dakota County Fair - fun!) and G decided to hide behind my chair and puke all over me and the floor (at the restaurant.) Ugh. The good news is that he was just too full of chocolate milk...no illness! A quiet week, once in a while, is an okay thing! We're starting to prep for our vacation to the Wisconsin Dells...we don't take too many family vacations, so this is a big event for us. (Funny, I took a break from writing this post as Scott just asked me about planning a trip to Disney...we were debating the differences between going to California vs. Florida...pros and cons to each!) Yesterday, I showed G a video from one of the wat...

I really, really like weeks when I only have to work three days.  Can I do that all of the time?!  I took Tuesday off so G and I could go to the Hissin' and Hootin' Toddler Time class at the MN Zoo.  We went to a toddler class last summer and he had NO interest in learning about frogs.  I remember thinking, "Next year...it'll be better!"  And it WAS!  He listened, he participated, he paid attention...amazing! We learned about snakes and owls...and we both had fun petting the snakes back and belly when they passed him around.  We also sat right in front with the owl...G's became instantly attentive once they brought her out of her mobile cage. And at the end, when she flapped her wings, and came right at us, I think we were both a little unsure of what to do.  The amount of wind created from her flapping her wings was insane! Before the animals came into the room, the kids had free range to play with anything they wanted to.  G found ...