The school playground near our house is full of bluebonnets this year, so we took advantage this weekend. I've been looking at these pictures compared to the ones from last year, and I still can't quite believe how much he has grown and changed in one year!
We decided to go to Minneapolis for our family vacation this year. We thought it would be nice to go somewhere a little cooler than Austin in the middle of August. Unfortunately Minneapolis was having a heat wave while we were there, but we still had a great time.
We stayed at the Residence Inn in Edina. I highly recomend it for family travel. It connects directly to Edina's indoor Edinborough Park. There is a massive multi-level indoor play structure for kids, and Isaac had a great time climbing and exploring. We also enjoyed the Mall of America. Isaac enjoyed riding the rides, and there were several smaller rides for little kids to enjoy. The mall is very big with so much to see and do, so we had to go back a second day to see the aquarium.
Overall, it was a great family friendly vacation spot, but even with so much to see and do while we were there, Isaac's favorite part of the trip by far was getting to ride on an airplane!
We had a great time visiting our family in Kansas for Independence day. It was nice to make the drive in one day, so that we had more time to actually visit. Of course, on the drive up some guy hit us as we were parked in a McDonald's parking lot in El Dorado. We exchanged insurance info and documented everything. It was a bit of a bummer since we hadn't even made it to Iola yet, but as least it was just the bumper and no one was hurt. When we got up the next morning, though, the bumper was magically fixed! It had just popped right back into place - yay!
I wasn't sure how Isaac would handle the fireworks, but as usual, I worried for no reason. I mean, come on, he is a product of me and Michael, so of course he's going to be a natural born firebug, right? He was fascinated with sparklers, and loved stomping on the snap-n-pops with Brent and Dani, but he also adored watching the bigger fountains and such that Uncle Bill was setting off.
Overall is was a great trip. We had lots of great food, and a great time with family and friends. We took a different route home, and shaved quite a bit of time off the trip, so that was nice, especially since it put us in Waco just in time for dinner. We had great food while we were in Kansas, but for us nothing says welcome home to Texas quite like dinner at Chuy's.
Hope you all had a safe and happy 4th of July!
