Friday, August 11, 2017

L&A Years 4&2 Week 4: Part 2: Our Minnesota Cousins - 7/20/2017

We had a fabulous time with our friends in Wisconsin, and we were sad to say goodbye.  Then it was time to head back to Minnesota to see Jen, Benson, Soren, and our newest little cousin Aksel.  Much more fun to be had, especially at our most favorite park in the whole world!  Leia totally remembered going to this park last year, and insisted that we go first thing when we arrived.  We promised we would go after nap, so when we woke up to a rainstorm, we headed out anyway.  We were rewarded for our efforts because the storm ended, and we had the whole park to ourselves!

Run, run, run, Arwyn! The water's going to get you!

So much fun to run through the splash pad!

Water fight!

Hot day, cold water. Yep, that feels good!

So fun to watch kids play in the sprinklers.

Leia was brave, going right into the middle!

Arwyn's first zip line...hang on tight!

Leia totally remembered coming to this park last year, and insisted we 

See-saw, such a rare treat.

Kind of an awesome swing.  Almost like a hammock.

Face shot!

Daddy got right in there too.

Found a little frog!

Arwyn loves a good water fight!

Go Leia, go!

Sisters.

Flower spinner.

Mommy even got a ride on the zip line.

Water slide!

Our newest nephew, Aksel.

And Soren, happy to have his cousins over to play.

Big smiles on the water slide.

You have to splash the slide to keep it slippery, but then the slider gets splashed too.

Password = Leia

It was Leia's first time hitting a baseball, but she nailed it! Perfectly straight, center field, definitely a home run!

Arwyn getting warmed up with her Uncle B.

Uncles and littles.

Help, we've been invaded by aliens!

Not sure what planet they are from, but they wear very strange headgear!

Cousins with raspberry fingers!

From oldest to youngest.  Nice spot for a little dinner too.

Ballet 101 with Teacher Leia. First position plié.

Password = Leia

Leia has been loving her ballet classes, and she loves to teach ballet to anyone who will try!

These two are such goofs, and they sure had fun being goofs together.

Definitely an alien life form of some sort!



Exhausting day, time to chill out.

Wait a minute, Soren, what's out there?!

I think it's the leader of the alien planet!

Seriously, they are so cute snuggling all together!

Doting over baby Aksel.

Back to the water park with Soren on Day 2.  Hot and sunny today, so the place was packed!


Arwyn loves people watching, and there were definitely a lot of people to watch here today!

This kid can climb.

Climbing, climbing, and more climbing.  She climbs on anything and everything except the big fancy climbing wall we worked to hard to make at home!

So satisfying to make it to the top!

She doesn't like pictures, but she did like the flower spinner, so it was really hard to hold back that smile!

Watch out Arwyn, Soren's going to get you with that water gun!

So brave to go in for the face shot, just like her big sister.

Soren and Arwyn.

You can stomp on that water and it stops for a second, but it always comes back.

Like I said before, so many great things to climb around here!

Now Soren is trying to get Uncle Josh with the water gun!

I guess it's a water fountain now.

Spinner on the saucer!

Picnic time.

Snack time.  And they wanted to sit together, this was not posed.

Password = Leia

Soren, Leia, and Arwyn had the best time playing together during our visit.  I don't think they stopped laughing the entire time!


Arwyn loves to hold babies.

So civilized.

Password = Arwyn

Arwyn was doing a perfect gorilla imitation, which we figured she learned at school.  Then we discovered that Cousin Soren had the exact same book that she learned it from, "Head to Toe."

Bubble time!

Best bubbles ever, even Arwyn and Soren could blow them all by themselves!


Look how blond Arwyn's hair has gotten!

And her hair was doing this perfect little flip all by itself...sometimes humidity is cool.

Love that cute smile!


Bedtime dog pile on Daddy!

That's better, reading time is supposed to be for mellowing out.

Early morning walk around the block.  We saw so many bunnies!

Super cool indoor obstacle course.

Puppet show.

Leia was only mildly amused, and I didn't blame her one bit.  We've seen two puppet shows this month, and both times I was not impressed.  They ruin the traditional stories, and the puppets are rather obnoxious.  Both times we walked out mid-show per Leia's request (and much to my relief).

Back to the fun slides at the indoor obstacle course.

Taking pictures of me while I was taking a picture of them.

Learning about camera phones from her big sis.


We had two other empty seats, but no, three people had to sit in my one seat!

They wanted to sleep, they needed to sleep, but sleeping was very difficult.

Midnight, back at Reno Airport, two tired turtles ready to hit the sack!

And now, a dizzying look out of the eyes of Leia...a few pictures from her camera: 


Arwyn "taking a picture" of Leia, while Leia takes a picture of Arwyn.

Pretty much just psyched to have "my hone" like everyone else in the family.  Doesn't have a clue she's not taking pictures!


Mommy taking a picture of Leia and Arwyn, while they were taking pictures of me.

This one is actually a pretty nice picture that she took of me.

The photographer told me to make a silly face, so I did.

Daddy always makes silly faces!

Arwyn's a little ham, always up to say "cheese!"

Walking and snapping shots...good thing she can't drive yet!

Lots of interesting people she saw.  Too bad we'll never know their stories.

Pretty accurate portrayal of walking through an airport terminal...very dizzying!







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