Thank you Uncle Mike and Auntie Sarah!

Yesterday my sister and brother-in-law took our two oldest to Valley Fair for the day. They had done this earlier in the summer only to enjoy the park under cloudy skies and chilly weather. They chickened out of skipped the water park since the high was like 60º. Yesterday the high was 75º (thank you Kare 11 for your past weather record) and sunny with not a cloud in the sky. It was gloriously beautiful! Hubby and I took the younger 3 (we traded our two oldest for Lucy) to frog smelling* Fort Snelling State Park and walked around. Oh that reminds me - I need to post about our backyard camping trip. Anyway back to yesterday. Let's see, we hiked through the park until the kids Kenan got tired. Micah and Lucy were in the stroller and, while I'm sure it was so exhausting to be pushed the entire time, it was MUCH more exhausting for hubby and I to push the mammoth stroller over the rough terrain!

*Out of the mouth of Kenan

Wow! They were all looking! I won't tell you how goofy Auntie Mama was being behind hubby as he took the picture so that they would all be looking.

After naptime Lucy went home. We weren't expecting them until after dinner but apparently Valley Fair is much more exhausting when it's hot out and I think Uncle Mike's brain had enough jostling for the day! We heard the excited chatter of Valley Fair for a little while and then it was time for Hannah and Timmy to go and stay up all night sleep over at Auntie and Uncle's house. Lucy was pretty stoked to have her cousins come over!

This brings us to Kenan. He couldn't go on the Valley Fair adventure because he's not tall enough so the deal is when he's six he can go. But Kenan has been anxiously awaiting his turn to sleep over at Grandma and Grandpa's house by his self. Hannah and Timmy have both done it and he knows he hasn't. He called Grandma up the other day and was supposed to ask her politely if he could please have his turn at her house. Instead, when she answered the phone, nervousness took over and he blurted out "I'm sleeping over at your house next wee! Do you wanna talk to my dad?" Hubby then took the phone and explained how the conversation was supposed to go. Of course how can you say no to that sweet little guy when it comes to a sleep over? Grandma said that would be wonderful and we should pick a night and let her know. We'd tried to get a hold of her all day yesterday, but Grandma (who used answer phones all day for a living) doesn't like to always answer the phone so we never did get to ask if he could come over last night. Well, Grandpa, who didn't know we were calling all day, came over and Kenan thought it was time to go. He grabbed his bag packed since Thursday night, and said "Let's go Grandpa!" Well what ensued after, were a bunch of tears on Kenan's part. He then bravely got over his tears and put on a forced smile to show he was really okay with the whole situation. See Grandma had been planning for Kenan to come over Sunday night instead. Well, she found out he was so sad, that she called and asked he if was okay. Then she said that she would like Kenan to come over for two nights instead starting Monday night. Of course Kenan was so excited about the prospect of two nights that he wasn't even disappointed about not going over Sunday night. She is dog watching her son's dog, Ranger and Kenan absolutely adores that dog! So now Kenan is going over Monday morning and won't be home until Wednesday afternoon. I will miss my guy, but maybe - just maybe Micah and I will be able to sleep past 6:30 am. 2 days! What a nice break for mom and dad fun for Kenan! He is so excited, in part because he gets to go to the corner store and Grandma will buy him something. The older two each got Webkinz, but Kenan has his heart set on Army guys.