Minnesota Bound

It took 8 years to make it back to the great state of Minnesota for a visit. 8 years! That did included a trip to Wisconsin in 2018 for Kevin and Rachel's wedding. It also included a 4 year stretch  of Bay Area life, AND, of course, Covid!!! The world has changed a lot since 2014. So many beautiful souls lost since we last visited. 😥

After literal years of not being able to visit with our family, 2022 has been filled with an abundance of family time. In addition of our trip back to Minnesota, each of our children have made at least one trip out to California to visit, as well. So much joy fills this mother's heart. 

The following photos were taken just a couple of days apart. 

The first photo was taken in California on our own personal holiday, Laborgiving. A holiday I started years and years ago. What was at the time, the weekend before school started, we would cook up an entire Thanksgiving type dinner. Then, as we prepared clothes, backpacks and snacks for the coming months of school, we had a delicious meal, PLUS nummy leftovers to munch on. 

Tessa, Adam and grandbabies, along with Thomas, a surprise visitor from NYC, and Natalie all joined us for this year's edition of Laborgiving.🦃 

Then, we got on a plane and headed off to Minnesota. This photo below shows us after dinner at Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis with the rest of the kids, Three grandbabies(not so babylike, anymore). Kevin and Rachel, Hilary and David, Katy, Natalie and us. Seeing the entire family 'together' within in hours of of each event almost makes up for the long, lonely years apart.

In the years we have been away, each of our Minnesota residing children have purchased their own homes. Thus, we got the pleasure of see each of their homes personally for the first time. First, we stayed at Kevin and Rachel's place in Minneapolis, just a few blocks away from Lake Nokomis. Being that close to the airport, they kindly picked us up at 2:00am on Wednesday morning. 

After a homemade breakfast buffet and a walk around the neighborhood, we took a ride up to Rush City to spend the day and night at Katy and Katrina's house. A quick trip over to Cambridge to place flowers on Molly, Doc and Shirlee's gravesites, we headed back down to Minneapolis. We did return back up to Katy's place on Monday with Hilary to help move some things out to the dump and build a fairly garden. 

 

Back in the cities, we met up with our three grandbabies (11, 5 and 3 yrs old) for the first time. The entire gang shared a  meal at the seasonal restaurant, Sea Salt Eatery yards away from Minnehaha Falls. 

While waiting for the girls to get out of school, we spent the day with Hilary. No trip to the Twin Cities would be complete without a visit to the world famous Mall of  America.  

After a couple hours at the country's largest mall at 5.6 million square feet, we head over to Plymouth to see Hilary and David's house for the first time. 

We spent time building puzzles with the littles before baking monster cookies and mixing up some ooey gooey chocolatey puppy chow with them, as well. 

 

The plan to help get Hilary's house ready for the Minnesota Bound get together on Saturday went awry as we spent the evening relaxing with the family while David prepared us grill steak salad for our meal. Natalie read to the girls while Rachel played games with them. Hilary taught me how to crochet stuffed pumpkins to help decorate for the season. The mellow chaos reminded me of many holidays from days gone by.

 

Hilary and David rented us a room at the Marriot hotel a block away. This allowed us all to have a swimming adventure before a day filled with mowing and raking and preparing for friends and relative to visit us. Will little spare time, it was great to have everyone come to join us for a great evening. A bonfire was built early and burned all day long. Oh my goodness, do I miss the scent of wood fires burning on cool autumn day.  

 

A small frog mistook the fire as a toasty spa and leapt in to warm himself. The girls were very sad for the poor little guy. While I had time to bake up a batch of gramma gibbons beans, David did the majority of the barbequing for the while group. As the night wore down, and many headed on home, a screen was setup in the darkened backyard to watch Pinocchio. With the bonfire still burning, and the grandbabies snuggled up in blankets on the wicker sofa, we closed out another delightful evening in Minnesota.

Our busy Saturday rolled over into Sunday in the park with family. Como Park and Zoo, that is. With a wagon full of kids, we watched the seals, visited with the primates and saw timber wolves walking through the woods. 

After going none stop for days, we finished our Sunday watching the sunset over Lake Nokomis. And then ice cream! Another beautiful peaceful evening the family.

As mentioned before, we spent Monday morning helping Katy out in Rush City. A quick trip back to Minneapolis for lunch at Punch Pizza and a walk across the Stone Arch Bridge. My favorite touristy spot in the cities.

 

If Monday wasn't already full of fun and family, we were treated to Brazilian Barbeque to finish off the day. So tasty. The wait staff walked around the dining room cutting seared meats from long metal skewers. 

On our last full Minnesota day, we chilled out at the Lake. Lake Nokomis, again. We stopped at a craft cheese shop for sandwiches and...cheese. By bringing our own picnic out to the lake, we were able to spent time just watching the ducks swim and the leaves change. 

What could be better than another Minnesota bonfire? Nothing, of course. This time, we built a fire in Kevin's backyard. With the flames of the fire snapping away, we warmed up in their backyard hot tub. All three girls spent times cuddling with the family ferrets, and of course Leko, Kevin and Rachel's new pupperdo. 

The last night in Minnesota before our early, early morning flight was the perfect evening to complete our amazingly grand family filled trip to the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Truly hope to be back again before another 8 years passes us by.