A Visit to Lisa in Duluth

My friend Lisa got married last July and moved to Duluth, MN. I wanted to get in a visit before it got so cold up there in the Northern most parts of Civilization.

She used to tell me that she was a terrible cook but has completely proven herself to be a fabulous cook - she made me a fantastic Salmon dinner as well as a very nice Chicken dinner. But of course it is tradition to have pizza and cookie dough so we managed to squeeze that in too.

New Noses - well long ago we had a similar picture but with glass eyeball marbles. This type of thing is tradition.

And surprisingly we had a beautiful day "on the beach" - well we at least walked along the water front of Lake Superior. It was 81 that day!

Wine and Harvest Festival

Here we all are at the Cedarburg Wine and Harvest Festival. Sarah, Kelly & Josh, Kim & John, Erin & Eric. The dogs in respective order (Chloe, Mason, and Daisy)

Yum wine tasting! Erin, Sarah, Kelly, and Kim with the famous carmel apples from Amy's

Colleen's Baby Shower

I am super excited for my cousin Colleen (Browne) Temple who is expecting a baby. She is going to make an excellent mother I think. And being a nurse, she will also keep her husband's nerves from getting the best of him. This Colleen and her sister Mary at the shower.

This is my Mom, my Aunt Mary Joyce, and my Aunt Patty who also all came to the shower.

My Uncle Dave, Aunt Carol, Wen, and my cousin Mark. This is part of Colleen's family. We all went out to brunch Sunday morning. That weekend was my first time meeting Wen, Mark's girlfriend and she is so fun and nice that we are all hoping to get together in Chicago some weekend.

I also met Mary's daughter Caroline for the first time. She and I share grandma Gill's middle name of Rose. Here Sue (my mom's cousin), Aunt Carol, Mom, me, and Caroline are in Caroline's room where she was so excited to show us her big girl bed. She wanted us to know that her new baby cousin (Colleen's baby) was going to sleep in her crib. She was a hoot and very fun to interact with.

Cookies with the Calzadas

Whenever I have visited Susan and JC we always end up cooking amazing dinners! So I have a vision of their life of always eating gormet meals. So this time we had broiled salmon with a cucumber dill mustard sauce. So yummy. And of course we couldn't forget about dessert! So here is a picture of our homemade chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches. Yum. And of course Joshua is such a happy baby and came to his FourSquare Aunt Sarah with no qualms about it.

Beach Day

We have a tradition to get our family and the Richards family together for a day at the beach. The David and Katie loved the water. Her favorite thing ever was having me pull her around on my boogie board. Katie didn't really spend any time dry and David preferred playing in the sand. They both really enjoyed playing with Levi and Able and helping bury them in the sand after the yearly tradition of burying my brother-in-law Mike. Our picnic was a complete feast as usual.

Katie Under the Table

We have a birthday tradition in our family where you aren't supposed to talk while you eat your own birthday cake. If you do then the penalty is eating the rest of it under the table! So this year as we celebrated my niece Katie turning 5 we decided she was old enough to play this game too! I was impressed that she made it a quarter of the way through her cake before she said anything! Pretty amazing for such a talkative girl.

She got binoculars, which David liked right off the bat, and an old fashioned alarm clock, which she is very excited to learn how to tell time with!