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RV Spring Break: Las Vegas to Salt Lake City via the Utah Big 5

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For Spring Break this year we relocated an RV once again. Instead of taking one of the new factory vehicles from Indiana or Iowa, we found a shorter relocation from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City. That meant the perfect route to see Utah's Big Five National Parks. As much as I like picking up new vehicles I thought it would be nice to have a shorter drive so we didn't feel as rushed.  Day 1 - Las Vegas We started off our spring break trip in Las Vegas. When looking at hotels, I thought the kids would be blown away by Caesars Palace. It was somehow less than $200 a night, so why not? Scott wasn't sure about going out onto the strip at night with kids. Being that its spring break season there were other families out. And scantily clad women with their boobs hanging out. That's all hours of the day here.  We'd only briefly stopped by here during the day a couple years back. It was a short stop on our way from the Grand Canyon to Death Valley.  Brooke came back and raved a...
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A Quiet Memorial Day Weekend 2026

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This year would be a small crowd for Memorial Weekend. My siblings all had other plans I guess.  I was a bit bummed even if I do love quiet weekends at the cottage. Since we couldn't leave until the kids were out of school, I had us pick up sandwiches to eat on the way. Mine wasn't too bad.  Trader Joe's is always a bit weird. Everything has to be unique. Like why did the kids ham and cheese sandwiches have a log of butter? When we arrived I gave my mom her remaining gifts from Japan as a Mother's day gift. Grandpa's pancakes are the best. Theo has been excited to see how far along the upstairs was done.  It's getting there. Cool and gloomy, just like you imagine Memorial Day Weekend to be, I guess. Rummage saleing this year was a whole family affair. I found a cute luggage rack and Meadow got a painting of plates with tea cups.  Oh, and she was really excited to find a dictionary in the free pile.  She's very serious about her new dictionary. I'm pretty...
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Yard Sales and Farmers Market Bike Rides

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  Today was the day for our first rummage sale. Earlier in the week I messaged our tenant to let her know we were doing this. She responded letting us know she also signed up.  It was fun hanging out with Izzy while we waited for some customers. Theo tried to lure in customers like he worked at Little Ceasars. The kids made chocolate chip cookies and homemade lemonade. I think the kids were making more money than us.  We actually sold quite a bit. The kids made money on all the clothes and toys they sold. Everyone made a decent chuck of change.
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Another Doors Open Minneapolis

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I had two days planned for Doors Open. Scott wasn't feeling great on Saturday so we did what we could on Sunday.  Meadow was too busy crafting to join us.  I did teach her to make matcha before we left.  Our first stop was the Groveland Gallery. I was more curious to see the inside of the house after learning about it on my  1970's walking tour . You could only see the first floor. It had been a gallery so long that you could hardly tell it was once a home. There was a lot of traffic at the Sculpture Garden. We thought we'd go check out what was going on.
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Biking Southwest Minneapolis and the Mayday Parade 2026

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Hey it's the weekend of the year in Minneapolis! It's Mayday weekend. Another smiley breakfast to start the day. I think it's obvious who uses the living room the most in this family. Since we are replacing our sink with a pedestal sink I found us a cabinet to go over our toilet. Our bathroom is really looking good. It's not perfect, but it's a definite improvement from how it looked a month ago. Theo always tries to get a swing in before we go anywhere. Always fun to see a bike traffic jam on Blaisdell. Theo graduated to a bigger bike this year. He's still a little hesitant on his bike and unsure what to do with the gears. I'm pretty sure I had a simple single speed, back peddle braking bike at his age. In fact I was in second grade when I learned to bike.    Meadow with her new helmet. I've wanted to get one of these helmets (well not in pink), but now Brooke and Meadow have them. I guess I waited too long.
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A Solo Visit to Fergus Falls' Dairlyand and Back Home with the Fam

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I had to travel to St. Croix Falls over in Wisconsin and then all the way across Minnesota in Fergus Falls to shoot a couple of hotels. After my second hotel shoot I stopped by Dairyland before heading home. This was the correct choice. I even got a little tour of the place from the owner. Pretty cool to see the old radio switch board from when they were a proper drive-in.
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Bathroom Rehab Week 2

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Scott had texted me the paint samples he was looking at and I thought they looked good. However, the paint samples were nothing like what they showed on my phone in reality. We weren't too sure on the bottom paint color.  As you can tell, we like green.  Well, as you can see we decided to go with a gray-green that was actually what we were going for in the first place. Once the paint dried, the green was a lot mellower.
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Bathroom Rehab Week 1

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After a couple weeks off, I'm back to my early morning walks.  Theo's always playing Minecraft. They say the children yearn for the mines. While this picture makes our bathroom look pretty nice, the tin ceiling was peeling and rusting, the walls were bubbling up and the 1/2 wall needed some TLC. We had also patched some of the walls after we first moved in and never painted. It was time. First step was taking down the trim and figuring out how the tin ceiling was attached to the joists. I was so nervous that there was going to be either plaster falling apart or a super moldy ceiling underneath. This was actually going to be much easier to replace. 
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