With the kids finishing up school we had to treat them to Sushi Train. They picked the downtown location, which meant a family bike ride.  Theo asked why we don't go to this location anymore. The other location is more convenient but we agreed to go the one downtown this time.  I swear we did in fact eat sushi. We seem to always miss strawberry picking season. This year I was determined to go. Afton Apple was the first place I found that was open for the season.  One of their old fields that they were ready to retire was producing a lot of fruit this year. 

Love my porch breakfasts.  One of our neighbors had put out a notice that they'd be cleaning up the boulevard in the morning and anyone could join. I was delighted to see so many neighbors come out to help. Even met some new people after 4 years of living here. 

  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.

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.

Theo had his friend Ben come over and they skated for a couple hours. Snack break.  I was surprised to see the kids still outside when I got home from work. Theo has been loving the rink this year.

I  woke up to a nice birthday note from Meadow.  I had some PTO to use, it was Scott's birthday, the weather was supposed to be unusually warm and Blake and Daniel were in town. Since our ice rink was melting we thought we'd go for a bike ride.  

We needed to go grocery shopping, but luckily we had some pancake mix leftover from our camping days. We used our Nordic Ware pancake pans that feature funny shapes. You might be able to spot an emoji or three.

We were back on the road as soon as we were home from our epic trip to the BWCA. You didn't think we'd miss Labor Day Weekend at the cottage? We were 10 minutes into our drive when Scott realized he'd forgotten his camera. He never forgets! He messaged Blake and Daniel asking if they could bring one.

Meadow is always constructing something with leftover boxes.

We had planned on going up to Duluth again, but decided to instead spend some time around the cities. Theo has been slowly practicing his walking.

Smoothie face cutie. This kid gets in so much trouble, but he's darn cute.

A week removed from Brooke's surgery and with our new-to-us Yuba Mundo Lux nearly assembled we were ready for an adventure. Also all the snow had mostly melted and the roads were finally clear.

I'm past my due date and still no baby. So we might as well try to have some fun.

We thought we would head up to the cottage one last time before winter. As usual we arrived late on Thursday night. With that we could get out of the way for any showings and a Sunday open house. You should really buy our house. It's been great to us and is in tip-top shape.

I surprised everyone for breakfast with cloud eggs . Actually I showed Meadow what I'd be making right away and she said no. When they came out of the oven she had to have one of course.

I kept telling Scott when we paint the ceiling in the kitchen either him and Meadow need to go away for the weekend or we need to plan it when we don't want to cook. He went ahead and started anyway making cooking a little difficult. Things would never get done around the house if I put them on Brooke's timetable.

We had one sweet potato left so why not make breakfast tacos again. This time I roasted the sweet potatoes the night before and reheated it in the morning to make it faster. Brooke is a breakfast goddess.

We planned on canoeing at this point, but we first needed some paddles. Brooke made us pancakes to prepare for our big ride. Griddle cakes for our Pancake Bear.

After doing the 30 days of biking challenge last fall we wanted to try it again in the spring. Due to a 14 hour work day this month, that will prevent me from biking, I opted out this time. It doesn't mean I can't still bike with Scott on day 1. What a team player. We've really enjoyed using the new buffered bike lanes on Washington since they were completed last year. I just makes you feel so damn cosmopolitan. Of course we went to Meadow and I's favorite place: the library. But first we stopped by Macy's Flower Show. After seeing how much Meadow loved the flowers at the Como Conservatory I thought she might enjoy this. It was super crowded, but Meadow still enjoyed the plants.  The kid loves smelling flowers. Hello, city of skyways. I went to take some photos for my documentary photography project, the Downtown East Project , while Brooke and Meadow perused the library. After biking around the artist former...