Back to the cottage again. This time we enjoyed our tamales at a trailhead for ATV and snowmobile trails in Cameron. La Loma is still the best tamale shop in all of the Twin Cities. Perfect to bring along on a drive to the cottage. We decided to come up for Nolan and Harvey's birthday. We hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving and probably won't see them again until next summer.  It seemed like the best time to spend some time with the Gostishas and Farbers. With school back in person in Wisconsin, we'll have to reevaluate when we can see Brooke's sisters. Covid sucks.   Since we hadn't seen Chelsea in a long time we had more birthday presents to exchange. Theo got a new water bottle. Back in February, when it was his birthday, Chelsea asked me what Theo wanted/needed for his birthday. We had recently lost his water bottle in Mexico so I suggested he needed a new one. I obviously forgot all about this conversation. Earlier today while grocery shopping Scott picked...

Today seemed like a good day to go to the Como Conservatory. Once everyone had napped, got dressed and fed we were on our way.  Apparently Theo wasn't done napping. To get Meadow moving faster we promised her we would stop for donuts. We stopped quickly at Bogart's. Her new Snow White dress looked pretty cute under her big girl jacket. We had to settle for the lavender cake donuts. They were out of the good ones. Still good though. Meadow lucked out with the donut holes. Soon we go to the zoo and went into the very steamy rain forest room. Theo liked watching the fish. Meadow was not afraid of the snakes. Even Snow White was there. And ants. We cut through the gift shop and Meadow really wanted this bear hat scarf mitten combo. Then we stopped briefly in the kids room. Meadow asked why there was money in the fountain, we told her if you throw a coin in you can make a wish. She later wh...

It's finally warmed up here and my maternity leave is getting close to ending. I want to take Meadow to as many places as I can before I go back to work.  On a whim we decided to go over to the Minnesota Zoo. With the warmer temperatures I figured it would be busy on the weekend so we went on Friday afternoon. 

Blake gets free passes to all the Duluth attractions during the month of June. He works for the DECC .  I took advantage of this a few years ago before Meadow was born. For whatever reason we had been too busy the last few years so this year I said we have to go.  When we left Minneapolis there was a heat advisory and the temperature would get up to the mid 90's. When we arrived in Duluth it was 55...

Scott insisted on leaving to go to the cottage for Labor Day as soon as I was done with work. I biked to work in the morning while he packed up the car and picked me up when I was done.  We were going to camp along the way, but the only free site we knew of was three-quarters of the way there. Day 1 Meadow slept most of the way up so she was ready to party when we arrived. Nothing says party like sugary peanut butter and spread cheese. Blake wasn't at the cottage yet, but I made a rum and coke in his honor. We had some Chinese-style waffles for breakfast. The difference in texture is a game changer. Instead of playing outside Meadow pretended to use the toilet. Earlier in the week we biked with Emma and Olive (and June too, but he wasn't biking). I think after seeing Olive ride a bike Meadow was ready to get back on hers. Since then she has been insisting on going for bike rides everyday. Perfect timing I guess as we are doing a 30 Da...