June: part 1...yes, two months late

I seem to be getting pretty consistent about only blogging every three months or so, and then doing one big post for the whole month. It's sad that I'm consistently slow, but better late than never I suppose.

June. Our first June in Wisconsin. I should start by saying that this summer's weather has been AWESOME. (I write this in August, and it's 68 degrees outside! It hasn't been too hot for the park, and always perfect grilling weather...I digress.) The first two weeks of June we stuck around home - Hattie had her last week of 4K, topped off with an official graduation...which we find a little ridiculous, but oh well. It's a reason to celebrate I suppose. She was pretty darn proud of herself. I took a picture, but you can hardly see her, so it wasn't worth adding.

Next big project was the garden. Remember in May when my dad helped me build the planters? I finally got around the planting the last week of May, and built a little fence the first week of June to keep out lettuce-eating rabbits. The fence worked - we haven't had any more disappearing veggies. But the convenience of the raised bed is lost...weeding is a pain. Oh well.

We purchased a tent larger than we really need right now, but someday it'll be cramped. For now, it's nice and roomy, allowing Paul and I to use our air mattress whenever we camp. We had one backyard campout to break the tent in, and to get the girls excited about camping. I think they even stayed out the entire night.

After those first 2 weeks at home, we hit the road for 2 weeks, stopping first in Minnesota to visit Paul's brother Aaron and family. We camped with them along the Mississippi river - our first real camping experience. Kids loved it...can't wait to do it again.

Hiking the next day...overlooking the Mississippi, but hard to see

Niels did not love hiking

But eventually he bucked up...

...and fell right to sleep after the hike. What baby actually naps while camping? Love this kid.

6 kids at church the next day...not exactly relaxing.

And an amazing father's day feast prepared by Tandy. I am still dreaming of those stuffed potatoes.

Most of the week was filled with little outings to the park and such. Hattie and Anna loved spending so much time with Nora and Sara. They make quite a crazy group of girls.

One day we visited the Quaking Bog - quite literally, a bog that you can walk around on. I was nervous the entire time that Niels would step off the path and fall into the stinky, mushy water. But that boy loves following paths and was soon the trailblazer.

We were all pretty mucky and dirty from all the squirting and splashing. The adults loved it and the kids thought it stunk too much.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. Me and my kiddos all actually smiling at the camera!

Of course we went to a few parks

One of the parks was right next to a pond. Nora and Anna were quite confident heading out into the water. Nora is fearless by nature, and Anna is a follower of the strong-willed. So together they got into deeper water than I would have liked. Check out the zoomed out picture to see how far they really were.

We also stumbled across a puppet show in the park...

Our kids typically woke up much earlier than everyone else. And since our family (minus Niels) was all in one room, we begged Hattie to be as quiet as possible when she woke up. We often found her with Niels (also an early riser) watching "baby shows" on the iPad in the morning. Not the greatest habit, but it let us all get a little more sleep in the morning.

We enjoyed eating lots of yummy food while we were there...kids got Mac n Cheese and adults got Turkish cuisine :) We can't wait to go back again and see what else Minnesota has to offer!