Cath In Color

Today, Kelly & I were beach bums.  We called a friend of mine and she & her daughter joined us for a relaxing day at Cleary Lake in Prior Lake.   We haven’t had very much rain here, so the beach was very shallow which meant lots of seaweed.  The girls didn’t care for that too much.  The water was only thigh high on them.  They couldn’t really swim in that, so they fun building sand castles, and filling cups of water and throwing it at each in order to get wet.  They still had a good time.  I enjoyed just hanging out in a chair,  talking and drinking my diet coke.  It’s what summer is all about. 

We may try again tomorrow but at a different beach.  This weekend is definitely beach weather….sunny and 78 degrees!  I love it!!

The sun is shining and it’s about 77 degrees out.  The girls are horseback riding all day and I’ve got out my scrap-booking.  What a great day it is.  I’m working on Megan’s school album and I’m hoping that I can get pretty far today because I still have Kelly’s to get started on as well.   My friend Dawn is coming over later this afternoon to join me.  We’re going to scrap into the night!  I’m usually more motivated when she’s at the table with me.  I get too distracted when I’m home alone.  Like going on the computer and blogging about my day!

I went to bed last night and said good night to the girls, each in their own rooms.  When I woke up this morning, I peeked in and saw that Megan is sleeping in Kelly’s bed.  I know they were whispering to each other last night and then I heard a couple of bangs on the wall.  This must be the code for “come over to my room.”  I think they were playing their Nintendo’s together.    It must have gotten pretty late and Megan decided to stay.  These are the moments that just make a mom smile.  I know they argue at times, but I also know that they love each other very much!  sigh….

It’s been a quiet 4th of July this year.  The clouds have been out all day and then the rain came in around 4:00, which worried us  a bit regarding fireworks for tonight.  Then after the rain fell, the clouds parted and the sunshine came out!  It’s going to be a beautiful night for viewing the fireworks.   We need something to perk us up after a day of reading books, playing on the computer and the Nintendo’s, and napping on the couch.  It was a perfect day for that but tonight, we celebrate!

Nate & the girls made these yummy 4th of the July cupcakes last night.  They have red, white & blue frosting and blueberries & rasberries for on top.  So delicious & patriotic!

Happy Independence Day to everyone!

 Today I went out to my brother’s greenhouse to see what flowers, if any, that they had left.  When I called Mark to let him know that I was coming,  I asked if he had any petunias left.  He told me he had some and that he’d give me a great deal on them as well.  I asked, “What kind of deal?”  He told me the,  ”I’m tired of watering” deal!  So I basically filled up the truck with as many plants as I could fit.  I thought about leaving Kelly & her friend behind so I’d have more room, but they didn’t think that was such a great idea.  Hey, I would’ve gone back and got them at some point.  I did get myself a really neat hanging flowerpot of  impatiens, Kelly picked out a hanging pot filled with a flower called, Monkey tails and we got Nate some petunias for the front yard.   So it pays to wait and get the leftovers, I guess.

I had a great birthday today.  It started out by getting woke up with a phone call from my brother, Jim.  He forgets that I don’t work in the summer and thinks I’m up at 6:30 every morning.  But it was the thought that counts.  Then this afternoon the girls & I went and got pedicures.  That was so relaxing and fun.  I love it when the girls get all tickly while having their feet massaged.  So cute!!

Tonight, Nate made my favorite pizza….pizza margaritta.  It reminds me of Napa Valley, CA…one of my favorite places I’ve visited.  After dinner I had a couple of presents to open.  One was the newest Janet Evonovich book and a huge surprise was a brand new Ipod Nano!!  It’s orange, which looks really cool.  I have the old Ipod mini (which is huge & they don’t even make anymore), so this one holds over a thousand songs which will be nice.  Now I won’t have to take off one album to put on a new one.  I always have a hard time with that because I love all my music!

Thanks everyone for making my day so special!!

We got home around 1:00 today and we were all very happy to see our house.  We are used to such long drives, that four hours today was nothing.  We all had such energy when we got home.  Nate mowed the lawn, I went grocery shopping and started on the laundry.  We decided that it would be nice to have a home cooked meal, so Nate grilled some chicken.  It was nice not having to order from a menu.  I think we’re all going to sleep well tonight in our own beds. 

I hope you enjoyed reading my daily blog of our vacation.  I had fun sharing all of our fun activities.  I also have 150 pictures to share….if anyone is interested!!!  I’ll be scrap booking for a year on this one.

We made it all the way across North Dakota in one day!  Wow….that was so boring!  At least we had sunshine today.  We are so ready to be home tomorrow.  We’re getting an early start so that we’ll be home by early afternoon.  It’s been a great trip and the girls are the best travelers.   Not one complaint from either of them the entire trip. 

This picture  is from our first day.  We stopped at a historical marker in South Dakota.  This was where Lewis & Clark camped while on their journey.  The Missouri River is below. 

We saw our first rainfall today….and lots of it.  It was okay though, because we were done sightseeing and needed to drive 7 hours across Montana and into North Dakota.  The rain wasn’t too bad until our last 20 minutes of driving.  It really came down hard.  We needed a good carwash.  Once we got to our hotel, we dropped off our suitcases and headed to the hot tub and pool.  It was a great way to relax those tense muscles.

The picture above is an elk that we saw in Yellowstone.  I could’ve opened my car door, walked about five steps and petted him on those huge antlers.  Instead, I chose to take the safe route and roll down my window and take the shot from inside the car.  He was cool though.  I was hoping to see a moose at some point, but this was as close to that as I got.

Tomorrow we vacation in lovely Fargo, MN.  I see a hot tub and swimming pool in our future!

We spent our day in Montana today at the Museum of the Rockies.   This museum was filled with dinosaur bones that have been found here in Montana, some of them as recent as 2006.  The picture above is “Mike the dinosaur”.  Megan & Kelly said he reminded them of the dinosaur in the movie, “Night of the Museum.”  They have the largest displays in the country.  It took us three hours to go through this museum.  One very impressive display was the actual bones of a T-Rex layed out in the same way they were found.  It was missing it’s tail because it was found near a river and the water had washed away the tail bone and some toe bones.  The funny part about this enormous dinosaur was that it was discovered by a woman who was reading by the river while her husband was fishing!  She found a few bones that didn’t look familar to her, so she brought the bones to this museum and they told her what she had found.  Can you imagine!  She got to hang out at the “dig site” while archeologists found the rest of the dinosaur.  They also have the largest skull of a T-Rex ever found.  One tooth was larger than my hand!  The museum also included a Native American section, a treasure hunting section, and an old transportation/home life area.  The girls just couldn’t imagine life with a rotary phone!   They kept asking me, “How does that work mom?”  Ha! 

The museum was only a block away from the Montana State University (MSU), so Nate & I were curious to see their campus.  It was really nice with great architecture and a scenic backdrop of the Rocky Mountains and beautiful hillsides.  Nate said it looked a lot different than Oshkosh!  I agreed, Stout didn’t look this good either.  We tried pointing this out to Megan, but she wasn’t too interested.  She already has her heart set on going to college in Colorado.  I guess that would be cool too.

Since it’s our last night before heading back east tomorrow, we decided to have a nice dinner here in Montana.  We felt the urge to eat cattle!  Prime Rib for the parents, and hamburgers & meatballs for the girls.  We tried to get Kelly to eat a Bison burger, but she just couldn’t get herself to eat what she’s been seeing for the last three days.

Tomorrow we leave and head for North Dakota.  I’m expecting that the drive won’t be as picturesque as we’ve been seeing.  But no more winding roads!!!!!