Iowa Balloon Festival

We went to the Hot Air Balloon Festival in Des Moines, Iowa last weekend. My husband's sister and three of her kids came and camped with us and joined us for all of the festivities.

Mass Balloon launch

We got to go right up the fence and watch them blow them up and take off.

They slowly went up one by one.


We got to camp out and have some fun!

Always time to swim!

We also got to go to the parade in town and get lots of candy!

Lilacs Already?

We went out for an evening walk tonight and could smell these down the road. I can't believe that they are already blooming.

Henry Doorley Zoo

When we were in Omaha we went to the Henry Doorley Zoo. I had never been there before and we went with my husband's sister and her kiddos.

Here are some of the cool things that we saw.

Birthday Girl

Here are some photo's from my daughter's birthday party on Sunday. My "baby" turned 5 on Saturday and her party was on Sunday. She wanted a Rainbow Pony party, so we went with kind of a western theme. My friend made this AWESOME cake for her!! I had no idea what it would look like & we all loved it. Sophia got an Easy Bake Oven as a present and all of kids went "Wow" and one said "I've seen that on TV"! I love it! I had to take a picture of them all saying "Wowwww". There are actually six star candles on the cake because the kids wanted to put the extra candle on the pony's head.

Apple Orchard

We went to an apple orchard in White Bear Lake this past weekend with some friends of ours. it wasn't very sunny but we we still had a great time! Here are some of my favorite photos.

I am working a bunch of stuff for a craft sale and will post it all soon. Stay Tuned...

American Swedish Institute

My daughter & I went to the American Swedish Institute the other day because we got passes for free from the library & we kept hearing how fun it was. I wouldn't say it is set up for kids but they might enjoy looking at the queens dresses & such. In the basement they did have a place to get snacks and they had a kids area where they could dress up and a book nook.

Como Zoo & Gardens

We went to Como Zoo a couple of weeks ago & took TONS of photos. We had such a fun day! I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a day at the zoo so much. We took a lot of photos of plants and flowers. They also had the butterfly exhibit open which we had never seen before.

Here are some of my favs.

4th of July

Here are some of the photos from the 4th of July. We were up by St Cloud this past weekend and had lots of fun! We went to a parade, played games & did a bunch of swimming & tubing. We did make it to see some fireworks too.