An Ounce of Grace...: Minnesota and Wisconsin Friends

We spent Thursday travelling to Minnesota to visit our good friends Steve and Karen. It was a long day of driving, but we were heading East, so at least we were going in the right direction towards home. We stopped at Falls Park in Sioux Falls for a lunch picnic. The Falls were absolutely beautiful, right there in the middle of town. Wish we had something like that back home. We arrived in Minneapolis around 8:30 and had a fun time catching up with our friends. Their oldest is only a month younger than our Anna, so they hit it off right away. The younger girls got to have a sleepover inside, which was a nice change for them.

Friday was a very special day, Anna's 11th Birthday! Once I retrieved her from the house, she had a special breakfast treat and opened her present of all her favorite gf snacks. Then we all went to Mr. Steve's Chick-fil-A for breakfast and a tour. As a special birthday treat we went to Mall of America. We took their Anna with us. The 4 girls rode a roller coaster, in the mall! Then our Anna finally got her ears pierced. We had a delicious lunch at Rainforest Cafe' complete with a volcano for dessert.

For dinner we cooked out in the backyard. Then we carted the whole crew in the RV to a local park to see the waterfalls and walk around. We ended the night with a bonfire and s'mores. It was so much fun to catch up with our friends, see the kids play together and celebrate our special girl. She said this was a great birthday. Having a summer birthday can be hard because we never know where we are going to be, but she never misses out on the fun and feeling special.

We left Minnesota early this morning and headed to Madison, Wisconsin to see some other friends from church. They just had a baby last week, so I got newborn snuggles:) It was fun to catch up for a couple of hours before hitting the road to Chicago. I'll save the Chicago post for tomorrow though! We are one state closer to home!