Trip to Minnesota

We just got back from a 2 week vacation up to the land of 10,000 lakes and had such a fun time up there with my parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. My mom is originally from Minnesota and when her father passed away a few years ago, she inherited a beautiful piece of property located right on a lake. My parents have been saving up and making plans to build a cabin (well, it's more like a house but we'll call it a cabin) and this summer is the summer they are building it! They had a company build the house for them but dad needed some help with building the garage, staircases, basement, doing the electrical, plumbing, etc., so we were more than willing to fly up there and help them out! We most definitely took a last minute advantage of Ethan flying free and flew out the evening of July 8th (the day before his 2 year birthday)! We arrived super late into Minneapolis, stayed in a hotel there for like 4 hours and then hopped on a Greyhound bus early the next morning to head down to Lakefield, MN which is about 3 hours away from the cities. We have decided that buses definitely attracts some very odd people, but it was a lot of fun and Ethan did great on it! Once we arrived in Lakefield, my parents picked us up and took us back to my Uncle Mike and Aunt Donna's place (which is the same place where my mom grew up). Mike and Donna were so awesome to have us stay in their home and I seriously don't think I have ever eaten such good food (or so much) before! We had amazing meals for every meal which was always followed by some sort of incredible, mouth-watering dessert. I'm pretty sure I packed on a few pounds.. it's just too hard to say no!
Anyways, so later that night we celebrated Ethan's 2nd birthday!

Here he is opening up the presents..

and finding a Buzz Lightyear action figure!!!

and also a Woody doll, both from Grandma & Grandpa Sims!!! Despite his face, he was sooooo excited to see these two toys!

And they have went to bed with hmi every night since, with Wall-e close by too :)

And he also got an Elmo doll from his Great-grandpa & Grandma Sims. This Elmo is really cool and will sing, dace , tell jokes, stories, etc. Ethan loves it! Thanks Great-grandparents!

After presents, we ate some yummy angel food cake with frosting and strawberries. Because Ethan doesnt get sweets too often, he prety much devored his peice as fast as he could. Check out that mouthful!

Ethan also had a lot of first time experiences with seeing all sorts of farm animals, riding super big tractors and semis, playing with toy tractors in the mud and being absolutely filthy at the end of the day! This place is like little boy heaven, he loved it!

We went out in the pasture and saw hundreds of cows!

They got pretty close to us too!

He was a big helper with grandma in collecting the chicken eggs


and he loved daily 4-wheeler rides as well


We have decided that we need to buy him some tractors and more trucks because he couldn't get enought of them up there!


Anytime this baby would start up, Ethan could hear it from anywhere and would come running over as fast as he could saying, "Ride! Ride!" Grandpa was always so good to let Ethan ride with him wherever he went.

This is their cute little house! We are so excited to come up and visit my parents here during the summers (and only the summers) :)

And here is the beautiful view of the lake from the back of their house. Not bad, eh?!

Dad and Justin working on building the egresses for the windows..

Justin with the finished product

I had no idea how much work it takes to build your own home! These boys worked pretty much from sun up to sun down if the weather permitted. Here is dad and Justin clearing away some trees which then gave us the beautiful lake view shown above


My Uncle Mike was out bailing hay and was kind enough to take Ethan out with him! He looks mad in all these pictures, but I promise he was loving it!

My cousin, Brock, took Ethan out on the tractor as well..


Uncle Mike also let Ethan play around on the big semi-truck. Ethan's favorite part? Honking the horn of course! And man, is that thing loud!


Ethan was definitely hard at work too...
He loved to steal everyones snacks! Here he is caught in the act!

He spent a lot of time watching the tractors at work. He sat here and watched this tractor haul dirt for probably 45 min. He was mesmerized!

and yes, it was actually cold the last few days we were there. Everyone else said it was "perfect" but im pretty sure it was freezing for this TX/AZ girl!


We had so much fun while we were there and I loved that our little boy could be just that, a little boy! I love that he loves to play in the mud, dirt, and is obsessed with tractors! Thanks everyone for making our trip so much fun and we will look forward to coming up next summer as well!