Fun at the Lake

Here are a bunch of pictures from weekends at the lake.

Rylan and I kayaking

Mackenzie sleeping in Bakke's hammock swing

Taking a ride in the pontoon

I'm not entirely sure, but I think this picture was taken right before Nick crashed. This might have been the fall when he got whacked in the knee by the ski. It split his knee open and he probably should have had a few stitches, but we got by with some butterfly strips. He's still pretty sore, but I think it's healing fine. Cool picture though babe!

My 3 lovies!

These next ones were from the 4th of July weekend.

Playing in the "secret cave" in the boat.

The whole crew at the Bakke's

This last one wasn't at the lake, but it was too cute. Have you seen the new limited edition Huggies? They look like jeans, so cute under dresses! I couldn't resist taking a picture!

The Farm!

I had a class reunion in my hometown about 2 weeks ago, so I took the kids and we stayed at my parents' farm for 5 days. We had a busy week and did lots of fun stuff.

We went to the State Park one day to see the bison and play at the beach.

Grandma and Grandpa helped to build an awesome castle!
Mackenzie quickly held up her title of "destroyer". (her outfit was destroyed too)
Thank goodness Rylan is patient with her and just kept working to fix it!

One afternoon, Rylan and I had a date day. Mackenzie stayed with Grandma while Rylan and I had a day out to ourselves. We first went to a waterfall park just to walk around and look at the waterfalls. Rylan was so excited to go to the top of the look-out tower.


He demanded that I take pictures of him jumping off the rocks.
And then more pictures as he rested in the grass.

After the waterfall park, we went and saw Toy Story 3. It was so cute! The last movie we took Rylan to was about a year and a half ago and it didn't go well. He didn't sit still, got bored and we ended up leaving early. He sat perfectly through this one. When it was over, he turned to me and asked, "what's on next?" He was bummed that we had to leave!

After the movie, we went to another park to play, got some groceries and headed back to the farm. This is what he looked like when we got there.

(new umbrella, can you tell?)

One of the kids' favorite things at the farm is playing with the outside faucet. Buckets of water are always fun!

Mom and I took the kids to a pool/water park one afternoon and we had so much fun. I didn't know how Mackenzie would do, since she didn't like swimming lessons very much, but she loved it! We had to watch her so close because she would just start running deeper and deeper and then fall down and go under. She's definitely the fearless one!

The last day we were there, we went to Chuck E. Cheese's for lunch. I've never taken the kids there and they had a blast! I was glad to have help from my parents though.

Never too old to have fun! (not that you're old dad, you understand!)

Heading West

We took a trip out West to the hunting ranch with my parents a few weeks ago. We had a wonderful time just enjoying the outdoors. On our way out there, we stopped in Bismarck at the zoo and met up with some good friends.

The cutest welcome committee I've ever seen!

They would have spent all day feeding goats. Their giggles were the best!

Checking out the prairie dogs from the inside.

Watching the river otter put on a little show with Mary and Julia.

Rylan loved the bears, but he thought it would be funny if we took a picture when he wasn't looking. What a goof!

They have a great tiger habitat with tunnels to get a closer look. The awesome white tiger was showing off, lying on the top of the tunnel.

The Golden Tabby tiger was close to the glass too, wow, they are huge!
Despite one little mishap with a ground squirrel, we had a great time and it was fun to hang out with Blake, Mary, and their adorable kiddos!

After the zoo, we headed on to the ranch and had a wonderful time with my parents. Our big activity for the trip was floating down the river on tubes, but I don't have any pictures of that, as we obviously didn't take the camera with us on the tube. We had beautiful weather, but we ended up walking much of the river instead of floating. A low river paired with a slow current makes for a LONG ride. There were also times when the wind was actually blowing us back upstream! But we had a great time just hanging out together. Here are some pictures from our vacation.

Kenzie insisted on wearing her life jacket in the house to play.

We spent some time checking out the ducks and chickens in the newly remodeled chicken coop. Rylan loved to chase them around and pet them, but didn't really like to hold them. Mackenzie on the other hand, will try everything!

Awe, cute duck.

Playing on the new climbers for the chickens.

You hold it Mom, I'll just pet it.

So excited!

So soft!

I love this next collection of photos! We caught a crayfish in the river and Kenzie wanted to check it out. She was a little cautious at first, but when Grandpa showed her it was alright, she was all about it. This girl has no fear!

Gotta have a picture in the tractor wheel

Blowing dandelions

Riding in the tractor with Daddy

So tired, fell right asleep on Grandpa's lap WITHOUT a binky or blanky!
The last night we were there, there was severe weather and we ended up in the basement for a while fearing there were tornadoes nearby. I never did hear if any tornadoes actually touched down anywhere, but we had enough damage from racquetball sized hail. Here is some of what I quickly picked up a good 20 minutes after it fell. The corn was damaged and the house and all vehicles were full of dents. We were all fine though, and the animals weren't hurt, so it could have been much worse.