All in One Week

I'll start last Thursday when we went to Valleyfair, well actually the night before I took the boys to Shakopee where the Rosenbergers were staying at a hotel and went swimming and sliding with them. The next day we did a full day at Valleyfair. Wyatt was home with a temp and a very sweet babysitter. Gavin was not tall enough, nor would he have been brave enough to go on the big rides. Jacob was tall enough for most of those, including Wild Thing. It was a nice day out and hot enough for us to enjoy some time at the waterpark there too. We arrived at 10 and when I left with Gavin at 7, he was crying that he didn't want to leave, but I think he was asleep by the time we got out of the parking lot. Rosenbergers brought Fred and Jacob home about an hour later. I spent most of the day with Gavin and I think the small rides are rougher than the big ones, all that spinning I can no longer handle.

Friday night Fred took Jacob and Gavin to the Spy Kids movie. Wyatt and I stayed home, he fell asleep at 5:30 and slept until the next morning at 7AM. He slept similarly the next night when Fred was home with all the boys and I was in Waconia "helping set-up for a baby shower". I say that in quotes, because we were very unproductive, but did lots of gabbing and made it out for a bite and a drink.

Sunday, Becky and Kari hosted a shower for Kim. I provided the games. I froze little babies in ice cubes and hung them in plastic cups to see whose baby would be "born" (unfrozen) first. I also made bags with the letters "Baby Gillespie" on them and found baby items to put in each bag that started with the letter on the bag. Both pretty fun games. For Kim's present I attempted to create art and was pretty happy with my results. My mom had made her quilt, so I had some fabric samples to match the art to. Now I am trying to figure out how to make art for in my house, it was so fun to do.

Art Imitates Fabric

Monday night, Fred got a break and got to go to his fantasy football draft. Then I was off again on Tuesday night to Katy Perry. I met Jolene at the Mall of America for some sushi at Crave and then we went to the concert with Adrea and Kim. It was a fun concert, entertaining except for the odd middle "karaoke" bit. They were free tickets from Fred's work, so it was well worth it!

Kim, myself and Jolene at Katy Perry, thanks for taking the pic Drea.

Katy Perry and dancers

On Wednesday night Fred's mom and nephew Jesse came down and we headed to the Twins game. Jolene's dad threw out the first pitch, so they had some extra tickets and we got to sit amongst all the Boeckermanns. The game was a loss, but the boys were all really good during the game and it was much better than last year's Mother's Day outing.

At the Twins game.

Jesse

Gavin

Jacob

The view from the Skyline Deck

Yesterday was the first day of the State Fair, and we were there at about 9 ready to eat the day away. After a some cheese curds, crab fritters, cini minnies, a corn dog and smoothies the kids got their faces painted and Drea got some body art.

Drea, Maddie, Gavin, Jacob and Isaac

Then we hit the "Sing-a-long" area and did some giant karaoke. On the way to Little Farm Hands, we had some walleye cakes. On our way to the 4-H building we had a twisted sausage (sausage on a stick, with spiral cut potato surrounding it), apple dumping, footlong hotdog, and strawberry and chocolate malts. After the 4-H show we headed to the food building for catfish and fries, caramel apples, pineapple, mcRib sandwich, bull bites, eggroll, onion rings, corn fritters, popcorn, taffy, deep fried cookie dough, and crab cakes.

After "lunch", Fred and Joe took the kids on the skyride while the women got to go to the Horticulture building to buy knives, State Fair knives are the best. We watched the parade while sharing a gyro and more cheese curds. Some rode the space needle. We ventured into the International Bazaar, so Maddie could find a new bag. There we had some cinnamon roasted almonds and strawberry cheesecake on a stick. Then Fred and I took the kids on Ye Old Mill, a log ride that is mostly in a dark tunnel (98 years old, but very Disney-like with all that dark). After that we got the bucket of cookies and Adrea found some gummy candy and gelato on the way to the DNR building to look at the fish pond. We made our way to the Giant Slide for a couple rides down. Then Fred took Jesse to the Midway and Joe, Dre and I took the kids to the kidway while Lys and Mom checked out the Grandstand merchandise.

By this time it was about 5 and the kids were about done. Fred, being the awesome husband and dad he is, volunteered to take our kids home and let me hang out with Adrea for a while. We went to watch Lori and Julia, a radio show and we made them a list of what we'd eaten that day, which they read on air - only pronouncing mine and mom's names correctly, but oh well. It'd been a while since we'd eaten, so we went to find some cheese on a stick, we didn't find a stand with the pepperjack option and the American cheese version was not as good. We found the breakfast lollipop, sausage surrounded by pancake on a stick, yum. Then went to weigh in at the Health Booth and check our visceral fat. Finding that we weren't in danger yet, we got some ice cream. I wandered thru the Fine Arts building while Drea checked out the Eco-Experience, then we watched a little of the County Fair Talent contest. For one last "treat" we sought out the chocolate covered jalapeno, took one bite each and declared it disgusting. Some chocolate milk helped cool our mouths, we gave away one of the 3 jalapenos they give you, warning these strangers how disgusting it was and headed out of the fair. At the end of the night, it was not my stomach that hurt, but my feet.