Gami is here!

Gami is here! Callie has had so much fun having another "playmate." Gami has been quite the reading buddy, and she has watched a number of Dora the Explorer episodes.

This is before church. Callie is in the little dress that Gami made for her. It fits perfectly! She'll enjoy wearing it this winter.

The Wheel

For those of you who don't know, Charlie absolutely loves the Wheel of Fortune. He's pretty good at it too. So, when we found out that the wheel mobile was coming to our area, we jumped on the opportunity to try out for the show. A couple of fridays ago, we headed up north to the Grand Casino in Hinkley, Mn. We were hoping that Charlie would get the chance to try out. As it ended up, about 2000 other people had the same idea! Needless to say, our hopes of Charlie getting randomly selected to play a mock game on the stage kinda dwindled as we were waiting with the mob of people. He did attend one of the 1 1/2 hour long programs. They ended up calling about 30 people to the stage. Unfortunately, he was not one of them. So, our big opportunity passed, but at least we can say we tried.

Callie and I tried to kill time in the casino while we waited on Charlie. No one under the age of 18 was allowed in the auditorium which was unfortunate. But, we survived much to the help of the video arcade.






Probably the highlight of the trip was our family pic. with good ole Pat and Vanna! That's really all we have to show from our Wheel of Fortune adventure.

Twins Game

A week ago Sunday, we went to a Minnesota Twins game. The Twins have a new stadium, so it was fun to see it. A friend of Charlie's gave us the tickets, so it's extra nice when you don't have to buy them yourself.

Callie did great, and I was shocked that she slept for over an hour in my arms! I really enjoyed it actually. She doesn't do that much anymore. The only downside was that she drooled all over the front of my shirt! Thankfully it dried before we had to leave.

State Fair

We went to the Minnesota State Fair last week. The fair is a big deal up here. I think this year was a record setting year in terms of people who attended. We decided to go this year because we thought Callie might be able to enjoy it somewhat, and she's young enough to still get in free. We saw baby animals at the Miracle of Birth Center. Every year they have this exhibit, showing animals that have just given birth, are about to give birth, are in labor, or about to be in labor. It's really neat. Callie kept saying "Baa Baa" when she was with the sheep.



There was also a Pet Barn where they display different breeds of dogs. The day we were there was "Golden Retriever Day." We caught a little bit of a dog show. Callie loves dogs.

Probably the neatest thing that they have for kids at the fair is called "Little Farm Hands." It's this exhibit where the kids can tie on an apron and pretend to be farmers. They walk through and plant pretend seeds, milk pretend cows, ride tractors, harvest their crops, take them to the farmer's market, make money, and buy something in the grocery store. Callie bought a little apple with the dollar she "earned." That's what she's eating here while she's sporting her little corn cob hat.

A couple of videos

This first one is Callie's reaction to seeing Jennifer after she got back from her trip to Hawaii this summer. She was so happy:


And this one is a video of the girls swinging that we mentioned in the previous post:

Staff Retreat

A little over a week ago, we went with our staff team to Lake City, MN (apparently it is the birthplace of waterskiing). We stayed in some villas on the Mississippi River for a few days. We had fun playing in the park nearby, going on walks, and playing a round of golf. Callie really enjoyed getting to play with her friends for three days straight. This retreat is helpful for us every year as a time to rest and refuel before the school year starts.

Our whole staff team before we went on a little "boat cruise" on the Mississippi.

A friend of ours on staff took a few pictures of Callie.

One day she carried this stick around for a little while and had a good time with it.

There were only 2 baby swings at the park, so we had to improvise and Maddux and Callie had to share a swing.


The sunset from the boat.