Our weekend was super fun, and crazy and hectic and loud ... as only it can be when you have 10 people in your house another 2 down the road at the local Super8.
Tracy's parents and sister Tammy's family was in town for 5 days for Georgia's zone swimming meet. You need to qualify for zones and its a step above state. Georgia qualified in 7 events but swam in 6 since you are limited to 2 events per day. The meet as at the U of M and the facilities were amazing!! A 50 meter pool, impressive. She did really well, shaving time off her best times and even placing 4th and getting to stand on the podium. We are VERY impressed.
Tammy, Jeff and Grandma/Grandpa spent most of the weekend shuttling back and forth from our house to the U. No easy feat with the state of road construction going on in MPLS right now and I think each drive was an adventure in map reading and getting to know the lay out of MPLS back roads. But, they were troopers and there for everyone of Georgias big events.
The rest of (our family and Joey/Herbie) kept busy with lemonade stands, a trip to the ropes course/zip line at the Mall of America, a killer game of "family" outside with the neighborhood kids, 3 games of the world series (again with the neighbors) - played in our backyard and commentated play by play by Jimmy, the movie (& dinner) Inside Out (get ready to cry), bonfires, celebrating Tammy/Jeff's 17th anniversary and full blown sleep overs every night in Billy's room. (note to self, letting 4 kids ages 10-12 sleep in the same room, 4 nights in a row is a recipe for disaster and a hangover for EVERYONE involved)
We ate great food (hamburger grill out and lasagna - but not as good as Jim Fellows) and even had a fun "game" of ...finish Grandmas joke (as context, Grandma tells the same jokes over and over so every time she went to tell one, the kids tried to beat her to the punch line),
In the midst of all of this Tom (with math help on angles from Tracy) build the biggest, most sturdy 12 person picnic table you have ever seen. Seriously, if there is a tornado, we are all taking shelter under this thing. It literally weighs more than 2 people can lift and will be a permanent fixture on our deck for a LONG time. We both love it and our happiness is proportional to the pain/frustration in making it and struggling through leg angles and lengths. but... as Dora would say - we did it!!
By the time Monday rolled around, we were all exhausted but as Joey said when he got home - Wow, that was a fun weekend:) Another notch in "the perfect summer" for our kids....
Family rocks.
Billy zipline
Herbie zipline
Kay zipline
Ropes course at the ceiling of Mall of America
The worlds most awesome picnic table
