Vacation in the USA
It was
quite wonderful to be in MN for the summer again. It had only been 6 months since we were over
there for Christmas, and it was very obvious that the kids were even more excited
and comfortable with everything. The
flight over went amazingly well. We had
heard about lots of delays, cancelations, and problems with staff in Amsterdam,
but everything went super well and smoothly. After an hour or so Benjamin asked if he could
sleep, so he slept for a few hours on Sørens lap! Silas and Liam did not sleep a wink. They all watched movies or played games the
whole time. Airplane days are days where
they get unlimited screen time, and they loved it! It was SO easy….but again
that’s easy for me to say as there was a
boys row and girls row for our family.
Meaning we had a block of 4 seats together and then 1 seat across the aisle. It was like a dream come true for me, the
first 1.5 hours. I could just watch a
movie and relax…but after that I couldn’t help but start feeling like I was
missing out and sad I couldn’t see what they were all up to…Ha ha!
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| Boys row! |
We had a
slow day the first day and hung out at home with Lizzie and my Dad. Uncle Johnny came over too, and it was SO
nice to see them again.
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| Picking raspberries |
Other things
we did the first week were:
- Go to Como zoo with our friends Anna and Jason and their 2 children. It was quite hot, but not too bad. We saw all the animals and then went to the
park to eat lunch and hang out. The kids
all played on the playground, and Silas was amazing at playing with their 2
year old Levi and having fun with him.
We hadn’t seen them for 3 years, so it was so nice to catch up!
-Played
lots of golf in the backyard! My Dad and Liz have a net set up in the backyard
with a little golf pin and cup as well. So
there was lots of golf practice for all ages.
- We also
went to the beach and went paddleboarding with my cousin Emmy. MN hot weather is never so bad when you get
to the lake and have ice cold lemonade to bring along! (thanks Lizzie)
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| Day with Emmy |
- We also
had some downtime where we just hung out and played games, with whoever would
play with us.
Then it was
time to head up north for a few days. On
the way we stopped at our friends Holly and Dave’s who we used to stay with
before they moved. It was fantastic to
spend the day with them and see their new house and the kids could play
together. We were treated like royalty
and even had our own suite out back to sleep over in! We played and hung out and went to their
local parade, which was quite short because it was canceled after 30 minutes
due to an incoming storm.
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| One of the kittens at Holly and Dave's |
Sunday
morning we got up early, had a great breakfast and said goodbye to our
friends. Then the GPS said 5½ hours to destination
– The Nor’Wester on The Gunflint Trail in northern MN. It was a long drive, but it went pretty
well. We made a few short stops a long
the way, including Palisade Head, a beautiful rock cliff on the north shore of
Lake Superior.
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| Palisade Head |
While up
north we had a great time. We spent some
time at the cabin hanging out with Grandpa and Lizzie, and also went canoeing, hiking
and lots of swimming. Benjamin is the
next generation fish of the family. He
could swim all day if we let him! The kids
also fished a lot and Benjamin and Silas both caught fish – Silas in fact a big
Walleye!
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| 5 people in one canoe! |
One story
that needs telling from up north is the story of our portage. We were staying on Poplar Lake, but really
close to this lake was another lake that supposedly had good fishing, so we
planned to go to that lake. That,
however, meant making a portage (where you get out of the canoe, grab all your
stuff – including the canoe, and walk over a piece of land to the other lake,
where you put everything back and paddle on!).
Anyway, this portage was quite short so we were up for it. We knew there were a lot of mosquitos on shore,
but with all the chaos of getting the stuff out of the canoe, Søren and I didn’t
think about putting bug spray on. Silas
had walked up ahead with Grandpa and Lizzie, so he didn’t get any spray
either. After 1 minute of walking
through the forest, Søren and I were complaining about the bugs…it was super
hot, so we were sweating and you couldn’t swat the bugs away because our hands
were full. We could just feel the mosquitos on our entire body, biting
us and swarming all over. All of a
sudden Liam and Benjamin, who had been up ahead a bit, run towards us screaming
about all the bugs! So we had to pick up their stuff and run with them. When we finally get to the end of the portage we see Silas
and he is soaking wet and crying. He had
gotten attacked so much by the mosquitos that he jumped into the water to get away
from them. Silas’ arms and leg, neck and
face, were completely covered in mosquito bites. The bites swelled up so much, you could almost
not see any part of his body that was not swollen with white. He had over 75 bites would be my guess. I got quite emotional just looking at him.
Poor guy. Luckily we had some anti-itch spray
with, and we all started feeling better pretty quickly. We definitely didn’t
forget the bugspray after that!
We also spent our 14th wedding anniversary up north. We decided to go on a hike to "Honeymoon Bluff", a quite fitting destination, we thought. That same day we took another hike to a large rock that is naturally magnetic. A different evening we also drove to a Moose viewing trail to look for Moose. Benjamin was sure we were going to see one and was so excited. Unfortunately we did not see one, and he was really bummed, as were we all. We had 3 great days up there in the wild and hanging out at the cabin and in the water!
On the way
home we stopped in Grand Marais to throw rocks in Lake Superior, and also
stopped at Gooseberry falls to see the waterfall there. It was nice to stop at a few attractions on
the long drive home.
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Lake Superior in Grand Marais
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| Gooseberry Falls |
Other
things of mention:
Silas and
Søren went golfing with Uncle Johnny. Silas
had a great time and enjoyed learning from his quite professional Uncle!
We played
Minigolf 2 different times. Once at Mall
of America with Julie and Josh and their kids.
And once with Johnny, Grandpa and Lizzie in Minnetrista. It was fun to see Benjamin and Liam really
concentrate and have a lot of fun.
We stayed a
weeks time with our friends Julie and Josh in St. Paul. We had some nice slow mornings at “home”, playing games, etc, and
also did a bit of shopping some days. It
was really fun to watch their 3 kids (who are the same age as ours) play with
our 3 kids. They got along really well
and had a lot of fun spending time together. Benjamin and Liam really started
speaking a lot of English, and it was fun to watch the relationships grow. Benjamin, Liam, Ruth and Luke would play “house”
for hours, with costumes, made up names, etc.
So sweet!
Also during
the time with Josh and Julie we went and saw Josh play softball! Silas was into
learning the rules, and the others just played at the playground the whole
time!
Julie also
invited me to the Alanis Morissette concert.
As almost 40 year old women, we were surrounded by others our age who
grew up listening and crying to Alanis songs. It was the 25th
anniversary of her “Jagged Little Pill” album, and she played the whole
thing!! Her voice was still amazing, and
she put on a great show. My only critique
was that she had blonde hair…that is just not how I remember her!!
Josh and Julie
watched our boys one night so we could go to the movies. Top Gun 2 was out, and with my Tom Cruise obsession
during my teenage years, I had to see it.
It was really great and fun on the big screen. I insisted on getting the caramel popcorn
with a lemonade. Two treats you can’t get at Danish movie theaters, so I was lovin’
it!
We also visited
our Youth Encounter friends, Dan and Tara and saw their gorgeous, huge new
house! We went to church with them first, where Tara was singing, and then we
ate Chipotle and hung out the rest of the day!
After St.
Paul we drove to Winona to visit my Aunt and Uncle and cousin. My cousin Beth has 4 kids and a really fun
house full of toys, so we were all content to hang out. We had pizza hut pizza for lunch, lots of playing
and ended the day with movie night where we saw “Sing 2” complete with popcorn
and candy! The next day we had a great
breakfast and hung out at the playground with all the kids. Our boys made Aunt Eileen quite nervous with
their jumping and climbing, it was a bit funny! Sorry Eileen!
The annual
Brown reunion was also a hit. There were
so many of us and we got to meet a few new significant others! The weather was hot as usual, so after hanging
out for awhile, the families with kids went down to the lake and swam. We also took a boat ride and swam off the
boat. Very refreshing. It was wonderful
to see everyone again!
The last week
we spent hanging out at my Dad and Liz’s and had lots of fun down time, just
spending time together. More golf in the back, trip to Dairy Queen, beach
visits, last minute shopping and celebrating my Dad’s birthday!
The last
night we were in the National Night Out parade on Ox Yoke Circle, the road
where Dad and Liz live and where I grew up.
Grandpa and the kids had made a Danish flag out of an old t-shirt and we
we made a Danish float. It was the
smallest parade I’ve ever seen, and the first parade the kids have been
in. It was fun. Afterwards the neighbors gathered and it was
nice to see some of my old neighbors and hear about how their kids are
doing, etc.
It was very
very hard to say goodbye. The only thing we could smile about was that we would
get to see Zoey again. We had a great
travel home. Our flight out of Minneapolis
was delayed, which made us quite nervous that we wouldn’t get our connecting
flight, but miracously we made up time in the air, were waved in front of the customs line in Amsterdam, and we just made it. It was pretty awesome to not have a 4-5 hour
layover in Amsterdam like we usually do, but we did have to run and were a bit stressed.
But all in all amazing. The boys all
slept a lot on the plane – not Søren and I so much – but we were home by early afternoon
and jetlag just kinda went away for the kids.
They slept through the night the first night from 8pm to 9:30 am…(Liam
was up for 1 hour in the night). I
struggled 5 days or so with waking up at 4am and having a hard time sleeping,
but I’ll take it, the kids slept great!
What a difference from some times many years ago! Our luggage was not able to skip lines and run in Amsterdam, so they it didn't make it to Denmark with us, but the next morning it all arrived by lunch, so it could have been worse! We had stuff at home.
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| Waiting at the airport in MSP |
