Catching Up!

It has been a bit of a sad week for us because Allie's best friend Callum is moving this weekend to Regina.  Callum's mom, Philippa, is also one of my best friends and life will be different, and not nearly as fun, without them.  All the mom's went out to lunch to say goodbye to Philippa today and Allie and Callum had one last play date at the park yesterday.

I'm really going to miss this face!

Callum is Allie's first best friend and we will never forget him and know that we'll make trips to Regina and that someday they will come visit us wherever we end up.

Tomorrow Allie and I head to Minnesota for a week at Love Lake and we can't wait. We just got back from Minnesota about 10 days ago, so it is a lot of back and forth, but definitely worth it.  When we were in Minnesota a couple weeks ago we were able to celebrate my dad's 65th birthday with family and close friends and we celebrated father's day at the pool. It was a great trip! One of the highlights was that we got to meet baby Caleb for the first time.  It was very special for me to see my YOUNGER brother as a dad! 

Here is Allie with her baby cousin (she is in heaven, he looks a bit scared)!

Baby Caleb's first time in the water with his pretty mommy!

Dan got to spend his father's day in the pool with the kids...and he could not have been happier!

Daddy and his little girl.

Mercy, Dan and Allie.

Mercy is so cute!

Lunch time at the tiny picnic table! 

It was a GREAT trip! The highlights were celebrating my dad in such a special way, meeting baby Caleb,  seeing Allie play with her all of her cousins (especially Mercy who really took Allie under her wing), seeing a bunch of my high school friends with their kids, and just spending time with both of our families!

Vacation, vacation, vacation!

I've been so busy going on vacation, that I'm falling behind on the blog. I promise that I'll do a long update this week before Allie and I head back to MN for two weeks at Love Lake and Dead Lake. Until then, here is a picture of my BIG girl in an outfit her nana gave her when we were in MN last week.  

Big Girl...and Other Random Thoughts

You know the saying, "it takes a village to raise a child"? I have never felt that saying to be more true than in the past week.  Tuesday morning at 4:30 AM Dan and Allie had to take me to the hospital for my worst asthma flare up in years. It turns out that I also had pneumonia.  I was very sick, and very scared.  Dan has been WONDERFUL and was able to take Tuesday off of work, but it is year end at Cargill, so he had to return to work on Wednesday.  Immediately upon hearing what happened, my friends kicked into high gear, bringing me dinners, taking Allie all day for me so that I could rest, and checking in with me constantly. While I was in the hospital, I was panicked because I knew I couldn't care for Allie.  It is hard to take care of her when I'm sick, but it would have been impossible when I couldn't breathe.  Thankfully, I have friends here who are truly like family and I couldn't be more thankful for my "village" of friends who really stepped in to help when I needed it.

My friend Marilena watched Allie the most and one day Allie came home, clean from a bath Marilena had given her, with her bangs pulled back.  She looked adorable. Dan and I had been talking about growing them out, and we decided to do it. Check out her new summer hairdo...isn't she looking so old?

Today was my first outing since my asthma attack. We went to the annual Children's Festival and had a blast. Here are Dan and Allie digging for fossils. 

Allie got to bring a bag home. 

There were a bunch of belly dancers that let the kids dress up and dance around. Allie wasn't sure about the women, and would only dress up if her daddy did too. Daddy is such a good sport!

Making friends and playing house. Two of Allie's favorite things!

Teaching Allie to canoe.  

Bouncing on a big bouncy ball.

Daddy pushing her in a cool black pick up truck.

One new trick of Allie's is that she can actually catch a ball. It took awhile, but she is pretty good. She must be a Mauer! :) 

In one of the tents you were supposed to write out a wish and put it in an egg. Then you had to find the big nest to leave your egg so your wish would come true. Dan helped Allie figure out what to write.  

If Allie wished for a sucker, her dream came true! She got the biggest sucker she's ever had in her life. 

It was a great day and so nice to get out of the house for a little bit. I am definitely on the mend and hope life is mostly back to "normal" this week.