Camping

This photo says it all and has become one of my favorites. We took Jakson for his 1st camping trip this past weekend (Aesa's too). We made a short jaunt to Jasper, MN - Split Rock Creek State park. (close just in case it turned sour) We had beautiful weather and everyone was excited. The weekend was filled with hiking, swimming, fishing and all around relaxation.

Aesa has this thing about drinking out the fountains - very comical.

The park had a nice sandy beach. The water was fairly clear and pretty warm.

We met another family from Sioux Falls who also had a "Jackson". Jakson shared his beach toys. I am not sure what they were trying to accomplish here.

The area between the camping area had a nice sized open grassy field. Jakson decided he was ready to take the old man in in some tackle football.

The kids on one of the trails.

Done for the day.

I am working on getting all the photos uploaded and a link to view. Once that happens (if it happens) I will edit this post and add the link.

Various Activities

It was a great weekend for Father's Day. We had a whole weekend planned - mainly house cleaning since we have been gone 4 of the last 6 weekends. But we did have some fun things that we did.

Jakson got to walk inside a hot-air balloon at the Balloon Race that is held here in SF. Very cool.

Jakson has nearly outgrown his little bike. He can speed up and down our sidewalk with ease. If I can get our video cam working again I might be able to film him and slow it down for the normal eye to follow.

Jakson got to go to a baseball game with Nana and Papa - and he gets spoiled. He likes the big jumpy air filled castles.

Jakson has his own camera - and therefore takes picture randomly and at will.

Our latest journey to Lowe's netted Jakson his own hand-made tape measure

Belated Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there.

Free Weekend.......Finally

After being gone for several weekends, it was nice to finally get some downtime to try and accomplish my honey-do list, plus get some fun time activities in the mix too. Besides mowing (and it was loooooonngggggg!), cleaning the garage, laundry, garden work, well - you get the picture. We also camped out in the backyard. You're thinking - big deal, backyard. We plan on taking a camping trip in 2 weeks for Jaksons first "real" camping trip, and we needed to test drive the new tent we purchased. So at about 8 pm last night we decided to pitch the tent and see how it would go. We got the tent up in decent time got the airbed ready (that's right - an airbed.....I am not THAT outdoorsy!). We loaded Jakson up into his sleeping bag and hunkered down. Um - it was COLD.....we powered through it but we certainly learned some things to bring on the real trip.

We woke the birds (something about the early bird gets the worm - those birds need to learn how to read a clock. It was 5am when that racket began. (sorry - forgot to take pics this time around). Once we fully awoke and had breakfast - it was off to Lake Alvin (really more like a big pond not to far from our house) to take Jakson fishing. He was really excited. We were too since it was nice to just get away. we packed some picnic sacks and the worms and headed out.

Waiting patiently.....unlike me.

Mom decided to get all artsy with the background. There were lots of other people out today.

We got Jakson a new rod and reel this year. Somehow - the Spiderman set just wasn't really getting the job done. (not that this made his chances any better - although he was the only one who even got a nibble today)

Too much fishing.

We got back from fishing and after we all had naps (remember 5 am...birds...worms....) we washed the vehicles, thereby ensuring the rain tomorrow, and we got some great help spraying the Jeep down.

The night ended with the fire pit and some s'mores (mmm.....s'mores). Now we're on the couch with the dog between us winding down. Tomorrow is Monday....ugh.