Flying to Minnesota and Our First Day There

We flew early in the morning from Baltimore to the Twin Cities. Quite early, as in getting up at 4:30 a.m. Jacob at first asked to stay asleep. Then he asked to change into his clothes at the airport. I negotiated him into changing his clothes under his blanket. It wasn't too hard for me and Jacob seemed to enjoy it.

The hotel shuttle took us to the airport. On the shuttle were two military personnel. One of them offered us a box of Girl Scouts cookies. She had received it at the airport when she came back from the Middle East but doesn't eat cookies because she gave them up for Lent. So we gratefully (if sleepily) received them.

The flights were mostly uneventful. We had a 45 minute lay-over in Detroit. Wouldn't you know it, when we have plenty of time to make it to another gate, our connecting plane was at the very next gate. We checked out the airport potty and rode the people-moving sidewalks a few times before our second flight.

At the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport we had no problems getting bags and our rental car. Granny came and gave us some car seats for Jacob and Lucy. Those installed quite easily and we were on the road in a short time. Our GPS brought us swiftly to our weekend house just south of the Twin Cities.

We had a quick snack and a long nap. I meant to get up for the 1 p.m. turkey dinner with several local relatives. I eventually woke up at 2:30! I socialized some and ate some lovely, late lunch. Chatting was fun and we tried to get a good photo of everyone using the camera's timer.

We need image enhancing software like they have in the movies

Okay, it didn't turn out great but everyone was in the photo. The cousins had to head out after the photo. Seeing them was lots of fun.

After some more hanging out, we went to Saturday vigil Mass at Risen Savior, the local Catholic Church. We met a few other relatives there and then went to have a picnic dinner at one of the local parks, Alimagnet Park. Go to the link to find out about the strange name. Disappointingly, it has nothing to do with magnetism. But I digress...

The great advantage of the local park was the playground. The children enjoyed playing on a variety of challenging climbers.

Starting with a challenge

Going for a spin

I see you!

Lucy gets to the playground first

Look out

Climbing up

Steering the playground

Jacob allowed me to film his work:



The picnic dinner was fun. Jim and Vickie brought wonderfully yummy St. Patrick's cupcakes. The children received wonderful gifts from Aunt Sherry and Cousin Jesse. Lucy played with the little bubble blower immediately and Jacob is looking forward to using his binoculars at the cabin (our second home in Minnesota).

After that we returned to the house and all crashed after a long day of traveling.