iphone photo dump

 This morning I downloaded a bunch of photos from my phone to my computer.  I thought this wold be a good way to share some of the small things that are going on in life that don't deserve a full post.

 This is Max and I killing time while waiting for a roller coaster to be fixed at the Dells.  It took a while and it was pretty scary that they let us take our ride on the coaster and then immediately began fixing it again!

Sadie and her friend Maile showed up on Easter Sunday with the same cute dress.  They looked adorable; it's a shame Sadie wouldn't stop making silly faces and get let me get a good pic.

We are at the gym a few time a week and every time we walk by this poster Sadie has to pretend she's a monster!  I have about 20 of these on my phone.  

 

 Sadie graduated from preschool.  My crafty friends made caps, diplomas and lei's to make if official.  How cute is that?

I'm staying pretty active these days.  I got my first bike since I was a kid for Mother's Day and have loved taking rides with my kids.  John and I fell in love with mud after competing in Tough Mudder.  I did pretty good and in November will compete in World's Toughest Mudder, I can't wait!  

On the 4th of July, a few friends signed up to run a 1/2 marathon.  Mother Nature had other ideas and brought Minnesota a heat wave.  They changed the race to 5 miles and I am seriously glad they did.  It was smokin' hot!!  See my white t-shirt?  It's see through because it is drenched with sweat.  Yuck!

As active as I am, I am also equally lazy.  Sometimes when I give my kids chores, I make them take a picture and show me so I don't have to go myself to inspect it.  Pure laziness I tell you!

 Max was excited to catch a few fish at one of his first times at scouts.

One busy morning Sadie found some wrapping paper and decided to wrap herself up.  Once she did she started yelling "Mom, come open up your present!"  It was the best gift I've ever gotten!  

 As you can see, time is flying by and my kids are growing up fast.  I'm glad I live in the blogging age so I will have this silly little mom blog to look back on when I'm old and grey.  

Never Again!!

A warning to everyone on the interweb:  NEVER trust a diy blog that tells you stripping paint is simple.  NEVER.   It's all lies and deceit conjured up by craigslist and stain companies to sell more product.  Trust.  

Can you tell I'm slightly disgruntled?  Here is the run down if you haven't already guessed.  I ran across a tutorial showing how to strip paint and this lady made it look so easy!  She was even doing it in her beautiful living room that was no doubt all handmade!  

Like a dumb fish in this sea of diy knowledge on the Internet, I took the bait and found this little beauty on craigslist, and got work.  Look at all that pea soup green goodness.  It's actually a solid mahogany desk, so it had potential.  

Luckily, I knew that doing this stripping project in my living room was not such a good idea, so I headed to my garage and got to work.  First step:  slather on a jelly like substance, wait a couple hours and then lightly scrape it off.  The first scrapes came off pretty easy and I had high hopes.  Unfortunately, it didn't last long; this thing was a beast!  

After hours of applying and scraping goop the desk looked liked this.  At this point I just had to sand, sand and sand to get the rest of the stain off.  

In the end, I stained it dark walnut, and although it was a nightmare, I think it turned out nice.  It's for Jack and he loves it.  Next time around I'll just buy a desk.

Keystone Madness

Once we finally reached our destination and met up with my sister's family, we wasted no time heading to Mt. Rushmore.  We have been once before during the day so we decided this time to see it at night and watch the lighting ceremony.  The highlight of Rushmore involved Jackson "stumping the ranger."  While we were waiting for the ceremony to start, kids could walk onto the stage and ask the ranger any question about any President.  The ranger was surprisingly knowledgeable and he answered all but a few questions including Jackson's.  So does anyone know what Obama's favorite ice cream is?  The ranger answered ROCKY ROAD on account of the first term that he's had!  It's actually butter pecan in case anyone is wondering.

We also had the chance to take a tour of Jewel Cave.  This was probably my favorite thing there.  We went on a 80 minute tour.  If we didn't have Sadie to pack around, I probably would have gone for the 4 hour hike.   

Sadie was feeling a little under the weather and actually fell asleep!  I carried her the last half of hike and we kept each other warm.  She also threw up in the hotel foyer as payback for us finding blood on our sheets the night before.  HaHa!

 This picture isn't the best, but doesn't that look like an enormous piece of bacon!!!??

 Random cute picture inserted below.

 Our next adventure took us to the Reptile Gardens.  John had perfect timing with this pic.  Sadie's being kissed!  Not her favorite moment, that's for sure.  

The kids favorites:
 Max - getting so close to the animals and the prairie dogs
Jackson - seeing the deadliest snake in the world
Sadie - Petting a snake

 

 Our last night in Keystone we walked up the main drag and did a little shopping.  Sadie love this old woman.  When you walked by, she would wiggle!  We had to capture this moment with her fake shaky friend when we found out her name is Sadie too!  

We had so much fun on our quick trip to South Dakota.  We fell like we missed out on so many things because we ran out of time.  We'll be back again for sure.  

Onto the Badlands

After our fun filled adventures in Wall, we drove over to the Badlands.  I'm going to be honest, my expectations were set at an all time low.  I don't think pictures of the place look too interesting, but was willing to give it a try.  Boy was I wrong!  

As we hiked around, I was amazed at all of the pretty formations and landscape.  It was truly beautiful country.  

We took a hike up a mountain that ended with sweeping views of the land.  When both of my boys are standing next to each other, touching even, AND smiling, you know it was a success!

 Another pic from the top.

Notice anything different about Max?  It looks like he doesn't have hearing aids!  We picked up his new pair just before our trip and they are so tiny you can hardly see them!  More on them in a future post.

I was glad my Mom was able to join us on this little adventure.  She is down 1/2 lung, but didn't let that slow her down!  Look at Big Louie go!

One last picture at the end of the hike.  Lots of smiles for how much fun we had!

Free ice water

On our trip with my parents to the Black Hills, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to stop by Wall Drug for their world famous ice water.  They had water and it had ice, so it did not disappoint!  

We did the usual thing at tourist traps - ate dinner, walked around the gift shops and found creepy ladies and ginormous bunnies to pose with.  

 This part of the trip wasn't life changing or anything, but we did have fun and it was good to break up the drive a little!

Has anyone ever counted how many Wall Drug signs there are in South Dakota?  I haven't, but my guess is somewhere around 253.  

Max's Baptism!

Max turned eight in May and in June both sets of Grandparents flew out for his big day.  As you can see from the picture below, Max was thrilled beyond comprehension for his baptism.  Doesn't he look dapper in his new suit and his great grandpa's bow tie?  

One of my friends gave me great advice that I forgot about until after the event.....give someone your camera and leave them in charge of pictures.  I regret not doing this.  I got one shot of my family and zero shots of the guests and grandparents.  Hopefully I'll remember this by the time Sadie's big day rolls around.  

Max finally got excited about things once he hopped into a matching white jumpsuit with his Dad.

Max was baptized with his church class mate Will.  I look at this picture and it cracks me up that they are the same age!  It was nice being able to split the baptism duties with Will's Mom, it was definitely more relaxed than Jackson's.

I'm so proud of Max's decision to get baptized.  About a year ago he was still telling us that he might get baptized, he hadn't made up his mind!  It truly was up to him and he made a great choice.  

Memorial Day Weekend

When Memorial Day rolled around we realized we didn't have any plans, so we decided to take a quick little trip over to Cascade Falls in Wisconsin.  

Seeing this picture of the fam makes me realize
my kids are growing up too fast!

The hike was easy, and no complaints were made the entire time!  (a serious feat for the boys)  Once we reached the falls, the boys decided to climb behind and take a look while Sadie and I lounged and ate some PB&J's.  

And what is a trip to a waterfall without a little cliff jumping?  

 

This is my favorite pic from the day.  I think it's mostly because in general Max doesn't take big risks and is more of a homebody type, but he really got into this.  It was fun to watch his head emerge from the freezing water with an enormous smile on his face.  Go Max!

Photo Dump - Birthday Season

I'm Back!  I know it's been driving y'all crazy not knowing what the Parrish clan has been up to, sorry!  We've been busy celebrating what I call Birthday Season around here.  We've got four b-day's in 5 weeks, making it one big party around here!  

We started out with Jack's 10th.  For his Birthday we let Jackson plan the day.  It was filled going to the Mall of America, REI, and we finished with a little Gelato at a place appropriately named Jackson's!

Next was John's 35th Birthday.  The boys had school off that day, so we celebrated all day with the kids, and went out on a date that night.  

Now onto Mr. Maxers.  Having this many birthdays in so little time, the kids get a "friend birthday party once every three years.  This year was Max's year.  We gave him many options, but in the end, Max celebrated his 8th birthday in true Max fashion - at home playing games and eating junk food.

Poor Sadie.  By the time her birthday rolled around, I was ready to wrap up our Parrish Birthday extravaganza, so she got a no frills 3rd birthday.  

Luckily Sadie was happy picking out a princess cake and having a family bbq and inviting over her friend Violet.    

I'm happy to wrap up birthday season and move onto summer!  The boys will be out in one week!