Parents Visit Minnesota

While I do love living in Minnesota, the hardest part is being apart from my family. Every visit is bittersweet; I count the seconds until we see each other and my heart hurts the second we separate.

The experiences and the memories are what gets me through. And this week, we had plenty of those.

My parents came to visit on Wednesday (and left this morning - hence, my heavy heart). We had a wonderful four days together, spent mostly at our wonderful cabin.

On Wednesday, my parents arrived in from Nebraska around 5pm. We hung around my house for a while to wait out traffic, then drove up to Crosslake. My parents were exhausted having spent 7 hours in the car on top of the 2 1/2 up to the cabin, but we were all anxious to start our vacation. Plus, Andi was already up at the cabin having spent the week nearby producing a photo shoot. When we arrived, Andi just got back from all-you-care-to-eat crab leg dinner and was nearly blue from crab intoxication. I don't know why he does that to himself over and over and over. I'm starting to consider admitting him to Crab Over-Eaters Anonymous. As Andi moaned and groaned, my parents and I enjoyed cocktails and caught up on all things small town Nebraska drama.

Thursday morning, we woke up and drove in to show my parents the sights in town then hit the grocery store to pick up a few ingredients I may have forgotten to pack. In my defense, I had a lot going on last week as we celebrated our anniversary, went to Vancouver and busted my tail preparing for fall start-up at work. Afterwards, we headed straight for the lake. We were blessed with the greatest weather up there - 75, no humidity and sunny every day. We spent the rest of the day sunning on the pontoon and drinking cocktails - it was heavenly.

Sweetest thing! Andi was determined to catch enough fresh fish for dinner because my mom said how much she liked it. At one point he was running two fishing poles and driving the pontoon while my parents and I watched him.

Friday was another beautiful day and we didn't do a thing but hang out on the lake. I've never seen my parents so relaxed. I think they really had a great time. And if there's anything you want to do as a [adult] child, it's make your parents life easier.

Andi took Chloe swimming ...

You can see how much she enjoyed that experience

Love this one of Chloe -

What a little rag-a-muffin!

There was no shortage of eating during my parent's visit. We ate chicken kebabs, surf and turf, homemade cheesecake, deli sandwiches, summer salads and so much more. I put on my pants this morning and they barely buttoned - if that doesn't say good vacation, I don't know what does. (This week's restrictive diet, however, will not be as much fun).

After dinner, we planned lawn games and you guessed it, more relaxing. What a fun way to spend time with my parents!

We left Crosslake yesterday and came back to the Cities. I think we all threw mini-tantrums because we had to leave the lake, but I didn't want my parents to have a 10 hour drive to Nebraska. We stopped in Garrison, Minnesota on the drive home to get their picture near the world-famous walleye statue. I think this was one of my dad's favorite things we did!

Last night we all went down to Stillwater. It was blazing hot outside so we walked around for a hour, ducked into a bar to have a drink and headed home. My parents had never been to Wisconsin before so we drove over the bridge and crossed one more state off the list to visit. I taught them my famous "Welcome to Nebraska" song which Andi and I sing every time we cross into the state on our drive home. Inserting Wisconsin just didn't have the same ring to it, but I think my parents got a kick out of it!

Before they left this morning, we met Andi's parents for breakfast. While I'm lucky to have such great parents-in-laws as Janie and Jim, it sure felt great to have my own in town. Enjoyed my week with them!