Santa Barbara

 I enjoyed a long weekend with the NOLA girls - Ashlie, Jessica, Cherie, and Dana - along with Jessica's friends, Leigh Anne and Meredith in Santa Barbara. We enjoyed wine country in the St Ynez valley, eating wonderful food downtown Santa Barbara, and kayaking through the channel islands! We saw thousands of dolphins on the ferry out there and kayaked near a sea lion. Also walked down the thousand steps to the beach and heard about all of the celebrities from the Uber drivers.

I did not enjoy running for my connection to get to Santa Barbara and the rest of the crew didn't enjoy having an emergency landing and getting stuck in Albuquerque and then having to sleep in Dallas and have a 24 hour travel day!

School pics

 5th, 3rd, and Kindergarten school pictures!

Duluth and Splitrock Lighthouse

 We enjoyed our first visit to Split Rock Lighthouse with Grandma Brigid and Grandpa Ed. We drove up Saturday morning to Two Harbors and enjoyed stops along the way - Gordy’s Hi Hat for lunch and Tobie’s for coffee and donuts and cinnamon rolls. At the lighthouse we enjoyed the tour and museum and walking down the path to throw rocks in Lake Superior. Great views of the lighthouse from there too.

On our drive into town we saw some exciting wildlife - a black bear crossing the street! We drove all around out West and didn’t see one that close! We enjoyed games at Castle Danger brewery.

The next morning we enjoyed shopping around canal park, seeing a big ship come through the lift bridge, and the museum. We then went to Oktoberfest that was in Duluth and the kids enjoyed a stein holding contest, bouncy house, crafts, and a dachsund race.