After my parents came to visit the kids discovered a new cartoon channel on tv, MeTV Toons. It's like the early days of Cartoon Network. Classic cartoons 24/7. Sad to think that our porch mornings are coming to an end for the year.  But not yet, it's still been pretty hot this month. On this summery fall day we went to Nicollet Open Streets.  Well, Theo was being crabby while biking and Brooke was pointing out that we should've walked. It's Open Streets, you gotta bring a bike! There was a Ninja Warrior course outside of Ace Hardware. Theo did this inflatable course over and over.  This finally fixed everyones sour mood. Meadow enjoyed the more challenging course.  He loved this so much. We checked out Tower Games for the first time. Cool place. Maybe we need to get into a family D&D game this winter. We made it all the way down to 46th and Nicollet and then made our way back. Theo had been crabby all day. We dropped the kids off at home and walked over to Pat'...

My parents came to visit this weekend. It's been over a year since they were here last. Naturally we took them to our favorite buffet Q. Cumbers. Then we walked around Centennial Lakes.  We are a bit obsessed with Q. Cumbers. An endless salad buffet and epic ice cream bar. What's not to like? My dad watched a YouTube video about the Coon Rapids Dam and wanted to see it in person. I had never been here before.  I'd biked up here a few times when we lived on the Northside of Minneapolis and then shot the dam for a client years back. The water was low enough it looked like you could walk to the island, but then it got deep fast.  Not quite, Brookie. If only my parents had e-bikes we could have went on a bike ride.  After the kids got out of school we debated on what to eat for dinner. Bryant Lake Bowl had been on my dad's bucket list for awhile.  We've eaten here but hadn't bowled yet.  This 1930's bowling alley stays true to it's original days. Meaning yo...

Hey our living room is clean. It certainly isn't anymore as I type. We had plans to go to Duluth this weekend for the Duluth Preservation Alliance Tour. I just so happened to sit next to one of our tires and thank God I did.  This sucked on two levels. We couldn't have a Duluth weekend with Blake and Daniel and we had to replace our tires just as we were set to sell our Honda Insight. Somehow Theo talked us into getting donuts at Bogarts.  It really isn't too hard to do that. True.  Lucky Theo got one of the last s'mores donuts.  I don't think I've ever seen this intersection this busy.  I think its the new protected bikeway on Bryant. It's kind of a big deal. Pecan was sleeping in Theo's bed so Theo tucked her in.  Meadow went to a friends house so Theo and I played Candy Land. 

We wanted to go to the Renaissance Festival again this year and this time take my parents. I won free tickets at work and unfortunately they had to be used before they had planned to visit.    This would've been a blast with G.G. and Grandpa. But it would still be fun nonetheless. Now you have to pay for parking or take a shuttle. It made getting onto the festival grounds much quicker, but the line to get into the festival was quite long.  It wasn't too bad of wait and we were in, in no time.  We walked around stopping at anything that caught our eye. The first time we went was definitely the best, but it's still a hoot. Just expect to spend a lot of money. We saw a show called Puke and Snot and thought it would be funny. It was all adult jokes that went right over the kids heads. 

  On our drive to the cottage we stopped at our favorite ice cream shop: Klemish Creamery .  One of the farm cats wasn't looking so good and kept coming over by us so we finished our ice cream in the car.  He reeked.  That cat's gotta be put down.  Not a great endorsement, but ate our ice cream in the car and enjoyed it.  Meadow and Theo went straight to coloring outside when we got to the cottage. While waiting for breakfast we played a round of Cards Against Humanity family version.  Even baby Viola joined in. At least for a little while. Blake is always playing some sort of game with the kids.