Swedish Visitor - Minnesota zoo and Valley Fair

I completely forgot to include this photo!  This was taken one of the first few nights after Jasmin's arrival.  It was our neighbor's birthday, and they always celebrate it in style...this time with giant pizzas and a cookie the same size!  Best part is that was DELICIOUS too!

One one of the days that I had to work, Joacim took the girls to the Minnesota Zoo (these are all photos he took ;)

One of the fun things we had planned was a trip to Valley Fair.  It was a pretty warm day (we even ended up going to the water park, but I didn't have my phone or camera so no pics of that :(  We started our day on the ferris wheel (per Miss Isabelle).

Here's a view of the park from the top of the wheel

And here's Izzy being a little ornery :)

I was AMAZED at how much Izzy loved to ride the "bigger" rides.  I wasn't sure if she'd go on them herself or not (I wasn't feeling well, especially after THIS ride :)

I don't remember what this ride is called, but the sounds from the drives that move this thing is freaky!  Izzy and I stayed on the ground and watch Jasmin and Joacim ride this one.

And here they are :)

Our Swedish visitor :)

We were very fortunate to have a visitor from Sweden.  Jasmine is the step-daughter of one of Joacim's best friends back home in Sweden, and she came here for her "language trip". According to Joacim, most of the kids her age (~15) in Sweden go on a language drip during that summer in school in order to learn a more conversational English.  Usually they go to England where I guess they have these special programs set up for this, but since we're here and she was already familiar with us from when they visited last summer, she wanted to come here.  I say "I guess" because, well....it's Joacim and his Swenglish explanations are sometimes lacking in clarity :)  

She got here on a Tuesday, and I still had to work, but Joacim WAS able to take some time off so she wasn't alone initially.  Izzy was beside herself with excitement the weeks approaching her arrival, to the point where she was driving me batty with questions.  The funny thing is that, once Jasmin arrived, Izzy kinda clammed up since she's in her shy phase :(

We were having lovely weather, and wanted to spend as much time outside as possible, so we went to the "fake lake" as we're affectionately referring to it.  It's a swimming lake run by the parks department here and it's fantastic.  It's relatively shallow, chlorinated and there are no fish or plants to feel gracing my legs.  In other words, it's heavenly for me.

Izzy seems to enjoy it too!

Jasmine's visit was luckily during the Aquatennial, with the MOST AMAZING fireworks display!  We are very fortunate to have wonderful neighbors who saved us a spot with a fantastic view!

One day we headed downtown to check out the miniature golf course at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.  We didn't call ahead, not even thinking that it was necessary, but we got there and all we saw was a sign that said "sold out".  Bummer.  Not knowing what else to do, we headed to the sculpture garden to take a look around, and now I can finally say I've seen this famous sculpture!