Look Mamma! No training wheels!!!

Izzy reached another milestone on Sunday!!!  No more training wheels!  We've tried all summer here and there...subtle suggestions but no pushing.  Then, on Sunday, Joacim took her out for a ride and asked her if we could take them off.  She said she was afraid of falling, and Joacim somehow convinced her that he'd catch her, and they were off!  I think she took right to it too!

There was LOTS of riding up and down the sidewalk and around the neighborhood.  There were a couple of trips around the big pond, and even one outside of the neighborhood onto city sidewalks (with Joacim).  I think, in all that day, she rode a total of 5 miles!  And the only reason it wasn't more was because it got dark ;)

Such a cute little dork :)

She even started getting "fancy" by standing up on her pedals and "riding"!  I LOVE watching her ride her bike now...such a happy smile on her face!  I guess I know what we'll be doing a LOT of in the next few weeks!

And from the looks of it, she'll be needing a new bike next summer, which sounds like a perfect 7th birthday present!

Minnesota State Fair 2014

It's that time of the year again!!!!  I LOVE the state fair!!!!

First stop:  Miracle of Birth Barn (my personal favorite).  This little calf had JUST been born, and his name is Ferdinand :)

THIS right here is the reason I come to the fair (well, one of many)  Fresh.  Roasted.  Corn

Izzy was ALSO excited about the corn, but her lack of teeth made it SUPER hard to eat.  That's not to say she didn't try her hardest :)

One of Joacim's picks:  deep fried Oreo's.  Now, I didn't try these myself, but he and Izzy seemed pretty happy with the selection.

She IS rather egg-ceptional :)

And then it was off to the kiddie carnival.....this is her FAVORITE ride right now :)

I LOVE this picture....captures what great fair memory.  That's Izzy at the bottom of the picture!

She was SUCH a good kid that we went to the face-painter and let her pick out her design :)

And THIS is what she picked!  Neon tiger!!!

We stopped off at the butterfly barn.  This is a great place, but it takes a bit of getting used to these HUGE butterflies landing all over you!  I know I let out a few screams myself!

And we can get free milkweed seeds for our butterfly garden next year!!!

RAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRR!  (The teeth totally MAKE this photo, right?)

Then we headed down to the animal barns (another one of my favorite parts).  This is the first thing we saw when we walked into the cattle barn.  I gotta hand it to these kids....they work pretty hard during the fair!

Izzy was fascinated at the horse barn.  They had a great interactive area for kids, and she was intent on making this braid perfect.

Somone mentioned that Izzy's face matched the "outfit" that this horse was wearing, so we had to take a selfie!

I felt like we walked for foreEVER, but in reality it was only 5 hours.  Although our pace was pretty light we didn't stop much, and that resulted in EXTREMELY swollen hands, knees, feet, etc.

Right after we bot back in the car.....

....and a day later.

Izzy said that the best part of the fair was the twirly-car roller coaster she road.  I think it was a toss-up between the roasted corn and pork chop on a stick!  I'd really love to go back by myself so I could walk through the exhibit buildings.  I bet there's a ton of cool stuff in there, but it's not too interesting to anyone else in the family.  Hopefully next year I'll do that!

A Swedish Visitor says goodbye :(

The last day of a guest's visit is always the worst, especially for friends who are flying back to Sweden.  They're flights are usually later in the day, so we spend all day dreading the inevitable.  We tried to make it a little bit better this time by going to Excelsior first and hitting the ice cream place.  I chose superman because I wanted to feel like a kid again.  I remember this little ice cream place from my youth...it was a one-room, red building "parlor" and they always had superman ice cream.

We took our ice cream and headed down to the docs of Lake Minnetonka to eat it and hang out.

When we got to the airport, we were told that Joacim needed to stay with Jasmin until she boarded her plane, so he went to the gate to hang out with her and Izzy and I hung around the airport until her flight took off.  I'll be honest, we went to Sonic to grab some food first ;) but then we came back to the parking garage and watched planes take off, which Izzy and I both love!

And this is apparently what Joacim and Jasmin did to spend the time ;)

It was really great having Jasmin here.  I spent most of the time worried that she wasn't having a good time, and feeling generally guilty because I was having a really bad week health-wise.  I think I found out that my kidney function had tanked on the drive home from picking her up at the airport, and I never quite recovered.  So Jasmin, if you read this, I want to say "thank you" for coming to visit us....I hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed having you here, and I look forward to our next vacation :)

A Swedish visitor - TUBING!

One of the great things about having another person with us is that we could finally try out the tube that we bought for the summer, and Izzy and Jasmin were more than happy to oblige :)  Anyone that really knows me knows that I'm terrified of bodies of water that I can't see the bottom of (so basically everything except pools and hot tubs (and there are even exceptions to those), and I've been worried that Izzy will pick up on my phobias, but this photo shows me that she's going to be nothing like me in this area :)

We didn't stay out too long because there were storms rolling in, and we made it back to shore and all packed up just in time!

But we were back out the next day, and it was gorgeous and sunny!!!

We also took a little trip to Minnehaha Falls.  I absolutely love it here as I think it's such a little gem!  I hope Jasmin liked it too!

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 :)