First week of July 2025 {Beach, Pool, 4th of July and Mini-Golf}

July 2nd

I made it to another evening open water swim, brought the family this time. They all swam at the beach (with Kyle) while I did some laps back and forth across the lake. 

  

The next day we went to the St. Louis Park Aquatic Park. The kids had fun jumping off the diving board. 

 

For the Fourth of July we were invited to a neighbor's house who hosts an epic July 4th block party. He has print outs of the declaration of independence which we take turns reading outlet and then excerpts from other famous speeches. It's a super fun and meaningful way to celebrate. I'm grateful we are able to partake and the kids can experience this tradition. His daughter took over this year leading the reading. 

Then each year he does something special. The first year we attended he had a petting zoo in his front yard. It rained that year and wrecked his lawn, but memorable. We were in Vegas last year and didn't make it but I think he had an ice cream truck and maybe fire truck. This year was ALL OUT! He had a presenter from the U of Mn raptor center who gave an education show on 4 different raptors.

The grand finale bird being of course the EAGLE! 

 

It was so good! 

Working toward our summer bucket list we needed to go mini-golfing. I had heard about this place out west that was a bit of a drive but worth it. On July 6th, we drove out to Big Stone Sculpture Garden and Mini Golf. There was a small wait list to start putt-putting but they had a lot of land to wonder around and sculptures to look at so that easily filled the time. 

The course was pretty fun and unique. 

 

That evening we went out to eat to celebrate Thomas's birthday but I'll post about that separately. 

The rest of June 2025

June continued with soccer, baseball, ice skating, baseball, football, and volleyball camps. We did have a trip to Missouri on Father's Day weekend. Kyle needed to go down for his dad's house auction. We visited the Clinton pool, boy it was HOT there!

I'm not good making it to the parks and rep's open water swims in the evening but I managed to make it to 3 maybe, this was the first one: Girls stayed at the beach and played in the water while I did a couple laps back and forth to the other side. 

 

Isaac umped a couple more games. 

The three younger kids did a tennis camp which is in our neighborhood and they were able to ride their bikes there. As I mentioned in the other June post my work schedule had increased just for the summer so we had to do camps that were either at the school, tennis court, or in the afternoon so I could drive them there. Not a ton of camps this summer but they had fun. 

The weekend of June 21st I was signed up to take a motorcycle basics course that would grant me my motorcycle endorsement on my license (if I passed). I liked this idea better than having to study on my own and take the test at the DMV and this way I'd learn to ride a real motorcycle with a clutch... since the vespa is an automatic. The weekend arrived and only problem was we were in an extreme heat warning! And boy was it HOT! We had to be in full gear: long sleeve shirt and pants, ankle high shoes and gloves and helmet. Our instructor almost passed out the first day. I drank about a gallon of water and didn't need to pee once during the first 5 hour session! It was crazy. 

This photo is even hazed over from the temp change of me getting out of the car and walking over to our meeting spot. 

This was the bike I ended up riding for the weekend. 

They gave us lots of breaks. It was 2-7 on Saturday and Sunday. The second day the temp was much better. Still hot! But not like the first day. One of the guys had this cool car I had to take a pic to show Kyle. 

It was so cool how they had the parking lot "range" marked up for each skill exercise. I came back a couple weeks later to capture a drone photo of the markings. 

June 23rd Kyle and I got a little date night going to the twins game for his work. They had the Budweiser deck rented out, it was a fun experience. 

Family bike ride to Sebastian Joe's. Working on our summer bucket list. 

We had so much rain this summer! This was one night as I was taking Mary to her ice skating lesson, had to turn around and go another way. 

more baseball, and a volleyball camp for Mary..

Emma's summer soccer team:

It only took til June 28th to get the paddle boards out! It's been a busy summer but busy in a way it's going too fast with all the things and not necessarily getting to do the little things. Kyle and I gave our self a date while the kids hung out at home. 

 

 

We even had some sun showers on the paddle back. So much rain this summer! 

June 29th, yes more baseball.