Minnesota, Minnesota

We flew out of the international terminal in SF and they had a little exhibition featuring models of buildings in Shanghai. Tak admired (some of) them.

My dad & brother trekked up to the cities in the wee hours of the morning to greet us when our plane landed at 5:30 am. Then we were off to St. Peter for breakfast parties with Callum & Sada. After a much needed post-breakfast nap, Tak and I headed to Mankato. The day's highlights included lunch at the Wagon Wheel, DQ dillys, a driving tour (led by mom) of MSU/Vikings training camp, and dinner at Westwood on Lake Washington. Oof-dah!

The famed DQ West (with Mankato West in the background ... bonus!)
We confirmed that they're no longer selling all of their famous Dilly Bar flavors. Apparently the operation was shut down by DQ corporate. BOO! But we did still get to enjoy the mint Dilly, which remains in my top two.

Grandma B came up for the weekend & we were so glad! We also admired her customized car calendar.

(This is the before, above is the after)

Laaaaaaaaake Washington

Sandra and Dianna joined us for dinner on the lake.

And we had prime lake-view seats.

We walked out to the end of the dock to check out the view.

We kicked off day two with a breakfast trip to Schmidt's with Dad & Brother. Summer sausage for breakfast, just like it should be. Then we lunched/coffeed with Harry and took a driving tour de St. Peter in the Jeep with Dad & Cal.

Then we partied, birthday style! We played pin the fire on the rocket ship.

It was harder than I remembered.

And Callum opened presents. The inflatable space ship (from yours truly) was a big hit.

Sada kept the celebration going.

Rocket ship!

Sharing wasn't the easiest, but they managed ...

dinosaur CAKE!

it was very exciting

We took a little birthday break and headed to Mankato to meet up with Karly and her new baby girl Madelyn. We reminisced and sang a little Hanson.

Then back to St. Peter for drinks (and then breakfast the next morning) at Tak's favorite pub, Patrick's.

Sada put Trippers down for her nap ...

... while Cal and I hid out in our rocket ship fort. Then it was time for farewells to the St. Peter gang and a trip back up to the cities with Mom & Grandma.

On the way up we stopped at Minnesota's largest candy store. It recently had a little paint-job makeover, which clearly drew the crowds because it was PACKED!

Here we are at the Mississippi headwaters ...
PSYCH! We're at the Science Museum. We saw a cool exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls & the illuminated manuscripts they're working on at St. John's (but no photos allowed).

We got dinner at Pad Thai (and savored the best spring roll peanut sauce known to mankind), then took a quick tour of Macalester. It just keeps getting fancier.

We missed Herta this trip, but we thought of her as we passed Old Main. Then it was back to the airport for a late night flight to SF, where we were met by Alena (on her birthday!) and Sam. We were sad to miss Alena's beach-party birthday, but we did bring her some lefse.