Fun at Petco!

It was a glorious rainy day today, so Julia and I made a trip to Petco, our free zoo in Duluth. She LOVED it....I think we were there for an hour.

I don't know why the above text came out blue and underlined. I am not an expert in computering.

Julia's favorite part was looking at the animals, but I wish I could have a picture of her examining all the dog leashes. She climbed up on the display while I was talking to an old friend (OK...so I was talking for a LONG time...) ...and she proceeded to get tangled up in a huge pile of them. She looked like a little monster from within the display...and then she got very excited...and started flailing her arms around (with leashes suspended from them.) It was like she was a leash ninja. Kind of like the ninja turtle (Michaelangelo...I think) with the nunchucks. It was so funny that it was worth it to have to put all those leashes back, which took me at least fifteen minutes. Good think I used to work there and I know how to organize them!Bunnies!
Mice!
Parakeets....
Birdies!
Watching the fishies...
Ride em, cowgirl!
Julia is trying out her new wooden horse! What fun!

Uncle John's Wedding

Last Friday, Mike's brother, John, married Jenny Beck. Jenny's dad is a pastor and officiated the ceremony. Mike was the best man, I was a bridesmaid, and Julia had a special red dress made for her from the same fabric as the other bridesmaids. At the reception: pizza and beer! What a fun weekend we had! The only downfall was that our camera ran out of battery power and we couldn't take very many pictures. We'll get some from grandpa's camera and put them up on Wednesday.

Congrats, John and Jenny! We're so glad you tied the knot! It's about time. :)

Helping Mommy with the plants

At present, Julia is with her grandparents in St. Cloud, and her mommy is up in Duluth missing her. These pictures were taken last week. She LOVES the "hose, hose, hose!" and asks for it by name when we go outside. She has been very observant lately. (I did not teach her to water my plants.) When I gave her the hose, she said, "flowers!" and went straight for my pots and proceeded to water them ALL. She was pretty patient....spent fifteen minutes just watering the potted flowers. What a great baby we have! I think the next thing she should learn to do is vacuum the living room and run the dishwasher.

The Carleton County Fair

The midway! Dan won Julia a purple necklace. Here she is sporting her prize, eating licorice, and drooling a bit of licorice spit into her daddy's hair.Julia's first mini donut!
Baby chicks. Pretty much Julia's favorite animal....
Ducks
Piggies!

Carrying Mommy's purse and the "Booooon"

Friday afternoon, I moved an ER shift and Julia and I piled in to the Linde's Cr-V and drove down to Barnum for the Carleton County Fair, where we met up with Mike. It was a blast! Julia really enjoyed herself. There was junk food, animals, and lots of country folk to talk to. On the Midway, Julia won herself a rubber duckie at the duck pond game. This was good practice for us...the State Fair is coming up next weekend!

A weekend off!

Grandpa Dick is building a deck on the front of the house.Julia likes to take her stroller for a walk. Maybe I should sit in it?
Hi Daddy!
Reading a really really important novel with grandma
Toast!!!
A paddle boat ride with grandma, uncle bob, and the dogs

An entire glorious weekend....OFF!!! We celebrated with both families up at the lake...grandma Beth and grandpa Dick with uncle Bob, and Grandma Ruth, Uncle John, soon-to-be-Auntie Jenny, uncle Tim, and friend Justin. What a great time! More pictures to come....

Lutheran Island Camp!

Camp Babies!!! These beautiful ladies (and one gentleman) are the proud progeny of my camp family. We were all former LIC counselors a few years ago. Clockwise from the top right (in the pink) is Rachel Hope Moldenhauer, Gracie Mae Wehrspann, Julia Annie Ruth Sprengeler, Micah Vivian Schutz, and Josiah David Mueller. (Josiah is going to have his work cut out for himself in fifteen years with all these ladies around.....)
Julia took a liking to a huge swing. I'm not sure who it was meant for...it was much too big for babies, but we didn't seem to care.

I had to get a picture of this: Julia likes to go off and have her own adventures. Here she is pictured playing with a huge extension cord.

Counselors and babies! Julia, Gracie, and Josiah.

A pretty quilt Mike took a picture of.

Here's grandma Ruth's quilt being auctioned off.

Daddy's quilt had frogs embroidered on it.
Daddy's quilt.

Our little clan drove across Minnesota on Hwy 210 Friday afternoon to Henning, MN, to Lutheran Island Camp on east battle lake. What a great time we had! It was a big reunion of sorts for me. So wonderful to see everybody! Friends from all over that I haven't seen in awhile...some in years!!!! We even got to hold our god-daughter, Rachel for a LONG time. What a treat.

While we were there, Camp had it's annual quilt auction fundraiser. Mike and his mom both made baby quilts for the auction. Mike's sold for $100, Ruth's sold for $130!!! It was a great time all around.

Then, we had to drive home on Saturday night so I could be on call on Sunday. It was a fantastic, action-packed 24 hours!!!

Nature Hike/Raspberry girl

The Mommy is finally home! It's 1:30AM and I am blogging. I guess I drank too much caffeine while I was in the ER. I got up this morning and played with Julia, then went to a meeting, saw an afternoon's worth of clinic patients, and worked a 6p-1am shift in the ER. Phew. I did too many things today and I should be tired. It will hit me very soon....

Julia and I went to the nature center for a hike this morning. We enjoyed the flowers, playing down by the lake, and the wild raspberries. Julia became obsessed with picking and eating all the berries off of every plant. She would not continue walking until all the red was picked.....

I think I have another type-A, anal retentive one on my hands!


carefully selecting all the ripe berries....

Mom, I LOVE the lake!!!



This turtle in the fish tank was fascinating!
Flowers!
On a much more somber note, our prayers are going out to all the folks impacted by the collapsed bridge on 35W.