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Thursday, August 19, 2010

Our Vacation to Duluth!

This year we decided to take our vacation to my hometown, Duluth! The summer after I met Brett my parents moved to Iowa and I was not able to make it back to Duluth as often as I would like. So, this year was exciting for me to be able to take our vacation to the place I grew up and take Ayden and Brett to the places I loved to be when I was little!

We started our vacation at 5:45 am on Saturday and headed to Armstrong Iowa to Brett's family reunion on his Mom's side. Ayden did not sleep the whole 3 hours! I was glad we had the DVD player and Elmo! :)

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After the reunion we headed to the cities. So 2.5 more hours in the car! Luckily Ayden did nap during that drive! After we checked into our hotel and Brett found an indoor park close by. We really wanted to find a place where Ayden could play. This was sooo cool! They had a really cool area for big kids to play. Brett wishes he was young enough to play :) There was also a part for kids 3 and under. This was PERFECT for Ayden! For the most part Brett and I were able to sit and watch him as he played. Everything was made for his age! It was great!!!

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On Sunday, we woke up found a church to go to and headed north!

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When we got to Duluth we checked into our hotel and again wanted a place to let Ayden play. I suggested that we go to a park that was built when I was young. It is called Play Front Park! I remembered a HUGE wooden play ground with lots of places to run and play. The picture above is what we found. They rebuilt Play Front in the past year. Ayden still enjoyed the park. After playing we went out to eat with two of my friends from high school. It was great to see Ali and Tammy again and I was so excited for Tammy to meet Ayden!

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On Monday, we went to the zoo! I used to love the Duluth Zoo! Its not a huge Zoo but it does have some fun animals to see. We also were able to go with my friend Tammy, her mom and her niece Elsa! Elsa is about 7 months older than Ayden and it was fun for him to have a friend! We did pick the hottest day so we all were wore out after!

That night we had dinner with the family I used to babysit for. I started babysitting for them just before Josh's first birthday and now the boys are 17, almost 15 and 10. It was really fun to see them again and for them to get to see Ayden again! It was really funny. Ayden was sitting on the youngest boy, Tate's lap and Ayden farted and Tate jumped up as fast as he could and ran across the room! :)

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On Tuesday morning we went down to the canal and hung out. We walked on the lake walk. We threw rocks and walked on the lighthouse. Ayden loved throwing rocks (he loves throwing anything) but fell asleep as soon as he got to the stroller. Then we went out to lunch with one of my brothers, Uncle Tom!

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After lunch, we headed back to the cities. We decided to stay in the cities to break up the trip for Ayden. When we got back to the cities we went over to my oldest brother, Uncle Bobby and Aunt Jen's house. Ayden then was able to play with his cousin Jacob who just turned 2! The next day we stopped on the way out of town at a really cool city park. Brett was able to play disc golf and Ayden and I went for a walk, played at the playground and hung out at the beach!

This was a great vacation! There was LOTS of great family time and some time where I was able to see family and some old friends! Brett was so sweet and let me go out both night to see friends after Ayden was in bed. The first night Tammy and I just walked on the lake walk. One of our favorite things to do! It was so great to catch up!!! I love that we can catch up right where we left off! The next night I just went over to a friends house and about 6 of us got together and just chatted. It would have been even better if Brett could have joined us but maybe next time I will find one of the kids I used to baby sit and see if they will come watch Ayden :)

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