A Quick Brown Family Lake Weekend!

I am so grateful that in our busy schedules and complicated lives we were able to carve out a day or two to get (almost) everyone together again before our girls head back over the ocean to Okinawa. Dave wasn't on call, though did work later on Friday, Dad could only come up later on Friday night and leave Saturday as he had a flight to San Fransisco early Sunday morning for work (yes! The earthquake happened the morning he flew out there!) and of course, Tony is in Japan. We were able to Face Time with him Saturday night while he was out in the field, very cool to see him out there!

Anyway...Andrew, Kylie, Tara, Quinn and Mom all came up (in Andy's truck!) on Friday morning and made a pit stop at the house on the way to the Dells to do some shopping. After finishing up some cleaning and feeding of the kids, we joined them on the very hot and humid day (not my kind of weather). How fun to get together to soak up little (but growing!) Quinn and check out the rock on Kylie's finger! So many fun things happening with us all right now. 

We are finally ready to go join the shoppers! Collin saying, "Cheese!" :)

After sweating off a few pounds shopping, we decided to add them back on and go eat at Moosejaw:) We were miraculously able to sit immediately on a Friday night (early bird gets the worm) and Dave drove down after work to join us. A good meal (I think I ate something off almost everyone's plate...kind of a talent of mine lately) and then we were ready to go home and put the kids to bed! 

You gotta love Moosejaw:)

I'll state the obvious here, it was so fun to have Quinn around and freely take her from someone and hold her or try to get her to sleep:) Dave and I were eating it up and Dave wouldn't stop smiling and gushing about it, someone is getting geared up for another newborn! He also swaddled her up and sat in the rocking chair at bedtime and pretended he couldn't help with our own rambunctious kiddos bath/bedtime. I'm on to you, Lenninger. I guess the payback will be all the times I'm nursing and he will have to take care of that fun/trying/sweet/exhausting time of day.  :) 

Saturday morning was very foggy! But despite the weather, Dave took a full boat out to play and ski on the calm water. Tara and I stayed home with the two youngest and I'm so glad we did. It was wonderful sis-in-law time. The crew arrived back around lunchtime and we also had my aunt and uncle drive over from the Cities to drop off a crib they came across for free. We have tried to arrange a time for them to see our house and it has never worked, so we were happy they would make the drive and quick stop. We showed them around, had lunch together and they were here when Kate caught her first fish! Daddy made the cast and handed her her reel and soon she said, "I think I have a fish"...and sure enough she did! I think that was the only catch made for the weekend. :) 

Collin wanted to hold Quinn:)

Gpa holding his grand kids before he had to leave:)

Check out her fish! (in the pond out back)

Some people were able to paddle board and kayak, go for their walks/runs, etc. We played Shanghai (after giving Mom lots of crap about not wanting to play) and it was kind of a musical chairs card game with various parents ducking out at times. I won't mention who won:) but if you play with us frequently, you might have a guess, she was the scorekeeper and had to doodle a lot of fancy things around her winning score. 

Sunday morning we went for a group walk (three strollers!) and got ready to go on the boat once again. It was cloudy and we were a little bummed but we just went across the water to the Buckhorn State Park beach and did a little playing in the water. Soon it was time to head back and for our crew to head home. I had a lovely time holding Quinn in the sun room with Dave, Kate and Collin playing while the rest packed up their stuff. 

Ready to relax...

The happy couple! and Collin...

Love this sunbathing beauty!

The sun peeked out for us. A little.

After the Iowa contingent successfully left, Dave convinced me (didn't take too much) to go back on the boat and out to supper. So, we went back out and by then, the sky had cleared and it was absolutely gorgeous. We have really lucked out and our evening boat rides have had the most beautiful sunsets. We had a nice supper and got home in time for a pretty normal bedtime:) A great, relaxing weekend!