The Fourth Minnesota Style

     Since the majority of Mike's family live in Minnesota we try to make it up there a couple of times a year.  It seems to be especially hard for us now that I am running a daycare.  I not only need to schedule the day off for myself and Mike but also try and ensure that I am not completely inconveniencing my parents.  But none the less we packed up the kids for a trip the land of a thousand lakes (Which somehow I have managed not to enjoy a single one even though I lived there for three years.) for the Fourth of July holiday.    But the one thing that is hard to beat in Minnesota (other than visiting family :)) is a trip to the Mall of America for some tax free clothing shopping.  We went up there with the hopes of doing some school shopping for Mikayla.  It was actually the first thing we did when we got there.  I'm happy to say that we came out of there with some cute clothes to send her to school in and a certificate for more shopping.  Yay!
     We actually broke our driving up into two days.  We had left Thursday night and stayed the night in a hotel in Iowa.  On Friday morning we got up and enjoyed the pool at the hotel prior to finishing up the drive north.
     On Saturday we celebrated our youngest niece's First Birthday.  The kids had fun playing in the pool, going down the water slide, and bouncing in the bounce house.  Mike and I enjoyed the opportunity to do a little catching up with the family.

     Sunday was fireworks day.  My brother-in-in law hosts a block party so we got the opportunity to hang out with some of Mike's neighbors that he had when he was growing up.  We didn't actually set off any fireworks, but we did watch all the neighbor kids' fireworks.  There was also a visit by a police officer and she let all the kids climb in and check out the car and talk on her radio.  At the end we were able to catch the city fireworks from the next town over.

     Of course what trip would be complete without some pictures.