A Minnesota Road Trip

To fly or drive? That's often the question for us when it comes to making trips with long drives. The trip to Pennsylvani (6.5 hours driving time) is about the girl's limit, so when it came to making a trip to Minnesota this summer, we didn't know what to do. Now that Lauren is two, we would have to buy her a ticket and even with spending a night in a hotel and the ever-increasing gas prices, it's still cheaper to drive, so we loaded up the Traverse and headed out early on a Sunday morning.

We decided to break the trip up on the way to Minnesota. Our first stop was downtown Chicago where we enjoyed breakfast at Grand Lux Cafe and then spent some time at Navy Pier. While we were there, we saw lots of boats and the girls got to crawl on some play coral and dance outside the Children's Museum (we didn't actually got to the museum). One of the highlights was going up in the Ferris Wheel and seeing all the skyscrapers (we even got Lauren to say skycraper!).

 

 From there we headed up to just north of Madison for the night. After dinner, we headed to the pool where the girls loved swimming and splashing around. The next morning we got on the road and our first stop was in Wisconsin Dells for a duck tour. The girls were very excited to get on a boat and we saw lots of trees, some cool rock formations, and even got a little bit of a splash as we headed into Lake Delton.

From there our next stop was Minnesota (after a lunch break at McDonalds which Alyssa calls "Old MacDonalds" and Lauren calls "Donals, french fries".) It was great to finally be at Grammy and Papa's house and run through the sprinkler and swing on the swings.

We stayed at Auntie Stacy's house this time. Alyssa loved sleeping in the BIG bed with Stacy, and both of them loved all the toys Stacy had borrowed and/or bought. They were spoiled so much while they were there - lots of yummy food and all sorts of fun activities. We all went to Edinborough Park and played in Adventure Peak. It took the girls a while to get brave enough to climb up high but once they got going it was hard to keep track of them. I don't have any pictures of them playing, but in my defense I was busy crawling around with them in the jungle gym! I'm sure Auntie Stacy and Grammy have some though :) They also got to Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America and ride some rides and meet Dora and Boots. This was a dream come true for Alyssa...Lauren wasn't quite as sure. They ate at the Rainforest Cafe where Alyssa talked about it thundering and lightening but it not raining on her food.

We spent an afternoon at Como Park with a friend, an evening playing with friends at their house, swimming with family and friends, and a night with friends at Canterbury. The girls loved seeing the horses, Lauren clapped her hands and would cheer "Go horse". Alyssa picked #3 to win every race (because you know, she's three years old) and even won a couple of those bets with Stacy. But what they (and we) enjoyed most was being with our friends and family.

The road trip home was much less eventful, aside from pit stops we just spent the night at a hotel in Beloit with a swimming pool. The girls enjoyed watching a few movies and trying to get the truckers to honk their horn. We all do the motion and yell "toot toot" together - Alyssa was pretty excited when three trucks in a row honked at us one day. Aaron and I often laugh as we do this because we know the truck drivers can only see me, so we wonder what they must be thinking.

We enjoyed every minute of our trip and are so thankful that the girls get to know our Minnesota friends and family. Alyssa is starting to understand that this is where they were both born and that no matter where we are Minnesota will always have a special place in our hearts.