We just got back from a week-long trip in Minnesota. Christie, Olivia, Evelyn and I flew out and spent most of our time in Rochester where my grandma, uncle Kent and aunt Connie live. We had a good time of simply hanging out. The girls were their usual selves - nonstop playing, singing, exploring and fighting. They're more like siblings than cousins. Evelyn misses Olivia now that we're home. She calls her up on her toy cell phone every couple hours and tells her how she's her best friend and that she loves her. Pretty sweet. Mom was out in MN as well, so we got to have some fun together, like going to an apple orchard and picking ridiculously crunchy "Golden Crisp" apples and petting kittens through a large lidded pen. Perfect Minnesota Autumn. We went to St. Cloud one day and I got to spend a little time with my best friend, Sarah. We've been best pals since 8th grade and still love each other like crazy after all these years and distance. What a serious blessing she is to me. It was fun to see our little girls playing in the same room together. In the St. Cloud area we made sure to go to our favorite eateries, including the Cold Spring Bakery which makes the world's very best chocolate-covered macaroons. Mmmmmm. It was a good trip. We spent two days driving back with my mom. I was keeping track of roadkill deer whenever I was driving and stopped at about 25 or 30 somewhere in Nebraska. We saw some live stuff too, though, like about a dozen of wild turkeys. How cool is that? We stopped at a hotel on the way where the girls had fun swimming and I sadly watched the Rockies get swept by Red Sox. The girls were surprisingly perfect for the long car rides, which I was not expecting at all. The best part of our traveling, though, was coming home to Steven. No adventure is ever quite the same without him and I love him all the more.
