The Hawley family (ha, I bet you thought I was talking about my own family) came for their annual visit to see and us and also attend some Phish concerts. It worked out great for them last year, so they thought it would be fun to do it again. We were definitely up for the visit since we love having people come visit US on our turf. Like I said before, Jake and Steph and fam were gone during the night for their concerts, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t spend 2 days together showing them around Kenosha and Racine. They arrived late Friday night, so we spent Saturday hanging out in downtown Kenosha at the Harbor Market, on the trolley, and at Lake Michigan.

The next day we headed up to Racine to the Racine Zoo. Jake and Steph have an annual pass to their zoo which gives them reciprocity to all the WI zoos, so we thought this would be a great place to go. I won’t bore you with lots of animal pics, but you have to check out the gargantuan orangutan and the silly giraffes. I also got a couple of fun pictures of the Hawley boys and Jake’s family all together.

I also got another nice surprise when Kayla, Stephanie’s oldest daughter, asked if I would take her senior pictures. Of course, I was up for the task, and Mike and I immediately discussed where to take her for the shots. Obviously, I had to take her downtown after the fun pictures I got of the girls down there, and how could we not include beautiful Lake Michigan? Kayla is a gorgeous girl, so I didn’t have to do much to get some wonderful pictures of her. I really hope she and her mom are as pleased with the results as I am. You can view all the images in a slideshow here: kayla’s senior picture slideshow.

I jokingly asked Sara a few weeks ago when she and her family were coming for another visit. Imagine my surprise and delight when she answered with plans to come see us this past weekend. We couldn’t have been more thrilled, and the girls were even more so excited to get some cousin time again. Sara and I made a list of things to do for their visit, and we managed to squeeze in everything including a Jelly Belly tour, a meal at Organ Piper Pizza, an inspection of a grave site of Grandma’s grandma, a visit to the totally rad park, and an excursion to downtown Kenosha and Lake Michigan. It was a busy weekend, but we had lots of fun, good laughs, and way too much to eat. Sara was a lot better about taking pictures, but I did manage to pull out my camera when we went to Jelly Belly and downtown Kenosha.

Jelly Belly time.

Of course, we couldn’t pass up another opportunity to get a picture with the VW Bug. The girls are now avid players of the “Slug Bug” game and call out “SLUG BUG JELLYBEAN” (two times since there are 2 of them) every time we drive by Jelly Belly.

Our trip to downtown Kenosha also included a trolley ride.

And piggyback rides.

Sadie also got lots of cuddles from all the Evans. They aren’t used to being around a kitty that enjoys being held even though they have 2 pet cats, Servo and Magic Marker.

We are so glad the Evans took the time out of their hectic schedule to come see us. It was a great time, and hope they had fun.

For the third and final installment of our Minnesota Easter I’ll review our last day in the land of 10,000 lakes. The previous night the Easter Bunny made a stop by Grandma’s house and left some real goodies and solid evidence of his appearance. See for yourself.

As you can clearly see, Mr. Easter Bunny was quite naughty by leaving his bunny tracks everywhere he went. The girls found tracks in the hallway leading to Mimi’s room, at a closet door, going into Annie’s room but turning around when he realized Annie was still awake, and in the piano room. The tricky bunny left surprises in most of the spots where the tracks were.

The Easter Bunny filled the girls’ buckets and left a new one for Violet. Each big girl got the traditional Peeps, some chocolate bunnies, a couple of peanut butter eggs, pretty nail files, a miniature office set, journal, fancy pen, a pair of socks, some elastic headbands, a bunny lovey, and a new pair of swim goggles.

In Violet’s basket was a set of socks, a set of stacking cups, and a little lamby. Violet is reading the packaging of the socks to make sure there are no components not fit for a 7-month-old.

The girls were quite ecstatic about their new goggles. They are testing them out to make sure they’ll work when underwater. The goggles seem to do their job.

It was a thrilling Easter, and all the girls enjoyed every minute of it especially their new loveys.

While waiting for the parents to pack up to go home the girls tried out their new journals while the bunnies watched.

Grandma and the girls had so much fun together over the weekend. The were all very sad to say their final good-byes. However, the good news is that Grandma will be visiting next week while Mom, Dad, and Violet venture off to San Diego.

Thanks for tuning in for the third and final installment of our 2010 Minnesota Easter adventures. If you haven’t already, you can read up on our 1st and 2nd segments.

Today we’ll discuss the many events of this past Saturday. The annual Easter brunch and egg hunt went off without a hitch at Grandma’s home. Sara, Jake, and Dave all arrived with their families, and it was a full house. Jake and Dave each contributed yummy dishes for the meal such as poached eggs and hash and pork tenderloin. We are so spoiled to have chefs in the family.

Each family brought candy/toy-filled eggs to contribute to the hunt. Needless to say, each kid ended up with overflowing buckets of eggs. Anut Sara knew the older kids were kind of feeling too old to play along with the hunt, so she got them each one, large, silver egg that they had to find in very difficult hiding spots. She filled them with more age-appropriate things like a Target gift card and candy.

On with the picture show.

Mike started out the festivities with his annual wearing of the pineapple hat.

The adults wait around the food like hungry wolves (me included). Who can’t resist a feast of poached eggs and hash, pork tenderloin, bacon, fruit, cardamom bread, scrambled eggs, and hot cross buns?

After the celebration meal the kids were ready for the egg hunt. The big kids were in charge of filling and hiding the eggs. They did a wonderful job.

Here’s Maya thinking about where to search next.

Owen can’t decide if he wants to keep finding eggs or start digging into the eggs he already has.

Annie got pretty greedy and was trying with all her might to balance as many eggs on top of her already overflowing basket.

Mimi was very focused on finding eggs so much so that she would not smile at me for even a second.

The girls were so excited to see what was inside the eggs. They ended up with a LOT of candy and other fun stuff like jewelry, stickers, and shrinky-dink figurines.

Violet was just glad to be held by Grandma during the egg hunt.

I wanted to get a nice family picture since the girls were all dressed up in their Matilda Jane clothing. I also had on some MJ apparel.

We hope everyone had a lovely Easter! Check back tomorrow for another post about you guessed it Easter. I’ll be analyzing the pros and cons of Easter basketdom.

It may seem like I’ve given up on blogging, and there were days when I thought the same thing. Life is finally feeling a little normal again, so I think it’s time to get back on the horse. To be honest, all my Christmas pics from our trip in NC were on my laptop, and I was too lazy to unpack the laptop to transfer the pictures to flickr. The deed is done now, and I now I can blog about Christmas.

Our time in NC was relaxing and fun. The weather cooperated all week with sunshine and warmth in the high 50’s most of the week. It was a nice break from the snow/wind/cold. My dad wanted me to search for retirement homes for him one day, so Mike decided that day would be a great opportunity to take the girls on the ferry over to Bald Head Island. They rented a golf cart and toured a couple of lighthouses. The girls had lots of stories to tell and shells to show.

On the ferry.

At the lighthouse.

Can you imagine the excitement these little girls had when they got to ride in the golf cart?

A chilly day on the beach.

The house my dad rented was right on the water. It was gorgeous.

The town was all along the water with a quaint downtown within walking distance of the house. We decided one morning to go for some hot cocoa and muffins down at the local coffee shop. Lucy accompanied us. She was made to wait outside, and looked so pathetic as she stood by.

Mimi and Lucy are great buddies.

My dream is to one day have wrap-around porches like this. I have always loved the southern style homes with their large porches.

My dad came well-equipped with Christmas gear including a tree/lights, decorations, stockings, hats, and other stuff. So we felt at home when it was time to open presents.

The girls awoke at about 4 am to open presents, but we made them wait until at least the sun had risen. Finally, at around 7:00 a.m. everyone was up and ready to open presents.

The girls were not thrilled to pose for this picture when all those gifts were just waiting to get torn open.

We had taken the girls a couple of days before Christmas to pick out presents for each other. Mimi gifted Annie with a jewelry box that has a dancing ballerina inside. And Mimi received a pug puppy in a cute purse. She named her Joey in honor of our friend, Matt’s, pet pug with the same name.

All other presents were overshadowed by long-awaited American Girl dolls, Kit Kittredge and Ruthie Smithens. The girls received a few other AG doll accessories like clothes, pet, vet set, etc. and the Kit Kittredge Movie, but the dolls were the big deal for this Christmas.

Of course, we couldn’t forget about Violet. She got some great clothes from Grandpa and lots of fun rattly toys from her stocking.

The adults got some fun gifts, too. Santa got Grandpa a Starbucks thermos and giftcard and a golf pullover from the local golf course. Mike received more hunting gear and new socks. I got a stick vac and a seasons flag pole. My dad wasn’t thrilled about getting me a vacuum cleaner for Christmas, but I told him that’s this is my life and vacuuming is what occupies my mind these days.

Mike and my dad spent a day golfing and another day fishing. Mike set it up to have a fishing guide take the guys out one day for in-shore fishing. It turned out to be a fairly windy/chilly day for it, but the boys survived and came home with lots o’ fish which now sit filleted in our freezer.

We had a really fun Christmas, and I’m glad we decided to make the trip down south. It actually reminded me a lot of my Christmas’ from my youth where we’d usually spend the holidays down in Florida.