The Mojave Hills

Monday morning (Labor Day) dawned bright and beautiful and sparkly. literally, as you can see! We spent some time packing up our cars and then we split ways with the Ormes.  We went to Lutsen Mountain ski resort to do the Alpine Slide, and spent about 5 hours there! Our arms were tired from carrying the sleds by the end and the kids went so fast I was worried someone was going to die.  Derek had an almost crash.  It was crazy fun. Another picnic in the car, and then we said goodbye to Lutsen and headed back down the coast.  This was at clearwater general store, Jack's new favorite place in the world, haha! We stopped at the Split Rock Lighthouse state park, and this is the place where I really wish we would have had more time.  I wanted to get a family picture here and had a slight success with a couple, at least everyone was looking at the camera. And some fails, hahahaha. Henry why?!?!??!! dag nammit. W...

Sunday morning dawned foggy and cool.  We had a sourdough pancake breakfast and then loaded up to go explore the trails around Lutsen mountain.  It was super atmospheric, with mist and fog everywhere, and the trail loop lead us up to an awesome vantage point looking over a lake.  Henry wanted to be carried at first but then for the last 1/3 of the hike he got down and ran as fast as his little legs would carry him until he got to the car.  Maybe he's like horses and can sense when he's homeward bound. Me: annie when the goin' gets tough the tough get goin'! Annie: I want to be the weak! hahahaha When we got back we had a nice little lunch and a few people went down for naps. We checked out the pool at the resort- it had a great sauna, huge hot tub and little indoor splash pad. In the evening the fog cleared away and we had some gorgeous sunset views. The Ormes made us some yummy steak sous vide, and then we hea...

This was on our bucket list of things to do before we leave the beautiful state of MN, and I'm so glad we made it happen, it was pure magic and went by way too quickly.  We talked our friends the Ormes into sharing a "Sea Villa" with us and the kids had a blast throwing rocks, hiking, alpine sliding, eating pie, swimming, staying up super late.  It was one of the most chill, laid back, low key vacations ever. The first day we drove up when Derek got off work and stayed the night in the Duluth, where we ordered some yummy baked potato pizza and wings to our room. Nora slept in her carseat in the closet happy as a clam.  Henry on the other hand kept climbing out of his pack n play and into bed with me and Annie, and we all kept having giggle fits because Henry is so darn obnoxious and adorable.  I kept telling him daddy was going to get really mad and put him back to sleep, but he wasn't afraid at all. Finally Derek DID hop out of bed and got him to stay in his pack ...