Adventures with Faraway Friends: Part 1 — The Aquarium

I’m very, very behind on blogging.  This is because I have been out and enjoying all sorts of wonderful summer activities.  I’ve been away from my computer because something has been going on nonstop, and although I am behind, my camera has been busy at work documenting everything that I’ve been doing.  Eventually you will read about most of it!

Two weeks ago one of my favorite friends from North Dakota came to Duluth for a family vacation.  The kidlets and I had so much fun spending time with our friends, playing tourist and enjoying all the wonderful parts of our community that we often forget to visit because we are busy with our daily life.  Unfortunately I had a memory card mishap, and many of the pictures from the first part of our week together were lost:  pictures of us hiking with our friends, climbing trees, playing in the park, and having lots of fun together.  However, there are still scores of pictures that were able to be recovered from our excursions to the beaches and the aquarium.  I think our friends loved the beach just as much as we do!

We spent one morning visiting the aquarium.  Our family had not been there all summer.  We were excited about the new ship wreck exhibit that included some sharks.  A trip to the aquarium is never complete without a long time to explore the locks at the water table.

One of the best parts about the week with our friends was seeing how all the kids got more comfortable with each other and interacted and truly had a good time together.  My friend Rhonda and I don’t get to see each other much, but over the past few years when we have gotten to spend time together, it has been without our families in tow.  This is great, but it was also really special to watch our younger  kids  meet each other  and get acquainted.  Our older kids spent a lot of time together as toddlers, but I’m not so sure they remember a lot of those adventures!  I may have to dig out some photograph books to show my kidlets.