The Big Lake Trip - 2016

Aaaand we're back!  The big family vacation for 2016 has now come and gone.  Our pilgrimage to the Lake House was a LOT of fun.  We discovered some new things, and found comfort in the familiar.  We swam, we sunned, we enjoyed great company, wonderful food, and time together.  Take a look:

On our first days we had some stellar weather, which led to lots of beach time. Thank you again to Letty for being such a gracious host.

Grandma had a great time at the beach, and playing with her namesake Little Letty Bean.  Bean was a real trooper on this trip. She did about as well as a 7 month old could be expected to do.  She also handled the change in routine like a champ.  I think she would say that the trip was worth the trouble - she sure seemed to enjoy watching everyone playing in the water, and even getting some splashing done herself.  

Morning swims are the ONLY way to greet the day.  Our house faces the East, and so the sun greets us early every day, reminding us to get up, get out, and have fun!

Forrest continued his tradition of building Dino Depots.  His nostalgia over the green Sinclair (tm) Dino makes me chuckle.  He gets it second hand from my nostalgia of the Dino, courtesy of my Grandfather's nostalgia of the Dino.   

One of our best discoveries this trip was Duluth MN!  For those who saw my posts from June, you may recall that Forrest and I went to Canal Park before picking up my sister Sarah from the airport.  While there, I had noticed that Canal Park had a few local eateries, shops, and curiosities.  It has long been a tradition that on sub-par weather days our family has trekked over to Hayward WI.  And don't get me wrong, Hayward is a great town.  Tremblays is hard to top.  But for the past few years Hayward has always been so crowded as to be somewhat less than enjoyable.

Duluth on the other hand was gorgeous.  We went on a sunny but cooler morning (forecast in the mid 60's).  When we arrived it was 65 F, and before an hour was up it was 72 F.  We shed our jackets and sweatshirts and hiked around the Canal Park district.  This place was amazing!  Not only does Duluth boast larger and more numerous small shops than Hayward, but it also has some awesome restaurants.  We went to Grandma's Restaurant, and made a stop at the Amazing Grace Bakery.  They also had a Vietnamese joint, several Italian spots, and even a Sushi bar!

All of this, with views of the largest body of fresh water in the world - lighthouse included.  I can't say enough to my family, skip Hayward.  Take an extra 15 minutes in the car and head to Duluth.  Stop at Amnicon on your way home.

We got to spend some time with my sister Betsy, her friend Renee, and her daughter Ava.  Forrest found a fast friend in Ava, and they had a lot of fun together.  Above you see them departing for their "Safari" to the channel that connects the lake we spent our time on with a neighboring lake.  They saw Lions, Tigers, Bears, Foxes, and of course, Snakes!  (disclaimer, they saw none of these things).

Forrest got the hang of swimming in his life jacket thanks to some encouragement and teaching from his big cousin.  Thanks Ava!

Bean and I took a more "R&R" approach to our fun :D

Forrest had been practicing burying my feet in the sand.  BONUS: when I remove my feet it makes for a really handy Stegosaurus cave.

Here The Kid can be seen braving it off of our dock on Whitefish.  We don't have a beach exactly, but that doesn't mean I can't create our little slice of paradise with a few towels and a beach chair. 

Father/Son selfie!

And of course, our summer tradition, the Departure Photo.  Grandma has a bench out front where we gather for a picture of the crew with the Grandparents.  This year was bittersweet.  Grandpa's absence was palpable.  This picture, for as many years as we have been doing it, included him, but not this year.  But, we must first count or blessings.  The trip was wonderful and the chance to visit with Grandma is priceless.  Grandpa would have wanted it that way!

July 2016 - More Summer Fun!

The summer fun continues at the Sawlaw household!  We are getting our new engineered hardwood floors installed this week in our Peoria home.  Mandi is thrilled.  I like them as much as I like any surface that I am going to walk all over :P

Since getting back from the Father/Son trip, I have really been enjoying some time with my best Girl:

Little Letty Bean came to visit me at work yesterday.  What a treat!  The nurses thought she was precious.  What a coincidence, so do I.  Managed to get a full on belly laugh going from her this week as well:

Big brother helped with that one as well.  The effect of popping open a pink Easter egg and the "BRPP" noise was just hilarious... to a 6 month old.

I mentioned last post that I didn't manage to grab a picture with my Grandmother on her 80th birthday.  I regret this, BUT, I did manage to get a fun video of her and Charlotte:

Thats all for today, it is a short post to make up for my longer one previously.  More to come once we get back from our next cabin trip - we leave on Saturday!

July 2016 - Father/Son Trip to the Cabin!

Wow, what a month.  And it isn't even over.  July 2016 started out with a TON of work.  One of the many perks of my job is that my hours are very flexible.  They are great about cramming the first part of a pay period with most of my 80 hours, allowing me to take minimal vacation time when we decide to hit the road.  And hit the road we did :)  Below are the Chronicles of Joshua and Forrest as we made our way across Illinois and the great state of Wisconsin!

Our first stop was Rockford IL.  We hit up the shopping mall to stretch our legs and grab a snack.  They had one of Forrest's favorites: Superman Ice Cream!  We also stopped at a cool toy store, where he got some new letter blocks

Our next stop was lunch in Madison WI at the Journey Buffet.  My good friend Mike made a drive over from Milwaukee to see us.  It was great to catch up with this wonderful man, who I don't get to see nearly as often as I like.  Mike, if you're reading this, I can't wait to get together again :)

Next stop was the Wisconsin Dells, home of the Dino Depot!  This is our preferred gas stop, as you may recall from a previous post.  I figure if you're going to have to stop for gas either way, might as well make it somewhere fun!  We also took a break to go spend some time at Knuckleheads.  Forrest was rearing to burn some pent up energy after 4.5 hours in the car.  I was happy to oblige.

The Boy Wonder loves that airplane ride.  He also enjoyed bouncing on a giant bounce balloon, and running around in an indoor playground.

Our last stop before Wascott was at his favorite restaurant: Texas Roadhouse in Eau Claire.  We had a great dinner before hitting the road for the final stretch up Highway 53.  Next stop, the Lake House!

Obligatory pic :)  Forrest and I were away for a total of 8 days.  EIGHT Days of Father/Son fun! A big thank you to Mommy for loaning me her favorite little man for that long.  Mandi had a tough time missing both of her best dudes, but we made the most of it despite a mixed bag weather wise.  We spent a lot of time at Grandmas house:

Forrest loves letters.  His new block letters and Scrabble kept him quite entertained during those rainy days that we had.  There was also plenty of sun and lake fun to be had!

Forrest also had a blast recreating the Dino Depot with the building materials available to him on the beach.  We burned a TON of energy on that Trampoline.

We also had a TON of fun with the Rebmans and Warrens while we were up there.  Thank you to Jill, Chris, Cori, Chris, Cauge, Cainan, and Caylor for sharing some of their vacation time with us :)  We managed to hit up Spooner and an old Grogg Family Tradition: Go Carts! (Forrest and I managed third place, narrowly losing out on 2nd to Cori Warren who passed us in our final lap!!!)

(Note, also a Grogg tradition, we DID get yelled at for bumping and running into the tires too much.  YOLO)

We also had a fun day trip to Duluth.  We had to go pick up my little sister Sarah (Aunt Sarah to Forrest).  She flew up to spend a few days with us.  While we were there, Forrest and I made a trip out to the breakwater and the Canal Park Lighthouse.  Duluth is a great town, and it was a fun trip.  Forrest even got to throw some rocks into the largest freshwater lake in the world. 

 There is something so perfect about a little boy chucking rocks into a lake.

Sarah had some great weather on day 1 of her visit.  She enjoyed the Pontoon boat, tubing, and trampoline fun with her nephew.  I didn't get as many pictures as I should have (still feel new to this even after a year) but here are some highlights:

Sarah also had a ton of fun on her trip to the range. She struggled on the revolver and the pistol, but was a natural with the .308!

And finally, a closing video, on our last day there Forrest had a ball playing "Snakes" with his Great Grandma.  Moments like this are precious, too precious not to share.

A special thank you to (Great) Grandma Letty Grogg for, as always, being such an amazing gracious host.  That woman is an absolute inspiration.  Hands down she is one of the best.  We love you Grandma!

Back to work now for the next week, then another family trip up.  Hopefully we will have more pictures and videos to post soon!

June 2016

Hello readers!  This is a quick mid-June entry so I could lay down some brags and show off some fun pictures.  Pretty early in July Forrest and I are going to be headed up North, so I don't know how much I will be able to blog then.  But when we get back we should have some awesome father/son pictures for everyone.

This is my "I am so blessed" picture.  Love that lady, and love those kiddos!

Some more of Letty Bean, who has been particularly photogenic this month.  Maybe in anticipation of her 6 month celebration?!

This kid, she knows how to take a picture.  Special "Thank You" to Forrest for letting us borrow one of his many coveted numbers.

In other fun, Mandi and I got to have a day to ourselves, in which we went to Monticello for an 80th Birthday Party for my Grandma Rosemary.  I didn't get a picture with her, which I feel pretty dumb about.  Hopefully next year.  We went to Champaign after for an early dinner and to just sort of wander around sans kids.  While in downtown Champaign I saw someone I recognized... flabbergasted I had to ask for a selfie.

The LEGENDARY Lovie Smith, former head coach of the NFC Championship Chicago Bears, and along with Tony Dungee the first African-American Head Coaches to make it to the Super Bowl.  Lovie, I wish you were still with the bears.  Thanks for a selfie.  I think he was cool with it because we are both in the bald brotherhood.

Afterward we went to a wedding reception for my friends Maren and Mustache Jimmy.  It was a great party, and a classy affair all around.  One of the best Saturdays I have had in a while :D

Northwoods - June 2016

What a wonderful time to be alive :)  This month the family packed up and headed North to our very own lake house for the first time.  It was tons of fun to have a place where we could stretch out and be ourselves.  We have always appreciated the second-to-none hospitality of Grandma and Grandpa Grogg -and we continued to enjoy it during this trip as we took advantage of pancake breakfasts and her beach- but being able to live as we would at home is very nice.  It also made sure that Grandma enjoyed some peace and quiet in the evenings :)

Without further ado, pictures!

So of course for those of you who don't know... its a bit of a haul.  I want to give my boy a shout out here.  He was a road warrior!  He did so well on the trip, and behaved the whole time.  Charlotte however... had a rough time.  She's good for about 30 minutes.  Unfortunately we had about 7 hours more than that before stops.  Still, we made it.

We arrived in the wee hours of the morning.  Both kiddos slept in the car.  Mommy and Daddy not so much.  The next morning they were bright eyed and ready to face the day.  Thankfully this wonderful view helped to perk me right up!

We wasted no time getting to the beach.   This is over at Bond Lake, where Grandma Grogg has her place.  She treated us to all we could eat pancakes (or in Forrest's case, chocolate-chip pancakes) and bacon.  After the refuel, we were good to go.  The weather was perfect.  Forrest had a blast playing in the lake, and going so, SO deep.

After a day in the sun we all enjoyed relaxing up at the cabin.  There might have been a few cupcakes eaten.  And by a few, I mean around a dozen.

Day 2 started off with an amazing sunrise over our lake.  We quickly headed back to Grandma's to help her with some travel preparations... and eat more pancakes.

On day 2 even Bean got in on the lake fun.  It was a scorcher!  Thankfully we had the lake to cool off.

There were some highlights not pictured here including an awesome trip to Hayward - it is amazing how much different that town is when you're not fighting the mid-July-rainy-day crowd.  There was also some rainy day relaxing in our own cabin too.  No complaints though, it can't be sunny and 75 with a slight breeze every day.

Thats it for this trip.  The next will be a Father/Son adventure that I am very excited about.  More updates to come.