Friday 1100 Suitcases not packed. Kids pestering me. Mark at football. Coffeemaker broken. Breakfast burned. No idea what we are doing or where. UGH 1200 Drop kids off with Grandpa. Return home to pick up sleeping bags Mark forgot. Car full of camping gear. Rain threatens. Shoot me now. 100 Feeling better after pancakes, eggs, bacon and coffee at Cahill Diner. Head north. I guess we’re going to Duluth but Mark won’t say if I’m right. 500 Arrive at Split Rock Lighthouse, north of Two Harbors. Tour lighthouse, foghorn building and keeper’s house. Fascinating tour is led by Dave,...

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We attempted two outings this weekend. Friday we went to the Minnesota History Center with a free Museum Adventure Pass. (They are available at local libraries and good at 22 Twin Cities locations.) The pass was not good for the special exhibit, Vatican Splendors, which we wanted to see. It is$20 per person and strollers are not allowed, so we skipped it. We saw the MN150 exhibit, which was kind of interesting but the kids were crabby and made it a bit of a difficult trip. The next day we went to Dodge Nature Center for an apple program. I...

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Because I have a kid-free day tomorrow (more on that later), I thought we should go out and do something special today and have some quality mom-kid time. I browsed several options on playtimeplanit and came across the Jackson Street Roundhouse. I asked Grace if she wanted to go see a bunch of trains (… um, is the Pope Catholic? yes, she wanted to.) So I looked up the directions, packed a diaper bag, got the kids dressed and out we went. Got to Pennsylvania Avenue, just east of the roundhouse. Closed. Detour. Followed the detour around to Jackson...

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It’s hard to cook over charcoal in the rain. Since relinquishing photo duties to the hubby, I rarely remember to grab the camera when he’s not around. Connor is better at the hand-stacking game than Grace is. It’s hard to protected a fair-headed boy’s head from the sun. Don’t eat ice cream six times in eight days. Your intestines will thank you. Auntie Becky is awesome and got up with the kids in the morning more often than I did. They also had plenty of people to play with and keep an eye on them and help with bedtime....

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We leave tomorrow at 10 a.m. for the cabin. The house is cleaner than usual because I spent most of today scrubbing toilets, doing laundry and other such fun stuff. We have suitcases, toys, life jackets, lawn chairs, scrapbooking supplies and dry foods packed and will buy perishables up there. Cross your fingers that we didn’t forget anything in today’s hasty packing operation. “See” you next Saturday!

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We had a fabulous family outing on Wednesday, pretty much unplanned. I decided that if the kids were in a good mood after mom’s group, we’d head to the Mall of America for lunch and so I could pick up a couple of postcards to send to a friend’s daughter for a school project. I thought it would be a quick trip, and possibly not even happen at all. But the kids were happy, and Grace will do almost anything to go to the Mall of the Mericas, so we headed out. Mark called as we were en route...

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