Another Beautiful Weekend Spent with Family

My parents, little brother and his girlfriend Courtney, came down for a visit this weekend.
We took them to the Nicollet Commons Park for "Movie in the Park Night". We got there early enough for the girls to play around in the water pools for a little while before settling down to watch the show. Thank goodness I brought warm clothes for them, because they did get a little wet wading in the water. The movie "Long Shots" started right on time about 9:10 or so. Such a great movie. The girls didn't sit still that much, but we all had a good time. The night was perfect - just enough breeze to keep the bugs away and there was even some cool lightning and thunder in the distance. Alexa and Courtney laid together on a blanket and pillow and Alexa went into OCD mode and had to have the blankets just "perfect", if one of them moved just slightly, she would have to get up and adjust them all over again. I was getting rather annoyed actually, because she was being so overly anal about it. If one corner was turned up, she would have a fit and get up and fix it. Courtney was much more patient than I was.
Alexa also had to get up and go to the bathroom during the show and I walked her around the whole performing arts building trying to find a restroom and couldn't. So, in fear she would pee her pants I drug her over to a bush. She has never squat to pee before, so she freaked out and wouldn't go. Finally, some teenage girls walked by and I asked where the closest bathrooms were and they said way over on the other side of the block. We ran over to them and made it just in time - no accidents.
The girls went to bed right when we got home, so the rest of us sat around and ate chex mix and visited. Mom and dad went to bed shortly after, so it was just Adam, Tiny Courtney and I hanging out. We chatted and laughed while Adam marinated the meat for our grill out Saturday.
We could not have asked for better weather on Saturday. It was perfect. We had a big brunch and then just hung out outside. We had the swimming pools set up and Tiny and Courtney even put their suits on and played with the girls. They launched water balloons and squirted each other with the squirt guns. Adam and my dad played horseshoes and my dad actually managed to break one. I've never seen that before. He hit the steak just right and broke the shoe in half - so they went and bought new ones and spray painted them blue and orange.
Alexa and Lillian fell in love with Courtney - she was so good with them. So was Tiny! :) Alexa followed her around like a little puppy.
We all sat in the garage - lined up the chairs and then put a rug down in front for the girls to have a "stage" and then they did a little performance for everyone. They sang songs and did all the actions. The hokey pokey, where is thumb kin, if you're happy and you know it, itsy bitsy spider..ect. Grandpa and Grandma had gotten them each a bouquet of flowers for their job well done. They weren't able to be here for Alexa's recital, so they made it up this way.
Adam made a delicious meal for us on the grill, chicken, pork chops, brats, hotdogs and hamburgers. We ate and ate and ate...YUM! The girls went swimming again afterwards and the neighbors came over for a visit.
We ordered pizza later that night from our fav pizza place down the street. I called and placed the order for pick up and my mom, Courtney and Alexa went to go pick it up a half hour later when they said it would be ready. They got some confused looks when they walked in and asked for their order. Apparently the guy never gave them the order after I called and then ended his shift and went home. So, they came back empty handed and were told to come back in another half hour. I went with them that time to be sure we got a discount - and not only did we get 25% off our order, the kid who took the order lost his job. We felt bad for causing him his job, but they assured us that they needed to get rid of him anyways.
We devoured 2 large pizzas. I don't know how either, because of all the food we had eaten before, but that pizza is SO good.
Adam and dad sat out in the garage and talked with the Dave, one of our neighbors and the rest of us went to bed.
We got up and got ready for the Twin's game in the morning. We decked the girls all out in their Twins jerseys, SO adorable. We parked at one of Adam's park nearby so we wouldn't have to pay for parking and then walked a few blocks to the dome. My parents had tickets in the family section and ours were in general admission and luckily nobody checked our tickets so we were all able to sit together in the family section above home plate. We had a nice spot where we weren't surrounded by a ton of people, the girls had room to move around. They actually did quite well and made it through the whole game. Lillian even fell asleep in my arms after the 7 inning stretch.
We said our goodbyes at the car and then we took off for Eden Prairie to pick up tractor lawn sprinkler I found on Craig's List. Not long after we left, we got a phone call from my brother, Ben, who was also down in the cities for the weekend. He said he had been driving for 3 hours and hadn't even hit Rogers yet. Not long after, we got a call from my mom asking for us to look at a map and find them an alternate route, because I-94 was shut down. Apparently a car did an illegal U-turn and a semi truck carrying 8 thousand gallons of fuel swerved to miss it and tipped over, spilling all the fuel all over the interstate. I-94 was shut down for nearly 10 hours, and it took my parents about 7 hours to get home, when it normally should have taken them about 2 1/2-3. They said at one point they were sitting still for an hour and 15 minutes. They were visiting with people in the other cars along side them and even heard little babies crying. Can you imagine, being stuck in that kind of traffic with little kids in the car? Ugh! I just feel for them.
After we picked up our lawn tractor, we went to Savage and stopped at Sonic for dinner. We called our friends Travis and Ly, who live at our old townhouse complex, and told them we were in the area and would stop by to say Hi if they weren't busy. They had just gotten off work, so it was perfect timing. We met them in the parking lot across the street, because we didn't want to go back into the "ghetto". Ly's daughter, Tawny came over with their dog Max, and the girls ran around and played with her. Travis and Ly just found a house to rent in Eden Prairie and can get in this Wednesday. Since, they were so helpful when we moved, we offered to help them out this weekend. We are just so happy they are able to get out of the town homes, to a safer community.
We made it home much later than we had anticipated, so the girls were getting quite sleepy. Adam went out and tested out the lawn tractor, which worked really well and I gave the girls a bath and put Lil to bed. She fell asleep instantly. Alexa stayed up til Lillian was sleeping and watched Horton Hears a Who. She had a quick snack and then she was off to bed too and it took her less than a minute to fall asleep.
We had such a fun weekend, they company was great and the weather was awesome. We were blessed and couldn't have asked for anything more. It's always fun to get together with family!

Great News!! My grandpa Dick was asked to be the Grand Marshall in the Flekkefest Parade in August. Congratulations Grandpa!!