Happy Saturday!

I’m writing this post with my 5 year old sitting my lap, head on my shoulder, snuggling and drinking a #fab4smoothie. It’s like I’ve gone to heaven.  He’s sad his daddy went to work, I think he’s been enjoying weekends when we are all together as a family because last weekend we had 3 whole days together.

I’ve written how I’m loving our little adventures in this post and keeping in the theme we took Evan to Wisconsin Dells for his birthday!  This is the second year we’ve done a mini trip for his birthday instead of a party and it is pretty safe to say it might become a tradition – a mini trip instead of a birthday party.  When I do parties I go a bit crazy see a couple examples here and here.  I LOVE the craftiness of it all but like all big events they are expensive, end too quickly and the cleanup is just my favorite part 😉  – I guess next year I should have a party to just clean up the aftermath LOL. Doing a weekend away not only ends up being so special for Evan (3 whole days of celebrating!!!) but also it’s filled with 3 days of lots of memories and not as much prep for party drama.

We had a really wonderful time.  Wisconsin Dells is a massive tourist whateveryoucallit.  You get to this place you just see tons of billboards advertising a gazzilon things to to do, colorful motels, signs for resorts, hotels and just TONS of roller coasters, mini golf places, water parks… Loads of people with a similar weekend getaway idea like yours.  This year we did lot of what Dells became popular for in the first place,  the Dells.

We enjoyed a river boat tour of the Upper Dells in the rain.  Actually I really recommend you going on a day with a bit of light rain like we did because they don’t pack the boats which have an upper and lower level which means HALF the people and I’d suspect a much more enjoyable experience.  They had two land landings that were absolutely breathtaking but really tight short paths so with double the people it wouldn’t have been as enjoyable.  I’ll try to get a video from the go pro because it was hard to snap pictures – none of these even begin to describe how breathtaking it is in person:

This was absolutely kid friendly.  The boys really enjoyed the paths through the landings (you can also see the tight space below):

Our second day out there we rented a boat for the morning on Lake Delton.  Again crazy how we got so lucky with the weather.  This all sport lake is public so the traffic can get outrageous, but because the am started out overcast we had the lake basically all to ourselves which meant a few laps just us.  Evan’s vintage Snoopy PFD – I can’t even.

Grandma Debbie always the best around – got into the water with them:

We even saw a BALD EAGLE perched atop a tree on our way back when the lake was getting busy because the sun was making an appearance.  Very. Cool.

We stayed at a resort with a water park so the kiddos really enjoyed that.  While the boys napped with my parents Hector and I went on a hike.  The hike was AWESOME but the bugs were a-plenty.  I forgot bugspray and got eaten alive.  Do yourself a favor, don’t bring the kids and cover your extremities with LOOSE fitting clothing not leggings that they eat right through and dear LORD use bug spray.  Just do it.  Let me be the example of what not to do. If you don’t do chemicals (trust me I have all the fancy no chemical bug sprays but will take something more powerful next time) take a shower in essential oils before and bring a bucket with you for the trip or maybe one of those bee suits. My legs were horrific after that hike.  Upside?  I walked quickly and kicked my heart rate up – it  made for a good workout – not upside, racing through the views.

Thanks for letting me share some of our adventures with you!  We had a great time and those things inspire us to just keep moving and take in all the pretty things around us.

I’m off to start some of the many outstanding projects for the day.  Have a fab weekend!  I’ll leave you with the face on the Wisconsin River:

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