Auntie Cam is in the house!

After several years of hearing about all the fun and excitement of the MN State Fair, Auntie Cam decided to finally make a trip up to experience it for herself. Unfortunately Wyatt also had a hockey tournament that weekend, so the only time we could go was friday night. We weren't able to spend as much time there as in years past, but it was still really great and we always like to leave before everyone gets burned out!

Getting our pronto pups--Wyatt had the Papa Pup!

Enjoying a few of the kiddie rides--Wyatt's such a great sport about going on the smaller rides with Blake!

The kids' slide..Wyatt is going down on the left and Blake and Sadie are up top getting ready still

..and then they were off!

The kids LOVE the gondola--it's a quick way to get to the other side of the fair AND a great way to show Cammie just how huge the state fair is! (The Grandstand was just behind Cam and Sadie)

But this was what we were really eyeing.....one of my newfound favorites at the fair--fried pickles, better known as 'frickles'. 

Everyone loving the frickles!

 (Cammie was a bit unsure but she was quickly convinced that frickles are indeed amazing!)

Sadie's favorite part--seeing and petting the animals

And Blake was pretty excited to sit on this plastic horse.....I think this kid is going to LOVE farm camp next summer!

Checkin' out that big pig!

The owners let the kids give the pig his water, which actually comes out of this squirt-bottle contraption that you pump and then squirt towards their mouths. Blake wanted Auntie Cam to do it for him....

..but Sadie wanted to do it all on her own!

Then it was time for the kids to test their strength! Wyatt got it all the way to the top...

..and Sadie, after a few tries, also did! That mallet it quite heavy!

Then the kids looked on as Matt showed them how it's done!

And then we got these lovely prizes to carry around for the rest of the evening!

We can't go by the agriculture building without checking out the christmas trees, to see if my aunt and uncle's christmas tree farm has any winning trees....and just like every other year, they had some blue ribbon winners!!

Then I took Cammie over to my other favorite fair food place--the Wine barn. But I don't get the wine--I get the wine-infused ice cream that is to die for! And since you have to show an ID just to get a scoop, it's all mine! 

Cam was a fan as well!

Then it was on to the giant slide--Sadie was pretty reluctant after our incident last year (her foot got caught under the carpet and she got a pretty nasty burn along the length of her foot from the friction of the slide--and it took awhile to heal!). But she was a trooper and rode with Auntie Cam--you could hear the two of them from what seemed like miles away, screaming and laughing the entire way down!

(Cam and Sadie are on the right, then Matt and Blake are just to the left of them and then Wyatt's in the middle of the picture in the bright green)

We ended our night with some Sweet Martha's cookies and cold milk--what could be better?!

The next morning was spent here.......as well as the afternoon. (Cammie took Sadie for a little pedicure/manicure date during the morning game)

After Wyatt's 2nd game, we went to dinner in Stillwater and walked along the river for awhile. It was a gorgeous night and the texmex food we ate was delish! 

But I had to show Cammie this store in Stillwater called Mara Mi (same company as the line of paper products at Target) and I knew she'd feel right at home there. It's a paper products store with a full coffee bar and Izzy's ice cream shop inside. 

Matt and I split the salted caramel affogato---we had never had an affogato before, but it's an italian dessert that is ice cream with espresso (think root beer float but sub espresso for the soda)---it was absolutely amazing and my mouth is watering just thinking about it right now!

Blake enjoyed his ice cream with an Izzy scoop (Izzy's allows you to pick a flavor of ice cream and then you get a 'bonus' mini scoop of any other flavor--how genius is that?!)

Cammie found some great stuff in the store (as did I), but the boys loved playing with these display cases that she bought! Oh dear....

And Wyatt finally got the Kendama!! Many kids at school have these and they seem to be all the rage, but I could never find them anywhere. Apparently they are only sold in speciality-type boutiques and Wyatt was ecstatic to finally find one (thankfully he had enough money to buy one too!)

Probably one of Sadie's favorite things about having Auntie Cam visit

Wyatt had a hockey game Sunday morning before church, so he and Matt met the rest of us at church and then we all went out for a super yummy brunch at Pier500 in Hudson (our favorite!)

After brunch, Cammie took off for Madison and we headed back to the rink for the championship game. We actually ended up playing the '04 Warrior team in the championship game (Wyatt's an '05), so we were anticipating that the older kids would win. But Wyatt's team is pretty feisty and fought back from a 3-goal deficit to win! Of course it was another OT win, just like last spring--seriously I think it's harder to be a parent than a player in that situation. 

We just loved this team, though. Great coaches, great kids and great families--and unfortunately we will all be split up next year since some of the kids (and both coaches) were from Blaine and they'll be starting their own AAA team up there with Warrior.

Pretty proud!

The summer of the barefoot

I realize that there have been A LOT of posts from Stormy Lake this summer and lots of skiing and tubing pictures, but I thought I needed to do a separate post on the bare footing.....for a few reasons.

(1) It is a ridiculously hard thing to do

(2) Matt and Tyler have been trying to barefoot for several years now and this was the summer that they finally got it down

(3) We have all witnessed countless runs that ended in horribly painful falls, water-logged sinuses, bruised backsides, bruised feet and disappointed skiers

(4)This felt like a family accomplishment and provided COUNTLESS teaching moments for our kids

For those who are unfamiliar with bare footing, i'll give a little background info. There are several ways to learn how to barefoot--stepping out of ski, off the boom--but the hardest way to get up is called a 'deep water start'. In the barefooting world, you are only a legit barefooter if you do deep water starts and can make a 60 second run. When you do a deep water start, you have nothing on your body but a barefoot suit (which serves as a flotation device as well as padding in the backside). Once the boat is straightened out and the rope taught, the driver says 'hit it' and the skier behind the boat holds their breath, wraps their feet around the rope in front of them and hangs on (being dragged under the water) until the boat gets up enough speed that the skier is bouncing on top of the water behind the boat. It only takes a few seconds for this to happen, but it's such a mental thing to not get all wigged out by the fact that you can't breath until your driver has you going fast enough. Once you are on top of the water, you have to balance you body and bounce along on your backside until the boat is going about 35-40 mph (depending on your weight) and then tilt your hips just slightly to get into the right spot on the wake before you plant. And then comes the tough part (as if the rest of that was a piece of cake)....you pull your knees up to your chest and plant both feet into the water--at the exact time and with equal force) and then stand up on them. If you misjudge this step at all, it usually looks like a rag doll bouncing along on top of the water at 40 mph. Yeah, doesn't that sound like a blast! 

Why in the world would anyone want to do this? For Matt and Ty, it's the equivalent of the Boston Marathon for a runner. It's the top level you can reach and there is a reason few people achieve it....it takes a lot of time, hard work, physical conditioning, failing and getting right back up. And for all these reasons and more, it's been awesome for our kids to witness this over the last few summers. Ok...I won't go on anymore at this point...time to show a few pictures.

Ty and Blake on an early morning run

Stormy Lake is a perfect lake for bare footing (and just about everything else, other than fishing) but even the slightest ripple in the water is like rocks on their feet, so the best time to go is either early in the morning or just before sundown. There are only a few people on the lake who do it and Matt was able to foot with them quite a bit this summer. Sharon (70 year old professional barefooter who helped teach Matt A LOT this summer) and a kid named Clay (20 years old) who basically works and goes to college just to pay for his barefooting. He bought his own boat last summer and goes as much as he can. So whenever we were up there, they'd rotate whose boat they'd use and take turns pulling one another. 

Matt getting ready to start

This is what his feet look like when he's just starting and his face is still under the water

Ty bouncing on his backside, waiting to get up to speed and get outside the curl

The initial plant

woohoo!!!

Matt trying to push through some rougher waters...

...and then catching a toe. (OUCH! Catching a toe is when your toe catches the front lip of the water and it basically just pulls your entire body down immediately and slaps you right into the water)

Pushing through....in this picture he was learning how to absorb some of the inconsistencies in the water and adapting each foot to the different waters underneath them and balancing his weight.

At this point he was pretty comfortable out there....and the two straight lines of spray coming off his feet are a good sign that his positioning and form are good.

So comfortable out there......

My favorite picture.....isn't this so amazing?! You can see the reflection of his toes on the water that he is just milliseconds away from skiing right over. If you look at the foot on the right, you can see how close their toes have to be to the water without 'catching a toe', sending them crashing into the water at painful speeds.

These pictures are of them going through some turns......learning how to manoeuvre themselves while the boat is turning...and also doing some wake crosses (the next hardest thing to do after learning how to barefoot).

Since barefooting is so technical, there can only be a few people on the boat (to enable the boat to get up to speed faster and to minimize the size of the wake), so sometimes the kids would watch from the dock or as in this case, from Papa's boat that be brought over once morning.

A little video Erik took one beautiful morning at Stormy Lake....the water was SO calm this day!



But Matt made it well over 60 seconds and therefore, he's an official barefooter. By the end of the summer, he was beginning to work on doing one foot barefooting and then the next step is backwards bare footing.....but a backwards deep-water start is ridiculously hard (just think about being face-down in the water and pulled at almost 40 mph and your face doesn't come out of the water until you plant your feet....and the falls are equally as painful.
But it was a HUGE accomplishment and milestone that these guys reached this summer and it deserved some serious kuddos!!