{Girls Weekend}

A much needed girls break happened this weekend as Emilie came into town for a visit.  It's always fun to catch up with her - we are the kind of friends who don't talk forever but can pick up right where we left off when we do get together - and she has proven a true friend by visiting every place we've been assigned so far (you people who came to visit us when we lived in Vegas and Hawaii I'm looking at you - visiting South Dakota will show the depth of our friendship! hahaha :) 

We enjoyed catching up, eating delicious food, and listening to the Hamilton soundtrack.  Admittedly, I am the only one who enjoyed listening to the Hamilton soundtrack, but there you have it - a true friend lets you listen to broadway rap and doesn't judge you.

She treated the boys to a trip to the Aquarium and Butterfly House - they LOVED it!  Calvin was terrified of the butterflies which made the whole trip even more enjoyable for us :) He did love the fishies though, and he bravely pet the sting ray.  Wesley was wreckless and carefree - nothing even phases that little dude!

Petting the starfish (or "poop" as Calvin kept calling them)

There is a little baby shark camped out on the top and the sting ray swam right up to - he didn't hang out as long by us though!

Calvin loved seeing Dory in real life!

I'll be honest I was also a little uneasy around some of those huge butterflies...  Not scared like Calvin but I'm not a big fan of any creature fluttering around me and I especially don't want it landing on me.  

Calvin's response to butterflies everywhere was "I WANNA HOLD YOU" while screaming and ducking away from them.

It was a fun outing for the kids (despite what Calvin's face in that last photo would suggest). 

That weekend we road tripped with Holly to Minneapolis for a girls trip!  We left the boys with Mike and Mario (who were great sports about letting us have our weekend).  We had a blast but tried to make a plan before we left - we have discovered that the three of us are all babies in the family which leads to an attitude of "I don't care what we do" and when you have three indecisive people who are pretty much okay with anything, sometimes NOTHING happens!  BUT since we had a plan and we stuck with it I feel like we ended up getting to eat / do / see a lot of fun stuff.

Minnehaha Falls - halfway frozen (as were our bodies after we visited them).  But they were gorgeous!! 

Juicy Lucy burgers at Matts.  They did not disappoint!  One of my favorite Minnesota finds!

Shopping at Mall of America (although the real shopping was done at an underground target and Ikea - HOURS and HOURS of shopping - I could get behind that!)

Emilie posing in front of the cherry spoon statue - a pretty cool shot of the Minneapolis skyline in the background!

Those were some of my favorite shots from exploring the twin cities in Minnesota!

It was a fun weekend - I'm glad for tiny little breaks like these <3