Sunrise over the lake.

There’s almost always a bald eagle or two hanging around. Pretty cool to see, especially as this whole area is surrounded by full-on suburbia. Concrete, cars, and one farm after another turned into tract housing. They are in a never-ending fight against loss of habitat. The lake here seems to be their stronghold.

Lowe and I have been running off to the different climbing gyms around St. Paul as much as we can. One day we took along my nephew and his fiancé for their first time. These two are in great shape, but they texted the next morning to let me know neither one of them could move. Climbing uses so many muscles you don’t seem to engage in normal training. They just laughed at us when we invited them to go again two days later. But by the next weekend they were excited for another session, and by the end of that one they were buying shoes and signing a contract. We hooked them. Honestly, the gyms were so nice and so huge here that both me and Lowe were like, “Hmm, maybe we could live in Minnesota.”

Ali and I could have renewed our vows at the Oakdale Wild Boar on this night out. Me, with three of my groomsmen and oldest friends.

And Ali with a bunch of girls we all grew up with. Fun night of reminiscing!

Got home a little late that night, but just in time to wake Lowe up to see a total eclipse of the moon.

We always try and plan our trips to Minnesota to coincide with the State Fair. It’s the best, bar none. And absolute perfect weather this day brought out a record-breaking crowd.

Cousin Lea was down for all the rides with Ouest. It’s a good thing, too, because nobody else was jumping at the opportunity.

Curt, Grandma, and Ali. Yes, there’s about to be another Ali in the family.

We all survived the Haunted House. I remember when they used to actually grab you out of the darkness. These days there’s no touching allowed so it’s just a lot of “Rar, rar, boo!” Not quite the same in the fright department.

The girls went out for a day in the sunflower fields.

We’ve all been coming to Donatelli’s for fifty years now. When the waiter overheard us talking about Grandma and Grandpa’s anniversary (fifty-seven years!), they brought out a little extra treat.

I started this post with sunrise over the lake, I may as well end it with sunset.