Family Road Trip - Day Four

Day Four

After a fairly leisurely wake-up, we had a great breakfast of Anna's homemade oatmeal, got dressed and headed over to visit with Anna's Grandma Mercedes. She moved to Minnesota after Anna and Rick both found jobs there. She lives in a very nice nursing home which is very close to Anna's house, a very short walk! We visited for a short time, Mercedes was busy on the stationary bike when we got there, but joined us to watch the birds and get a nice picture!

It was so nice to see Grandma Mercedes, She is such a sweet woman. She has always treated me as if I were also a Granddaughter of hers, and always greeted me with a hug whenever visiting at Anna's when I was a kid. The aviary at the Nursing home is really neat - they have a bunch of finches who fly around and even have nests. The kids loved watching and listening to the birds!

After our visit with Mercedes, we headed over to another town close by named Richmond, Minnesota... They were having "River and Lake Days" which we only got a small glimpse of, but we got to see the 4H display where all of the animals were. In the photo below, Taylor Anne is petting a homing pigeon. Apparently they're pretty popular because we saw some the next day when visiting Mike's Grandpa Vernon too!

Of course there were some chickens!
These are bantams of some sort, but I don't remember the breed name.

One girl had a few lambs - this one was SO SWEET!!! Taylor Anne loved it! (I did too!)

We didn't hear "Let's take one home" until we saw all of the kittens! The answer was of course "Don't even think about it!" There were some really cute little kittens though!

The main attraction, which had to draw kids from several neighboring towns, was the Pedal-Tractor Pull event... Kids from 3-10 could participate, and it looked like a lot of fun. There was a LONG line of kids in each age level. This one is a 4 year old. Anderson was heartbroken that we didn't sign him up in time to participate. The kids really had to pull that skid with weights added for each age. I think the kids took it pretty seriously!

The kids were very good when we went to get lunch, although they were all tired and hungry, so we allowed them each to get a green 'freezy' from the local Real Estate office. Many local companies were either closed, or had a sidewalk sale set up outside their business... the Real Estate folks were handing out water bottles and 'freezy' pops to all of the kids.

Everyone was tuckered out by the morning's events, so Mike took Taylor Anne out to do some local sight-seeing and shopping. They found this cool waterfall right in Cold Spring... Lucky for them, Mike and Taylor Anne went to a larger city nearby to peruse some of the more unusual stores like Meijer and Menards, which we don't have in North Carolina. While they were gone, we ended up having some serious Thunderstorms, and the 'nappers' (Anna, Sylva, Anderson, and I) ended up waking a little early from our naps. We, plus Rick, had to head to the basement for about 30 minutes because the Tornado sirens started going off! We got some sizable hail, but all was well, and we walked to the local bakery for some cookies once the rain cleared out.

Anna's Mom, Bruce invited us all over for dinner - she had moved up to Minnesota to be closer to everyone, and just moved into a brand-new house a month before our visit. It was such a nice, spacious, house. We all had a great time! The kids mostly played in Sylva's room and closet (full of toys), and the adults made dinner and talked. Anderson and Sylva got out a little picnic set to play with! Aren't they cute, smiling at each other!

Bruce was the ultimate hostess, of course. It was really great to see her again! She's practically a second Mom to me... I can't tell you the number of times I've spent the night under her roof, eaten at her table, or helped her come up with some clever way to convince Anna of something (or the opposite - Anna and I convincing Brucie to do something).

After we ate, there was another huge storm - what is it with storms this year??? We hung out in Bruce's beautiful finished basement for a while and Taylor Anne showed some of the hip-hop moves she learned at Girl Scout camp this year. She was VERY serious about this one move!

Anderson was more interested in watching the storm clouds outside. The day before we found some really cute mismatched socks at a consignment shop - he LOVES those socks - check them out! He wears them to school and pulls them up to his knees to show off the funky stripes!

Anderson and Sylva were so cute playing together! Can you say "Fast Friends?"

We absolutely had to get a group shot at Brucie's house - even though it was soaking wet outside.

It was a great day in Minnesota! I can't wait to go back and visit again!

Up next... Day Five!