Vacation Minnesota Style!

We just returned from a wonderful week long vacation in Minnesota. For those on "my" side Minnesota is a very special place for Mark. Grandma Ginnie was raised in Alexandria, MN which is a couple hours west of the Twin Cities and surrounded by beautiful lakes. Mark spent his summers vacationing in Alexandria similar to how I did in the Rockies. Aside from the Lang family the whole crazy Backlund bunch lives in the Twin Cities area. Amelia loved all the little people and we loved getting to spend an entire week with our little girl! Mark and I also got to have some fun and in the process proved that we still have a little fun in us and closed down Aunt Gayle's restaurant (Eddy's Interlachen Inn - which you should definitley check out if you are in the area) on karaoke night. The highlight of the trip was spending long hours on the deck/lawn watching kids play, catching up with family and enjoying the scenery. Thank you to everyone who made our Minnesota vacation so memorable!

The trip started off with a trip to the Alexandria Clinic where Amelia had her first non-well baby doctor's visit. We left after Amelia ripped off all the paper on the exam table and with a prescription for eye drops to cure her pink eye.

Amelia took her first boat ride and looked pretty stylish in her purple life vest. A special thank you to Lulu for loaning Amelia her life vest she outgrew.

We had a family dinner at Chet's a favorite spot for locally caught walleye. Poppy (Grandpa T) took good care of Amelia when she had had enough of sitting in a restaurant.

The lake water was pretty cold but Amelia still got in some quality swimming time. After swim lessons she looked at us like what do you want me to do in this little pool.

Mark and I got out for a little jet skiing action. Okay so I'm pathetic on a jet ski and found that 17 mph was just about perfect. Never mind that Mark and Dylan AND Nana and Lulu got up to 47.....

Here are all the great-grandkids (Brady, Dylan, Ellie, Georgia, Lulu, Amelia and Asher) of Viola and Kermit Backlund. Which one doesn't look like the other? So far six of the seven great-grandkids all inherited the Scandinavian blonde hair but it looks like baby #7, Miss Amelia is the odd one out. Yes, that is her with the mohawk.

Mark and I hosted a pizza party one night for the family. The "older" kids all got to make their own and ironically all made the exact same pizzas which of course included no vegetables (and Mark will correct me as he full heartedly considers the tomato sauce on pizza to be a vegetable). Props to Brady for managing to get an enormous amount of cheese in his mouth before anyone could stop him. Luckily we bought lots of cheese so the rest of us still got to have some. Amelia is sure a daddy's (and Grandpa T's) girl enjoying pizza at a young 8-months of age!

Amelia loved "talking" to Ellie. Ellie's mom Jill and Mark are "twin cousins" so it is fun that they both had baby girls within two months of each other.

Nana had a new sidewalk poured at her restaurant and we all marked our territory. Check out Amelia's little bitty footprints!

Amelia looks up to her big cousin Georgia and she sure wishes she could run around with her. Georgia and daddy are Amelia's favorite playmates.

Finally some family pictures.

Culture Club

We gave Grandma Ginnie tickets to Ravinia for Mother's Day and she picked All Tchaikovsky with Cannons. Ravinia is a fabulous venue outside of Chicago where you can sit out under the stars, enjoy music and a glass (or two) of wine. Amelia wasn't as entertained by the beautiful music but she did master sticking out her tongue. It was a perfect way to spend a Sunday evening with Grandma and Grandpa. The live cannons were pretty darn cool as well.

Amelia Rocks Allenspark

We have been continuing Amelia's first year tour of the US and our latest trip took us to Allenspark, Colorado. Growing up my family spent at least two weeks at the cabin every August. So many wonderful memories from the Evans family have taken place in and around the cabin. Joining us at the cabin were Auntie M, Papa and Amelia's Great-Great Uncle James and Great-Great Aunt Vivian. Amelia loved her first trip to the mountains and is ready to go back during ski season! Here are some highlights including, get excited, a VIDEO!:

Amelia read the Sunday Times cover to cover. Her favorite part was the mattress ads.

Helping dad with his mountain golf game. And yes, he is aiming for the tree. We have to get a little creative with golf "holes" in the mountains.

Playing a round of cards.
A true mountain girl in her fleece and crusty nose. Of course her friend Mindy made sure she would be a stylish babe in her Patagonia!

Amelia - the spoon is for stirring not eating.
We decided that a small mountain town's 4th of July parade is a great way to spend a holiday.
3 generations of Cheney's have been born in Chicago. Amelia's Great-Great Uncle James Cheney was born at Cook County Hospital in the 20's, Papa (David Cheney) was born in the Pulman neighborhood in the 40's and Amelia at Prentice in the 00's!

and give it up for Kansas and the ladies born there!
oh yeah, and for the guy born in Illinois. Mark and I just celebrated our 2nd anniversary but the real congratulations go to James & Vivian on 62 years of making each other laugh. Amelia isn't fortunate enough to have Great Grandparents but she is blessed to have James & Vivian.That's right, Amelia's onesie says "My Aunt is Crazy."

and finally Amelia enjoyed the mountain breeze blowing through her couple of hairs.

Happy Father's Day!

I thought this would be a good time to make my first appearance as author of a blog posting - in case you haven't noticed, Whitney has done all the rest.

Amelia treated me very well on my first Father's Day. She began her weekend of pampering me by making (with some help from mom) my favorite breakfast food - biscuits and gravy - after we returned from our swim class. The biscuits were specially made in the shape of stars.

After breakfast, we went to a picnic in the park where Amelia got to play with a lot of new friends.

Later in the day, I tricked Amelia into letting me open my presents a day early. She got me a new book, a fancy shirt and a sage plant.

Finally, on Father's Day, we went up to Grandma Ginnie and Grandpa Tom's house to have breakfast with them and Uncle Tomme, Aunt Bobbie and Georgia. You might be able to tell that because it was Father's day, Whitney let me pick out Amelia's outfit - and the Cubs won their fourth in a row.

All in all, it was a perfect weekend to celebrate my first Father's Day, I can only hope the rest are as good.

Future Poet?

Amelia loves e-mailing as she has so much to tell people. Watch out Great-Uncle Dan, Amelia might take your place as the family writer.

Sweet Potatoes Anyone?

We started off on the path of "natural" parenting and decided to keep going now that it is time for solid foods. With how much Amelia's Papa loves to cook it seems only natural that he gave her her first cookbook complete with the thoughtful handwritten note, "never settle for second best." So far we are having a lot of fun making recipes such as sweet potato puree from "Cooking for Baby." However Amelia doesn't seem to be appreciating our efforts as her ideal solid food menu is: breakfast=mashed banana, lunch=pureed banana and dinner=crushed banana.

Then again maybe it is just us because when Grandma Ginnie came to play Amelia had a ball eating sweet potatoes!

Aqua Baby!

Amelia and Mark went to their first Aqua Babies class this morning. Seeing how a)Mark has been known to swim a lap or two and b) Amelia was banned from bathing in the sink a few months back because she splashed all the water out of the sink it comes as no surprise that she loved the pool. Her little legs were kicking away the entire time. I went to watch and got a good laugh out of Mark. The instructor had them get in a big circle so they could "swim" around and sing "The Wheels on the Bus." Mark looked up and me with a very concerned look and mouthed, "I don't know the words." Mark might be a great role model for swimming but clearly he needs some work on his baby songs.....