The Falcon's Nest

The Falcon's Nest

July 5. 2005
We had a really great weekend! Friday we discovered Lake Minnetonka Regional Park which has a public boat launch area, a HUGE playground (with poured rubber flooring and enough equipment to fill a football field), and a man made lake with filters (that means -no moss), giant permanent umbrellas, concessions, restrooms with showers, picnic tables and grills! We went to the beach at 4:30, stayed there until it closed at 8, then went to the playground until it closed at sunset, 9:45 or so. Saturday we did it all over again except this time we added our neighbors, the Nivens from NJ, and the Rafteseths, if you haven't guessed by their last name, they're from MN! We brought fried chicken, potato salad, coleslaw, and a huge jug of lemonade. The kids swam, excavated in the sand, played Frisbee, etc... until the beach closed again. We went to the playground and stayed until Gabriel started losing motor control. Caleb made a new friend, a lovely young lady named Grace from Jordan, MN. We all went home bathed our children and then the Great Swap began! Rich Niven brought his 6 yr. old, Patrick, over to our house for his first official sleep over, Caleb went to the Niven's to stay with Michael, and 8 yr., Charlotte went to the Rafteseth's! Gabriel will just have to wait another 3 years or so before he can start staying over night at his friend's. Sunday we took it easy. We all met at Mass and exchanged prisoners. Then we went to Sam's Club, (the one in Shakopee is about 18 miles away) did some shopping, and ate lunch. Monday, we loaded up the van with boys, bikes, and the beach buggy and headed to Excelsior, MN for their 4th of July celebration. Hundreds of children on decorated bikes, or in decorated wagons paraded down the shoreline road, ending up in a small park where there was a concert for them, a fishing contest, a huge inflatable playground, etc, etc... We met our friends the Blackwells there, and a large time was had by all. We headed home around 3 to prepare for the next leg of our celebration which was a grill out with some of our neighbors. We did that from 5 until 9:30 when we all piled into our cars to drive the 3-4 miles into Chaska to watch fireworks. The weekend was also nicely accented by phone calls from my family in NC. I spoke with Dan twice, Sheila, Tim, and Mom & Dad. I also talked to Lee on Sunday, Tina was up in Raleigh at the Vet School with Sassy, who remains in our prayers. I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend and used the time off to re-coop, re-connect and re-lax!!!