August.

Wow, it's mid-August already! I can hardly believe it. Honestly, I have to admit that we wasted a good portion of our summer. We relaxed quite a bit but didn't really invest in too many outings or too many friends, save for Brooke & Scott for the most part. (Which is quite alright - they're good friends!) So August came upon us and a few things seemed to change a tiny bit.
Last week our friend Matt Nelson stayed with us Monday night - Thursday night as he was attending a conference at a Bible school in Plymouth and the hour or so commute to his house daily at 9pm and 6am would have been pretty icky. He brought us ice cream one evening. But mostly I just went to bed as soon as he got home. Oops!
That Friday our friends Shawn & Kaele came into town with their daughter (our goddaughter), Maeve. They recently moved to Fergus Falls. They had a wedding to go to Saturday that also had rehearsal dinner on Friday night. After dinner on Friday they came over and stayed through Sunday. On Saturday we had high hopes of being productive while they were gone but ended up wasting a few hours in urgent care because something felt funny. Apparently it was just me and nothing was wrong. Luckily they were willing to meet us at IKEA so we could eat quickly and get some blinds for our bathroom. I think we also ordered pizza later that night. And Maeve kissed me a lot. On Sunday we went to church at Bethlehem and headed to Bloomington to celebrate Shawn's birthday with his family. We had homemade enchiladas and watched cooking and baking shows.
(Speaking of baking shows - have I ever mentioned how addicted I am to Cake Boss? We watch it with Brooke & Scott constantly.)
And here were are, a weekend later, spending the last night with another pair of friends who came to stay with us, Ben & Jordan. They came Friday evening where we met them for food at Red Dragon. Yesterday we went to Steamworks Cafe (one of the few cafes in north Minneapolis), packed up, and went camping. We joined Brooke & Scott as well as Brooke's sister and her husband at the Minnesota Valley State Park. Jordan and I popped up the tents (I really like the tent my dad gave us) and crossed the path to join the other site for dinner, a fire, and s'mores. It rained a little but that was okay. This also marked Honey's first camping experience. She was a trooper! She was not difficult in the least and she didn't chime in when the other dogs at the campground were doing their morning barking thing. I'll post later with some photos. :)