Thursday, August 17, 2006

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

I think I probably promised more pictures from our summer vacation and as I've been looking through them, I find that they just don't really tell the story. There are lots of great pictures of the extended family we visited in IL and MN, but I don't neccessarily have their permission to post pictures.

We have been talking about the Water Park of America nearly every day since we returned. The kids just LOVED it. They say it's the largest indoor water park in America. Water parks are all the rage. Have you noticed? We had a blast. We did take some pictures, but since there was water everywhere (obviously), we just didn't get any shots that really show all the exhileration we experienced.

So you just have to imagine all our smiling faces and wet wet wet hair. I will share this...

That's the carpet right outside the elevator at the Grand Lodge of the Water Park of America. Inspiring, yes?

I also think this picture is quite lovely.

My kids and their cousins feeding popcorn to the ducks and fish at Lake Harriet. The grown-up cousins were quite moved by enjoying the family tradition of walking around Lake Harriet with a whole new generation. We wondered whether our kids will become closer with their "second cousins" like we did with our first cousins.

Families change as there are fewer children in each family, we have babies a little later in life and we move away from "home" so often. I am so happy that we made the trip back.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can totally relate to the cousins thing. In my family, there were 10 of us cousins, and some combination of us were always together for every holiday, and then often, "just because." Even in University, when we didn't see each other much, we could always pick up where we left off. Our parents refer to us en masse as "The Cousins." We all have kids now, but we are so spread out that I doubt teh second cousins will have the same connection as The Cousins did.

TALL GIRL said...

What a delightful photo!

I am a generation ahead of my cousins. And my daughter is a generation below! In fact my daughter is the only kid in her generation. My cousins' kids are all little now, while my daughter is grown. It makes her cousin-less, in America.

In Sweden, from which her grandftaher emigrated, she does however, have multitudes of cousins her age. She cherishes them!