Reyes Family Time: Summer in Minnesota (playground time and time with family)

For those of you that haven't been, my parents' lake house is in Ottertail, MN. It is about 3 miles from the town of Ottertail (population approximately 300) and about 10 miles from the town of Battle Lake (population approximately 400). In both of these small towns, we discovered wonderful new playgrounds that were almost always deserted when we visited them! We go to the playground a lot here at home, so Miriam is very familiar with different playground parts: steps, swings, slides, tunnels, etc. One thing that these playgrounds had (both of them, in fact!) that our playground doesn't have is a little fire truck with a steering wheel and seating. Miriam loved the fire trucks at both of these playgrounds and would climb in and pretend to drive, or jump up and down and shake the fire truck back and forth. It was nice to discover these great playgrounds in these small towns, especially when we were able to stop there while running errands or give Miriam a bit of exercise away from the lake. :)

Here are some pictures of Miriam at the two playgrounds.

Grandma pushing Miriam on the swing

The fire truck at the Ottertail playground

She LOVED this tunnel!

She'd get both feet off the ground on this ladder and shake her head and say "I don't like it!"

Waaaay up to the big twisty slide!

See-saw with Grandma and Grandpa

The fire truck at the Battle Lake playground

Her hair always gets crazy static on the slides!

In addition to spending nearly a month with my parents (Grandma and Grandpa) in Minnesota, we got to see a lot of other family members during our stay there. They included Katie (sister) and Lorenzo, Nathan (brother) and Megan, my Grandma Burnell, various aunts and uncles on both my mom and dad's sides of the family, some cousins (of mine) and even some family friends we've known for 25 years. It was a whirlwind of a time when various family members were in town, but Miriam never ran out of people to entertain her or play with her, which she loved. She got to kayak with Auntie Katie, swing in the hammock with Uncle Nathan, collect foosballs for various games going on, and go on the party dock with various relatives. We went to the driving range, played games (Apples to Apples and dominoes), played foosball and ping pong, went to an arts and crafts festival, went to Zorbaz (a lakeside pizza restaurant) and spent a lot of time in the water. It is so fun to see my family in person since we all live so far apart, and it is nice that Miriam knows and recognizes them because we talk to them often on Skype. And, it was great for Mario to be able to join us in Minnesota for a week and have some relaxing time. He took the red eye from Seattle to Minneapolis and he said that even taking the red eye, getting no sleep and then driving 4 hours is easier than traveling with a 2 year old. Which I agree with, considering Miri and I traveled both ways together alone. :)

Here are some pictures of Miriam and me with various family members during our time in Minnesota: