7 Quick Takes Friday: Vacation Edition

It's been nearly forever since I joined in on Quick Takes, but with vacation photos in need of posting I thought it was the perfect week to hop back in.

Prepare yourself for a photo-heavy post.....

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#1. Busy time, vacation time means keep the baby and toddler happy at all times time. Thanks to the double stroller, we could get here, there, and everywhere with ease. Miraculously, both little girls tolerated it well for three days.

 #2. For some reason, vacation time also means that we are eating WAY more than when we are just hanging out around at home. It sure seemed like the kids were in full time snack mode while away.

 #3. Thankfully, we did a LOT of walking so that surely cancelled out all of the irregular eating. Right?

 #4. We spent part of Monday at Amnicon Falls, over in Wisconsin. It was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed watching the large quantities of water gushing due to the prior week's rainfall and flooding.

#5. When anyone visits Duluth, you've got to visit Canal Park and head down to the edge of Lake Superior. The other thing you'll want to do if you can is catch a ship either coming in or going out. We were fortunate to do all of the above. We caught a ship going out Tuesday morning and caught another coming in later in the day. It's one of my favorite things to see and it seems that Lily was equally amazed with the ships.

    (Can you tell that Gianna was thrilled to have her photo taken??!!)

 #6. Our villa became a relaxing haven in the late afternoon and evenings after a busy day. It was ideal for a family with little ones and busy big kids. It had room to roam and a full kitchen to prepare meals, just like at home. A great place to get back to and put the girls down to nap, but also to play games with the kids. A new addition was an alpine coaster and short zip line nearby, so Reed could take the big kids a couple of times. An ideal fun spot for them while I stayed back at the villa with the girls and prepared supper.

#7. Lastly, vacation was about family time. Despite it being probably one of the most chaotic vacations we've ever taken, we went without any set plan and didn't leave disappointed. My parents and grandma even joined us for the day on Tuesday, so we could share and make memories with them too. It was a good time as our first big venture as the six of us. It was also a good reminder of how blessed we are to be able to afford a family vacation, have the freedom to travel and be grateful when it's time to go back home again.

(I couldn't help but share the imperfect photos. Mostly because this is our reality right now and also because there weren't too many 'perfect' photos. In the end, these are the ones I'll treasure as I'm reminded of our young and growing family)

Have a great weekend!

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