Hair

 Kat talked us into letting her dye her hair with temporary color. She wanted the tips of it to be a dusty pink color, and enlisted her friends Emily and Tiana to help her out.  Here's the before picture.

Sadly, the after picture was exactly the same, except she looked more mad because the color didn't take. They tried 3 times, but we think the color they picked was just too light. So the next night Mom helped her try again with a darker one. 

Success! It's a little darker, pretty subtle red/pink color, and she likes it!

It looks really shiny in the sun. 8th grade, here she comes!

13!!!!!

This girl is 13!!!!!

Gizmo was happy to help her unwrap  her gifts. 

She got lots of cool stuff from all the anime and shows that she likes...

And lots of cute earrings, like these little boba tea ones!

She got to pick where we went to lunch - In-N-Out!

Tommy doesn't love burgers, but he tried to be a good sport. Sort of....

Boba tea to go with her boba earrings!

She wanted to decorate her own cake. She found out that black frosting is hard to make, and it turned out gray instead. She wanted to make a drip cake, and made a pretty blue glaze to go over it. 

And she requested homemade pasta for dinner with prosciutto cream sauce. 

Happy Birthday, Kat! We love you so much!!!

Skateboarding Camp

Where's my best friend? I miss him...

What? I can go visit him at skateboarding camp? 

Tommy had a lot of fun at Skatedogs Skateboarding camp, and learned a lot of fundamentals, and how to be more comfortable on his board. 

 You can see him progress through the week. We hope he keeps working on his skills, but Gizmo's glad he's back at home. 

Kerfoot

Kerfoot was an awesome adventure outside Minneapolis in the woods. There was this big crazy ball run you could race your own decorated wooden ball through...

But the highlight was zipling! We couldn't bring a camera, but there were 14 zip lines in the course, through the woods, over the tree tops, and through gorges. The longest one was nearly a 1/4 mile long! It was amazing, and we were all very brave, learned how to hand break, and came out smiling and unscathed. What an awesome experience! And thanks to our hostess with the mostest for such an amazing time in The Cities. We love you, Christa!

Can Can Wonderland

Minneapolis is so fun! We ate at a yummy artisan market (Mom and Christa may have had a cocktail)

 And then went to this crazy place called Can Ca Wonderland. It had a huge arcade with old games, new games, pinball, air hockey...

A restaurant, and a bar. But the coolest part was the mini golf course.

It's all created by local artists...

And each hole is totally different. This one is designed to look like "Grandma's Living Room".

Brenda and her husband Randy and their kids Charlie and Josie came to play with us too. 

The holes were so creative and elaborate....

And a little bit crazy looking. 

We loved it!

This one was a whirling tornado!

Check out some of the holes in action:

Friends

We stayed with Mom's friend Christa and her kids Jasper and Brode. We had lots of fun, and got in some good snuggles with their sweet puppy, Daisy. 

Mom and her friends had a sleepover one night, and giggled until 2:00 AM! They're worse than teenagers! Well, almost. :)

L to R: Stacey, Christa, Mom, Brenda, Kristin

 

Mall of America

After lots of fun with Grandma and Grandpa we headed to the Mall of America in Minneapolis. 

Tommy LOVED the huge Lego Transformer outside the Lego store...

And Kat talked us into going to Sugar Factory. She got these colorful sliders for dinner...

And this INSANE dessert. Yes, that's a piece of cheesecake ON TOP of the milkshake!!!

Tommy was on a sugar rush for a good 2 hours after.

The Mall had a bunch of fun stores they liked...

And of course, an indoor amusement park. 

They liked the orange coaster...

And were excited to go on the Avatar ride since they loved the TV show...

But then Kat saw that this is what it does:

She backed out, but Tommy and I still went. When we got way up to the top the first time he yelled "This is awesome!" and Mom might have said something much worse. It was pretty scary!

Then Kat and Tommy went on a few rides on their own. That's them in the 4th row back...

And on the Fairly Odd Coaster. That was a fun one too!

Lots of spinning as the coaster goes around. 

A good time was had by all!

Especially because there was boba.