Tag Archives: Vacation

Wedding Weekend Part 1 – The Rehearsal

A little over a week ago Jon and I got back from New York City, spent 24 hours at home, unpacked and repacked just in time to catch our flight to Minneapolis for the Thompson/Jagim wedding weekend!

Vanessa and Andrew hosted their friends and family in the beautiful city of La Crosse, Wisconsin in celebration of their nuptials. They had amazing weather which only further showcased the unexpected beauty and incredible scenery of La Crosse.

I can’t really stress enough how beautiful La Crosse turned out to be. If anyone in the Minneapolis area is looking for a weekend getaway, I would HIGHLY recommend making the 2.5 hour drive to this hidden gem.

Well things got rolling as soon as we arrived. All gussied up with drinks in hand we met in the lobby to head over to the bandshell for the rehearsal!Beautiful Vanessa sporting her wardrobe staple…a black hair tie on her wrist : )
My handsome hubby/photographer’s assistant. Several of these images came from his keen eye. I’ve trained him well!After successfully getting fake married three times, everyone headed across the river for some grub and yard games.Thank goodness Missy brought a little bit of Texas to the Midwest.The beautiful bride and her new sister in law/wedding photographer.Tatum and her auntie Vanessa. I knew Tatum when she was around 6 years old. Needless to say it was a little alarming to see her all grown up!There was definitely a love connection between Belle and Hunter that weekend.After filling up and drinking up, the wedding party decided to hit the town for a night of shenanigans before the big day. We even got the bride out for a little while! Everyone dispersed eventually (some earlier than others) to get a good nights sleep before the big day. Vanessa and I kicked Andrew out for the night and spent it together just like the night before my wedding. There was a little girl talk, a couple of nerves and lots of excitement.

Coming up next is part two…getting ready!

What you’ve all been waiting for?

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Here it is everyone!

What you’ve all been waiting for!!!

(I can hear you holding your breath)

No…it’s not any type of announcement like “I got a new job! I’m a highly paid successful photographer! Marlo is pregnant (she’s fixed it’s impossible so don’t get your hopes up)!”

It’s way better??

This is the long awaited final installment of our near month old trip to Minnesota.

TaDa!!

Maybe nobody is bored with photo after photo of us having the time of our lives at the lakes. Maybe everybody is.

Doesn’t matter because posting the images on my blog is the easiest way to get all the people that are in them to see them. And they’ve been asking.

So here it is, the last lake post of the year (I’m totally lying I’m going again in August).

We left our beloved Pelican Lake on Thursday morning after celebrating the 4th of July the night before. We had already enjoyed our first 5 days at the lake so much that we felt completely spoiled heading to somebody else’s cabin for another 4 days.

Before we arrived at our destination, we stopped at the beautiful Gull Lake Zorbaz for some grub and great live music performed by Jon’s friend John. John was gracious enough to be the musician at our wedding and he’s really really wonderful and talented. He’s also a new dad! No appearances were made by the newborn (it was soooo hot) but I do have some shots from the performance.

It was great to see a bunch of people we don’t get to be around very often! An afternoon well spent. Onward!

Christian is a grade school buddy of Jon’s and he and his girlfriend Jennie hosted our group of Minnesota friends for an incredibly fun weekend at his family cabin. As usual with this group, the moment we all get together we regress to behaving like shot taking college students, convincing ourselves that we are still quite young and capable of such shenanigans. It never takes long for us to end up in silly hats, playing cards, talking louder and louder, listening to great music…and drunk. It’s so fun.This goes on and on until before you know it people are drinking out of watermelons, abusing the props, and men are in women’s restrooms. It’s chaos. We always rally like champions, learn nothing, and do it all over again. But it’s different this time! Because it’s on a boat!We’re still learning about ‘sharing’.The ‘wives’.Not posed. Not surprising : )Always has to have a melon in his hand. : )One word: classy.

It only gets worse from here.Told you.It’s called a diaper and it’s a lake thing. Don’t ask questions. Just enjoy.
No we aren’t floating in our own pee. For some reason this lake had a high iron content or something scientific that gave it that hue.Doesn’t get better than swimming in pee with your best friends : )Except for throwing back your favorite beverage while wearing a diaper. Sigh. This is the reason for my MN obsession. Things like this. Nemesis.Jammin’ to Beiber.Shot pit stop at the lake’s only bar.Saying farewell to his loyal companion.Once sufficiently buzzed up we left the lake for some showers, yard games, more drinks and a killer sunset.He’s gentler than he looks. Not scary in the least. Well maybe a little.We’re all well fed…must be time for a booze cruise!Awww. Look at that pretty loon. Wanna go to the bar and play pull tabs? YES! What a great idea! Let’s hug it out.
We ended the trip with a genius game of golf. Four couples – boys hit – girls putt. It was a really fun way to get the girls out on the course with the boys.…and we played into the sunset.

We crammed a lot of fun into what is always never enough time. Jon and I were so exhausted from our vacation that we split our drive back into two separate days.

It was all worth it. These people are the people that make Minnesota so great and me so homesick all the time. I’m always grateful to them for pulling us back over and over again.

Two Words…Super Sized

Weekend Recap (the best kind)

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Memorial Day weekend at Pelican Lake 2012!

Several weeks ago when Jon and I realized we hadn’t been home in almost six months, we looked for and found some perfect flights for the weekend over Memorial Day. We don’t typically go home to the lake that early in the year (brrrrr) but he was beginning to see how homesick I was getting and we had high hopes for the weather.

Minnesota, like Colorado, had an incredibly mild winter so we decided we would take the risk. He told me we would wait and see what the weather did and if it looked nasty we’d cancel our flights and re-use the fares at a later time. I told him he could enjoy a nice weekend alone in Denver because I was going even if I had to walk.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who won that battle and last Thursday we packed all of our winter/spring/summer clothes as we prepared to visit Minnesota, no matter the weather.

What I realized about Memorial weekend is that there are many things that need to get done with it being the ‘first’ main weekend at the lakes. Luckily for us we got there early on Friday and the weather was average so we didn’t feel so bad dedicating our time to getting everything all set up!

One of the main things to be done was to move the boat lifts out further from shore due to the water being so low this spring. Have to have lifts in order to have boats! All the boys were thrilled to jump into the lake for some manual labor.

A shot and a beer to numb the pain : )

Slingin’ some boulders before moving the lift. You know, normal stuff.

Nice job looking on the bright side!

Way to use team work!

Excellent use of the ‘if looks could kill’ face!

Great delegating!

Way to try and look busy!

Nice job looking warm, dry and happy!

They eventually got it moved, grabbed the rest of the Jameson and hit the sauna.

When the weather is sunny and beautiful at the cabin, life is simple. Boats, beer, sand bar, tubing and skiing. On. The. Lake. At all times.

When it’s significantly chillier, cloudy, rainy and windy – it’s time to get creative. Apparently our version of creativity is competing with one another.

Heidi and I had a ‘who can find the largest stick’ contest.

Livi and I raced everywhere we went.

Chad and Megan whooped our butts and took all our money at a dice game.

There was a shooting contest, dirt bike races, a beer pong contest, and a Zorbaz dance off.

I don’t have photo’s of all of them (lucky you) but here are a few (50).Larson for the win!

And now…onto the MAIN EVENT!

Jon, read us the rules…

“All ages can play, 21 and up can/must drink beer, may the best man win.”

Due to the delicate nature of having minors playing, we had only water in the cups and those of us legal held our own beers separately. This game was more for sport than it was drinking. I can’t say the same of the other more ‘late night’ games.

Yes, I realize he doesn’t look legal. Sadly, that just means we’re old and don’t know what 21 looks like anymore.

Jon and I made it a couple rounds…nothing to sneeze at.

A Brandt, Kinkade and Hendrickson. Family : )

Ty’s got a lot at stake for at this point he’s on the verge of losing to his 13 year old little brother!

The eventual 2nd place team!The 13 year old “Beer Pong Champ” aka “Juice Box Champ” Beginners luck some say but I credit it to his wicked victory dance skills — the T-rex.

It was a rainy Saturday, but we made the most of it. I was so happy ‘my side’ of the family came out. My parents were actually celebrating their 28th wedding anniversary that day!Please pardon the lovely garage decor.

Two of my brothers had to work : ( Luckily Greyson still made it out!

Along with my family came Miss Livi of course and she LOVES all the action at that lake. She was certainly a busy girl this weekend.

Let’s play ‘Two Words’ for these upcoming random shots shall we?

Tooth Less

Crystal ClearEvery NightAirplane Ride

Airplane Ride?Sisterly LoveSisterly love?

Tiny Babies
Doing WorkVery ScientificMama BearParty StartersDock ViewGood Boy
No ThanksSpeed DemonGathering PlaceJungle Gym?Manly MenCousin CooporationLake CeilingOnly ColePure HappinessNew BabyPelican Lake

Goof BallSir SamuelLittle RascalBush BudsBest InventionFamily Overload?Lake FoodQuietly ContentThe following are some photo’s I took of Livi in the most beautiful evening light imaginable.

This was Jon and my first trip back to the cabin as ‘married people’.

I guess I hadn’t really thought about it beforehand.

I didn’t really think about it right when we got there either.

But slowly, throughout the weekend, I began to realize that this is my family. All the people in all the photos above.

I started spending time at the Hendrickson cabin when I was 19. Afraid to get out of the car and see this boy who I had met and meet his family. T.J. was around 7 years old. Livi hadn’t even been born yet.

I’ve been coming to the cabin every year for almost 10 years (yikes!).

Now I’m family. It does feel different. It feels really good actually. Jon and I met and fell in love there and I feel very fortunate that we get to return at least once a year and be reminded of that and of those feelings. It’s the best part of being there…being there with him. It’s like a recharge for us and our relationship and now marriage. I love it there, I always have, and just like every time before it was a weekend and time very very well spent.

V’s Weekend

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A few weeks back I packed up for a trip down South to Texas. My best friend Vanessa and her fiancé are living there while he finishes up his Ph.D. at Texas A&M. Vanessa wanted to show all her girls where she’s living so we threw her a good old fashioned bachelorette party in San Antonio.

There were six of us, which if you ask me is a perfect number, and we all slept comfortably in a beautiful condo at the even more beautiful resort which was gifted to us for the weekend by some family/family friends.

We started out the first night in true bachelorette party fashion with exorbitant amounts of wine, lingerie and laughter.

Oh yeah, and corn.She was NOT comfortable handling lingerie. Love you Gina!

Drunk dialing is ALWAYS wise.

While everyone else was treating Vanessa, I decided to give Andrew a little something. You’re welcome Andrew!! You to V : )

Well one thing lead to another, and by ‘thing‘ I mean glasses of wine, and we decided we should probably break into the pool.

That’s all I can show you for the sake of modesty. We eventually tired of the pool, except we couldn’t figure out how to get out of the pool area. Security came and we thought ourselves quite convincing when we told him we had gotten there when it was still open, stayed there all along, and then whoever closed up locked us in without telling us. Brilliant.

The next morning we took full advantage of another awesome feature of the resort (legally this time)…a lazy river situated on a beach. We must’ve floated around that sucker 50 times.

It was perfect weather, a great way to get to know each other, and the catalyst for a fun night out for dinner and drinks on the River Walk.

Sorry for the signed profanity. The guy behind us was a creeper extraordinaire and wouldn’t leave us alone until we allowed him to buy us a shot and take a photo with us. He proceeded to give V his e-mail so we could ‘send’ him the photo. Oh yeah, he had a gray scraggly pony tail that went down to his ass sticking out the back of that hat. Dreamy.

I then got to spend the next couple of days in College Station with Vanessa, Andrew, their two roommates and 3 dogs. I was prepared for chaos but it was actually wonderful and I am now the proud goddogmother to Riggins, Tebow and Summer. While there I got to help nanny V’s little miss Belle, walk the dogs, help V try on her wedding dress and be part of a celebration during which someone became a Doctor. It was jam packed and really fun.