In the blink of an eye...

August (aka the end of summer) seemed to go by in a flash!

The kids did swim class this summer & made a lot of progress once again!  They did a great job!!

Melanie's teacher had them swimming on their own right from the start...

... & she even started breaking down the free-style & backstroke pieces since the girls had already covered all the stuff in their level!

Brandon worked on honing his different strokes & continues to be a great swimmer!

Although there were 4 in his class, generally there were often just 1 other who showed up & several times he has solo lessons!

All summer, we ran across the "Nice Ride" bikes that are available for rent all around Minneapolis.  The kids loved being on the look-out for GREEN BIKES!

 

We had snuck in a few fun playdates with friends Lauren & Lexie before leaving the cities...

... and we also got together with Erin Kelly & Kris for a fun day!  We are sure going to miss all our friends in the cities!

We took in one last movie in the park... "UP".  We picked up a pizza from Galactic Pizza in uptown that we had been wanting to try.  It was delish!

We also had pre-movie entertainment done by the Fire Dance Group of Minneapolis.  It was pretty cool.    They had flaming hoops, flaming helmets, flaming torches & many other flaming things & did all sorts of things with them... one of the coolest were the guys on stilts with flaming balls at the ends of chains. (below)

On a whim, we bought a boat off Craig's List for getting out & exploring the Mississippi since we are just minutes from it on the farm.  We got a great deal (on this older boat) & got it out on the river for a test spin when we were down at the farm... it runs great & is lots of fun... perfect for us amateur boaters!

This year marks Mike's folks' 45th wedding anniversary, so the whole family went up north for a long weekend at the cabin.

We had a great time hanging out, boating, playing at the beach & celebrating together!

Then it was time to get packed up & moved out of our summer place...

... and say goodbye to our house neighbors!  We were lucky to have some great neighbors & enjoyed getting to know them (though not all are pictured here)!  It was most definitely a FUN summer in the city!!