Wednesday Weekend Recap
Like I said, I don’t normally write weekend recaps, but, I want to document my awesome birthday weekend, and share some photos with you!
First of all, thank you for all of the birthday wishes on Saturday! You are all too kind to me.
Warning: this reads like a “Dear Diary” post, so feel free to skip it!
So, our fun weekend began on Thursday night when Erin and Jason surprisingly showed up in our driveway! We drove from Round Lake, IL to Guttenberg, IA and got in to town after 9:00 pm. My parents only have one guest bedroom in their cabin, so we stayed in the “Blue Cabin” – the spare cabin my grandparents own for people to sleep in (my grandparents and aunt also have cabins/houses in Guttenberg). We dropped our bags off there, then hung out with my parents for a bit at their place. (Unfortunately?*) My dad figured out how to put old photographs on to a disk and watch them on TV, so Erin and Jason had to sit through that a bit (sorry).
We woke up early the next day to get a head start on the fun… but it was raining. So we sat around, eating food and playing Phase 10 until the sun sort of came out and we all went to the beach (at 4:00!).
We showed Erin and Jason how to drive jet skis – they never had before!
Erin and I swam a bit, but we got cold (the temperature was something lame like 70°) so we decided to climb up a big sand hill with my mom to warm up.
We may have been acting a bit goofy.
The guys eventually climbed up.
Then we went back, because my sister and her boyfriend had arrived. We took showers, and hung out and ate dinner with everyone and my mom’s parents.
Erin and I got up early the next day to go running. While we were running, my mom and dad went to the beach to set up a tent and claim their spots. It gets really crowded on the weekends. We went to the same beach on Friday and Saturday – I think there were 3 boats there on Friday and 10 or more on Saturday.
Thanks for setting everything up, Mom!
We lazed at the beach most of the day. Thankfully, it was much warmer, in the 80s! Erin tried tubing for the first time! My aunt and grandma came, and my brother showed up with his family, some friends and his ridiculous boat.
My aunt, me and my grandma
My brother’s crazy boat
I somehow ended up giving jet ski rids to these random kids at the beach who really wanted to ride on them. I also gave my nephew and aunt a ride.
We left the beach a little after 4:00, cleaned up, and made a ton of awesome fried stuff for dinner – falafel, cauliflower, and zucchini. And of course, there was cake (and more photo viewing – sorry, again).
I’ll admit, when I saw this cake that my grandma made me, I thought “WTF is up with the frosting?!” She did it that way because the frosting has cream cheese in it, but the rest is vegan. Yum. I could almost eat that whole vegan half… I didn’t (this year).
Alright, you still with me? We stayed up quite late after eating cake. Steven, Erin, Jason and Christina’s boyfriend Will played Phase 10, while Christina and I sat on the couch being obnoxious and loud while making inappropriate jokes (my mother joined us later on).
We ate brunch with my parents and Christina and Will the next day, then went back to Round Lake. I was sad saying goodbye to Erin!** After she left though, we almost immediately turned around and drove down to Chicago to meet Gina and Steve!
I thought I would be too beat to engage in coherent conversation, but my energy came back as soon as we meet them, and we had a wonderful time! (I will not mention going to bed at 1:45 and feeling like ass the next day, though).
I would love for every weekend to be this fun.
I know this was all boring, so thanks for reading!
Does this look like your definition of a fun weekend? Would you want to go to a place like Guttenberg? Have you ever been jet skiing or tubing?
*Just teasing, dad.
**She was probably happy to get home and back to some sense of normalcy.
Themocracy
It sounds like a fantastic weekend and a great birthday (happy happy birthday, belatedly!!)
Growing up in northern MN, I used to do a lot more fun lake stuff (jet skiing, tubing, water skiing, hanging on a pontoon) than we do now. I miss it in the summertime…
I think it sounds like a great weekend. My family has a little campsite on a lake and I love going up there for weekend trips! We sometimes just take day trips from my parents house. They have a boat now so we try to get out and do some water skiing and swimming (I don’t tube anymore).
What a great weekend! And I love your header picture. Love it!
Happy belated Birthday! It looks like you had a great weekend and a nice Birthday.
YaY YaY YaY!! I love this post! It’s not boring at all! 😀 You had such a great time over the weekend, you should talk about it! I’ve never worked a jet ski either but I have gone tubing which is so so fun.
Sounds like a fun birthday weekend!
Sounds like fun! Love the half-vegan cake.
THAT BOAT IS AWESOMMMMMMMMMME. I had a jet ski growing up on HS. Loved it, although it was a lot like the snowmobiles I had – always broken. Blah.
Yes, that DOES look like a fun bday weekend. Nevermind the fact that you had a cool guy pointy hat. Aren’t those required for fun bdays?
What is it with girls and having a million swim suits? I have one!
Our four-wheelers were always broken. WTF?
Now, I used to be the girl with only one bathing suit, wringing it out each day and putting it on wet the next because they never really dry. Then my mom bought me a bunch of suits the summer before we went to Aruba, and I used a few different ones there and thought “this isn’t so bad!” So now I have a few, but only two (those two I posted, which I just bought) that look okay.
And my sister has like 20! WTF?
I know, TMI 😉
Totally not boring! You guys did so much fun stuff. Also, you didn’t write it in a stupid style like, “woke up so early. Just one of those days, you know! OMG. Had a sammie holy yum!!!! Blah blah blah [Insert reality TV reference here.]”
Have you explained to me what “Phase 10” is before? I feel like you have, but I have apparently forgotten.
I also have never ridden a jetski. It sounds fun, though I am afraid of high speeds.
LOL. I loved your reference in the first paragraph (I had to explain it to Steven though).
Phase 10 is a card game you can play with 2-6 people. The deck has two sets of cards from 1-12, in four colors, as well as “skip” and “wild” cards. There are 10 phases you have to make to win the game. For example, in the first phase, I think you have to have 2 sets of three (3 – 4s, 3 – 10s, etc.). You pass cards and withdrawal, etc. But the catch is, if someone else makes their phase and goes out, you have to stay on the same phase while they go ahead! So if you get stuck trying to get a run of 9 while everyone else is ahead of you, it gets really competitive, especially with the “skip” card being played 😉 And you get points for cards you do not discard, so you want to have lower points. I did not explain it well, but it’s fun. 🙂
And you can go slow on the Jet Ski! You are a little bit more stable if you pick up the speed a bit though 🙂
I love jet skis. Haven’t been on one in over 15 years mind you. Oh, and a belated Happy Birthday, I’m still not caught up in my feed reader from the weekend 😉
Happy belated birthday!! Glad you had such a fun weekend. Spending time at the beach sounds amazing. My parents have a jet ski and it’s one of my favorite things to do at their house in the summer (they live on a lake).
What a great birthday weekend!
Happy Birthday!
Sounds like a fabulous birthday weekend! happy belated birthday and best wishes for the year ahead!
I’m glad you had such a fun bday weekend! Props to Steven for arranging the Erin and Jason suprise! That’s a weekend I would totally sign up for.
That is so sweet of your g-ma! Love the cake. Sounds like you had a super fun birthday weekend! That is the way it should be! 🙂