Family Vacation in Minnesota + My Sister’s Wedding

Craig, Cullen, and I are back from our week vacation in Minnesota where we spent time seeing family and celebrating my sister’s wedding.

Kristy and Nick

Photo taken by Rochelle Louise Photography

I forgot my phone in Anchorage while we were there, so I didn’t update Instagram, Snapchat, or Facebook with anything last week. While it was kind of nice to be disconnected, it was also kind of annoying, but now we can catch up on everything we did while we were there!

Craig and Cullen actually flew out a weekend early, so I had threes days to myself in Anchorage. This was the first time I had left Cullen for more than 24 hours since he was born 22 months ago! It was so strange! I definitely missed them, but I was so busy I didn’t have time to think about it that much. It was nice to have time to myself and not have to pick up the house 10 times every day.

I stayed busy with working at the expo for the Run Fest races, watching one of my athletes, Sam, run the Run Fest Marathon, taking Sadie to the dog park, packing, cleaning, organizing, and getting the house in order, so I could come back to a clean house. (Isn’t that the best?)

Sam running the Moose’s Tooth Marathon.

After the craziest time with my flights to Minneapolis, but I finally arrived Monday afternoon. We then ventured down to my parent’s in Waseca, MN for the wedding week.

Tuesday I had a hair appointment, and then that evening we met up with friends from the camp we used to work at. Wednesday morning Craig and I had a coffee date while the grandmas watched Cullen. We then had lunch at Out-to-Lunch in Waseca and then in the afternoon I went to a couple of pre-wedding appointments with my sister.

Thursday morning Craig, my mother in-law, and father in-law left at 6:15 a.m. for the Minnesota State Fair (a.k.a. ‘The Great Minnesota Get-Together’). Craig and his parents had never been to a state fair of this caliber as the Alaska State Fair is probably just a little bigger than most county fairs. I tried to explain the endless amounts of food, people, animals, vendors, and things to do, but I think they were pretty shocked when they arrived.

We were at the fair from about 8:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. and still didn’t see everything. We saw all of the animals, we almost saw a calf be born, and of course several different foods were tried. It is very common and popular to try and put as many foods ‘on a stick’ at the Minnesota State Fair. I even had a ‘salad on a stick’ which is in Craig’s left hand in the photo above. It was a bed of spring greens at the bottom with a scoop of a wild rice salad in the middle. The two skewers were a caprese salad: a grape tomato, mozzarella ball, a basil leaf, and then everything was drizzled with a balsamic reduction–it was awesome!

Friday was filled with decorating the reception venue, nail appointments, and the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.

Then Saturday was the big day. We started out with an easy 3 mile run in the rain. Then it was off for hair and make-up appointments.

The bride getting her hair done.

Then we all got into our dresses for pictures.

Before too long it was ‘go’ time.

The reception was held at a beautiful venue in Waseca. We, of course, had pork to eat (since my parents were/are pig farmers), and the dance was full of people dancing all night.

It was such a fun day, and I can’t believe my little sister is now married! It is so weird to think since I played mom to her as a baby feeding her her bottle, changing her diaper, and pulling her teeth as a kid.

I am so happy for Kristy and Nick, and I can’t wait to spend more time with them! (Now I just have to work on getting us back to Minnesota!)