Mark and I had a wonderful time in Minnesota with Mark's family! It was so great seeing everyone again and we did so many things! We had two opportunities to have a cook out at Mark and Carol's new place on the lake! The weather was gorgeous both days and we had a great boat ride on the lake. Beautiful house, too!
We really enjoyed ourselves at the Farmer's Market with Sue...wouldn't want to miss that! It seems like it gets bigger every time we go!
One of our "must do" activities is a visit to eat at Culver's! This is the In and Out Burger of Minnesota!
We had fantastic weather the whole time which worked out great for our visit to the Minnesota State Fair this year! Seems like we only saw half of what we usually see but it filled up the whole day! We were soooo pooped by the end of the day!
A new stop on this trip this year included a visit with Sue to the Arboretum. Absolutely gorgeous flowers and trees! And, we had a great lunch at their visitor center! This will be a future "must see" stop whenever we visit Minnesota.
We had a nice visit with our nephew, Joe and his wife, Heather. They introduced us to their new baby, Colton, who was just a couple of weeks old! What a cutie! Sue is definitely enjoying being a Grandma!
We are certainly looking forward to our next visit!
Our trip out to Colorado to visit Sara this month was fantastic!!! Not only did we have a great time visiting her and meeting Zach and his Mom and Dad, but the place was prettier than we'd expected! And, the pace of living is definitely something we can learn to like very quickly! Much better than the rat race of the East Coast I-95 corridor or the Los Angeles metro area traffic! And, it was a pleasure to see that the community actually encourages bicycle riding and walking with all the bike lanes on the roads and walking paths.
We hiked up the Flatirons, a smaller mountain range right in Boulder. And, we also took a long drive through the Rocky Mountain National Park and walked out on several paths and overlooks...at 12,000 feet MSL! Simply awesome panoramic views! There were even a few glaciers left!
Did a little house shopping comparisons in the local area, too. This is definitely a place we want to retire to. The decision is which town? Boulder? Denver? Fort Collins? Longmont? Lafayette? Louisville? We liked them all! Mark is a little partial to Fort Collins, but I'm favoring Louisville and Boulder more. We'll have an opportunity to decide later because when we leave here, we'll probably put our stuff in storage and rent for at least 6 months to a year to figure out the area where we want to buy a house.
Just hoping Holly, Erich, Zoe, and Ezra can make a move to Colorado in a few years, too! (Wish all our family--East, West, and Midwest relatives could all meet up in Colorado!)
So, our focus is to save, save, save!!! We want to stop working out here as soon as we can. In the meantime, we'll be staying abreast of the housing market out there and here and readying this house to sell.
