An Erickson Adventure: Weddings, Fairs, Dinners..Oh My!

I started this post last week, but got too busy to attach pictures. Here's it is, very late!

I was thinking it was going to be hard saying farewell to summer, and I was right. I cleaned our apartment last weekend and begrudgingly packed away my light summer dresses and dusted off a few packed-away sweaters. With our limited closet space, I am forced to have my closet on a rotating schedule...Quickly though, those feelings were replaced with excitement for fall. There are so many things about fall that I love. I love the cooling weather and my big knitted sweaters. I love the warmth of hot chocolate and beautiful colors that fill the trees. I love the familiarity of watching football games with friends, dental school socials and making homemade soups. We had one amazing summer and I wouldn't want to forget anything. Here are some pictures of fun Erickson happenings that wrapped up summer and kicked off fall.

We had a great time at our friends wedding in Grand Rapids, MN at the end of August. Spencer and Rachel are both in dental school with Adam, so this wedding was a giant dental school reunion. We arrived in Grand Rapids early on that Saturday and spent time walking around their local craft fair and eating freshly popped kettle corn. It was so cute seeing all of the 'up north' themed hand crafted goodies. We then headed over to the church and the reception quickly followed at the Timberlake Lodge. A beautiful wedding for a beautiful couple! Everyone danced the night away and had an amazing time. We're so happy to welcome them to the married club. It's a really fun club to be in.

Buchert Wedding!

The dental wives/girlfriends an the stunning bride!

Adam and I headed to the state fair on the following Thursday for an evening of pigging out. The weather was slightly overcast, which did wonders as far as waiting lines went. Aside from the ticket booth, I'm not sure either of us waited in line at all to get food. We had a pronto pub, corn on the cob, cheese curds, pretzel, deep fried apple pie & ice cream, a soda and French fries. We wandered around through the animal barns, the DNR fish pond {Adam's favorite} and the animal birthing center. The new Heritage Square was really very nice! It was a new addition this year and we had fun walking around the cute new shops. All in all, we spent a little over two hours there and we both saw and ate everything we had in mind. Success. Also, people watching doesn't get much better than at the state fair.

State Fair 2014

For Labor Day weekend, we headed up to Green Lake for one last hoorah. We may squeak in another trip up to help get the docks out, but more than likely our warm summer weekends have come to a close. The weather was favorable for the most part and we had a great long weekend relaxing. We played Frisbee golf, sand volleyball at the public beach, went fishing, got DQ and biked around the lake. Funny story about our fishing trip I'd like to remember. Adam, Scott, his friend Zach and myself took the pontoon out on Saturday. There were some distant clouds, but nothing that looked immediately threatening. As we made our way across the lake, the clouds started rolling in a lot quicker and seemed to get a bit darker. There wasn't complete cloud coverage, so the boys all thought we would be fine. As more time passed, I saw boat after boat making their way back to shore. I, again, told them it didn't look great and we should go in. It started to sprinkle and finally grabbed their attention. They slowly started to put away poles and bait when it started. Torrential downpour. The heavens opened up and we were completely at it's mercy. I had my phone, so I immediately took shelter huddled under my skirt and a towel {which kept me dry for about 30 seconds}. Adam was driving and somehow managed to navigate us back to our dock. This may have been the hardest rain I've ever seen and thankfully my dad was waiting at the end of our dock for us, knowing we'd come flying in any minute. My phone survived and everything dried. No harm done, thankfully..

Beautiful.

Dad's blueberry waffles

Volleyball at the park

Heading out to fish...

T-5 minutes until downpour

Last Friday, Adam and I met up with his sister Alyssa and her husband Michael for dinner at Pig Ate My Pizza. It's a small, specialty pizza restaurant in Robbinsdale that had gotten great reviews. It did not disappoint! The décor was so cute and funky. They have a rotating pizza menu and everything was so delicious! It was wonderful catching up with them and hearing about all of the exciting things happening in their lives. We've all been so busy this summer and most of our cabin trips fell on opposite weekends as theirs. Big bummer. They're moving to Austin, Texas this fall, so we're looking forward to seeing them as much as we can in the next few months!

Saturday we had a going away party for our brother-in-law, Nate. He was traded to the St. Louis Blues hockey team and had to leave on Sunday morning to attend their training camp. Brittani and the little girls will follow in a few weeks, so we don't have to say bye to them quite yet. Both our family and Nate's got together at Burch Steakhouse in Uptown to say goodbye to him. It was a beautiful day and Adam had just gotten done taking mock-boards that entire morning and afternoon. The food was amazing {I'm not a huge steak person...but his place knocked my socks off}. Most of us got either a filet or halibut. Good food and even better company. The evening winded down with a trip to Sebastian Joe's for ice cream and family pictures.We will miss you, Nate! We know you'll do great things.

Sunday was my mom's 50th birthday! I can't believe she's 50 and still gets mistaken as our third sister. I hope she decides to pass those genes down to me too! ;) Anyways, Sunday was a great day to celebrate her and how special she is to all of us. Our family met at Pinstripes in Edina and had their amazing brunch {which included a chocolate fondue fountain might I add..!}. When I first walked up to get food, I saw this delicious looking mac & cheese and chicken strips. I turned around to Adam beaming and said 'look!', thinking that this brunch was the best I'd ever seen. I didn't notice it initially, but a sign said 'Kid's Corner'. My tastes buds will never grow up. After brunch we rented a bocce ball lane and spent time playing a few games. Being that it was a Sunday, the other two bocce lanes were empty next to us. This ended up being a great place for Emeri to run around and stay entertained. After Pinstripes we went back to my parents house in Maple Grove and all walked through a few Parade of Homes houses. A great day it was.