Ketchup Time!!

So, you know back in elementary school when you're teacher would write "Ketchup time" on the board? Then it was time when you'd catch up on everything you were behind on . . . . anyone? No? Was that just my weird teachers . . . . hmmm well it's "Ketchup time" here on our little blog.  I haven't blogged since our Thailand trip!! Say whaaaaa? That was back in April . . . yeah, I suck.  I don't even know how life has been so busy, but it has.  So I have some catching up to do!

Since August Brandon has been at a residency site up in Wisconsin.  He lives up there during the week (in a 4 bedroom creepy house in the middle of the woods all alone!) and we get him home on the weekends to spend time with us.  The whole situation is lame to say the least, but I can blame my lack of blogging for the past couple months on this situation . . . you see, he takes my "blogging" computer up to WI with him which contains all of our pictures, hence I can't blog during the week! Then during the weekends all I want to do is hang out with him and Harlow (and lately do tax returns, ugh) so blogging has not been the priority!  Unfortunately this doesn't give me an excuse for May-August, but at least I can validate my slacking for the last 2 months, right?!

Anyway, I think I'll just vomit a gazillion pictures instead of writing much (although I always tend to say that and then blurb under each one), these are from all the way back in May/June for a trip to Victoria, then some summer fun, oh and another trip up to Victoria (this time with Daddy!) Enjoy!

These are from the trip to Victoria in June (just Harlow and I), we stopped in on the way back from a work trip I took to Phoenix, and as always Great-Grandma (GG) and Great-Grandpa are a high priority to see while we're there :)

My grandpa just lights up whenever Harlow is around, I love it!

Petting Zoo is a must whenever we're up there, she LOVES the baby goats . . maybe a little too much (you'll see why in some later pictures)

Back in MN having fun at SeaLife, the aquarium in the Mall of America

You can't have summer in MN without LOTS of boating.  Harlow gets extra snuggly on the boat . . . I take advantage of that now!

Brandon starting a trick

in the midst of the trick

okay, so it's not Brandon . . . anyone believe me? It's his brother Nathan (aka snowboarding/wakeboarding .. anything boarding extraordinaire) Brandon did learn how to jump the wake this summer though, and I successfully crossed back and forth from one side of the wake to another (big deal for me!)

 Second trip up to Victoria, this time Brandon got to come too!! We managed to fly for free using our vacation points and my sister, Lauren came to pick us up from Seattle, and drove us back down as well.  Yeah, she's pretty awesome :)

windy ferry over to the island!

How can anyone not love this kid? 

pretend my hair isn't ALL over my face . . would have been a cute pic right?

Harlow and GG watching Toy Story 3 on my Harlow's  ipad

Beautiful Beacon Hill Park . . . I tend to forget how gorgeous Victoria is until I go home for a visit!

She was "talked to" multiple times by the workers not to try and pick up the goats . . . crazy kids (haha, get it  . . . kids)

Love this one, Grandpa chased her all over the park. 

Harlow and Auntie "La La", love this pic too

okay, so I love all these pics, Harlow LOVES her GG!

Harlow and "Mimi", Lauren's roomie named Mily. She loves her Mimi :) 

 So ever since Harlow was born we've wanted to do a bunch of pix of her all over the city, like a little travelling gnome all over Victoria. . . well we still haven't gotten around to it and now that she's mobile we're realizing that it probably won't ever happen (until she's old enough to actually listen to us and stay in one place for more than 2 seconds, and then it won't be as cute) So here was Brandon's attempt to take a few travelling gnome/Harlow pictures at the Parliament buildings downtown, they're pretty adorable!

If you know Victoria you know how crazy it is that he managed to snap a shot of her with NO ONE else in the picture during daylight hours (during peak tourist season in the middle of summer!) 

Harlow and Bailey (2nd cousin? cousin once removed?  Bailey is my cousin, so yeah . . you do the math)

Cousins Bailey & Madison, Auntie Ramona and Harlow

these got out of order . . not sure how

Illegally picking flowers from the Parliament lawn! 

So that was a quick overview of the summer.  Kudos to those of you who are actually reading this and made it to the bottom of the post.  My next task is posting all about Harlow's 2nd birthday . . . it was awesome! So until then . . .