Uh oh, I didn’t write this recap right away and now I’m thinking I’ll forget some of the specifics. Hey, that means it’ll be a shorter read for you. Win win!

On Saturday, I slept in (ha) until 5:45 then saw a beautiful sunrise! I kept hoping some clouds would show up for one of the sunrises so I could take some photos like this:

I was actually out there writing a blog post when I got to see all that.

After it was a reasonable hour to text people to see if they were up, Dad and I went on a walk. Well, that’s not true – I don’t text him “are you up?,” I text him a Glympse then see if he’ll be waiting for me outside when I walk by! And he was!

Dad and me

After our walk we all hung out at the house for a bit. Val French braided my hair and I felt so cute! And gah, it felt so good to have her touch my scalp.

We all headed out to the Farmer’s Market around 9:45. We had been in Guttenberg since Wednesday night but hadn’t been downtown yet. We were just having too much fun hanging out. Before the trip, I’d made a spreadsheet with a list of ideas on things to do but we barely tapped into it – and I love that! I love that my friends are content hanging out and painting or just hanging out at the beach because that’s what I love to do too! We don’t need to be on the go all the time. It feels good to relax.

Me, Mom, and Christina (snister)

Tiff, me, and Val

Back to the Farmer’s Market – it’s a tiny one (10 tables?) but fun to check out. We went into the “aquarium” (one room with tanks with different fish/etc. that are in the Mississippi River), into two shops, and down to the lock & dam. I’ve been going to Guttenberg almost my entire life and the lock & dam still fascinates me. And lucky us – a barge was going through and we got to see the gates close, the water rise, and the other gate open to let it in!

After our downtown jaunt we went back to the house and painted a bit and had delicious wraps for lunch (shoutout to my snister for planning all our meals and doing all the grocery shopping and almost all the cooking!). I think we headed out to the beach sometime around 3:00? Then we spend a solid few hours there, which I loved! We road jet skis (it was Val’s first time on one – she rode with me, then later the three of us rode on the big one!), played with the kids on the lily pad, ate food, chatted, and danced (once I remembered I brought a speaker). The weather felt great. I could have stayed there all day!

It’s hard to put into words how much enjoyment I have being on the water there, and how peaceful I feel. It’s like no bad feelings can follow me there. Even when I almost got us stuck on the jet skis, I was still at peace. I love that I got to share that with my friends (the peaceful feeling, not almost being stuck hahaha)!

At some point we had to leave (around 7:15?), and it’s good we did when we did – right after we got back a crazy windy storm blew in! We all rushed to secure things and to cover the boat, move one jet ski out, etc.

I’d like to blame dinner being so late on that, but the truth is, that is just how we operate! Saturday was pasta night – we had three kinds of pasta, two salads, and fresh corn and green beans… at 9:30 pm. That’s okay – while Mom and Christina prepared dinner, we packed and painted. (Then I cleaned up dinner after – that was kind of how it went while we were there – they prepared it, I cleaned it with my friends – and it worked out great!).

Mom made a fruit pizza and we had a bit of that while we finished cleaning up our painting area, making some reels of the rocks we painted, and taking our goodbye photo.

We all called it a night a bit earlier than we had been and I thought for sure I would get more sleep, but I still went to bed past midnight.