Happy belated Memorial Day. 🙂 Hope any US readers who celebrated the holiday had a nice “kickoff to summer” weekend!
We took an impromptu short getaway to LaCrosse, WI this weekend. (Technically, we started from home, drove to Prairie du Chien, WI/ McGregor, Iowa along the Mississippi River, then drove up a stretch of the Great River Road to LaCrosse. Stayed overnight in LaCrosse.)
We had a bazillion other things to do, but, YOLO. The weather looked great, and we’re always so busy with kids’ activities and stuff….for once, we had a wide open, unplanned holiday weekend (after a soccer game at noon on Saturday). Besides, I am pretty sure we have spent the last 4 or 5 Memorial Day weekends doing yard work.
So, why not? My parents drove over on Saturday and went with us. It was very lovely!! Relaxing, low key, and a beautiful part of the state just 2 hours or so from home.
I’ll share some more details later. For now, I’m sitting at my desk looking at my spread for the week:
HA. Clearly I have not planned or prepared one lick for this week yet.
Fortunately, school is out, although soccer and piano are still in session for Ethan, and Asher has swim practices. I do know the boys have dentist appts at 11 today. Definitely need to get my week sketched out though….
It’s hard to believe May is wrapping up already!! Yesterday the boys and I realized it has been over two MONTHS since we got home from Europe already. Wow. I kind of feel like we just got home a week or two ago. (Our Europe trip in March has been the big defining event of the year so far- we seem to view everything as “pre-Europe” or “post-Europe”. lol.)
My weekly spread resembles my April Recap/ May goals pages in my planner:
Never even filled them out!! Oh well. Apparently I still got some stuff done, even without writing a single thing down or setting a single goal.
(I recently read something about “challenges” and “goal setting” that was interesting- someone made a comment like, “Why does everyone feel the need to embark on arbitrary “challenges” and setting random goals all the time?? Isn’t life hard enough without needing to complicate it, just for the mere sake of making it harder??” Interesting perspective!! I’d never thought of it that way. I guess I do do that kind of thing to myself, sometimes…but I generally get a little thrill out of completing challenges/ having structure in my life. So, who knows. I really think this is a personality thing.)
Anyway, need to get going. I’ll recap our getaway soon! We travel quite often to far-away places, but honestly we are not that great about exploring our own state and area! (local adventures). So this was fun. I’m hoping to make a point to do more of this. Sometimes it’s easy to think that local places are just not that exciting, compared to traveling farther away. But we live in a beautiful state, too!
Here are a few sneak peak pics:
And since it’s kind of impossible for me to see the Mississippi River and not think of Mark Twain, I’ll borrow his words:
Quote of the Day:
“20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you did not do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for good weather and a nice mini-vacation.
GRATEFUL KAE 
That sounds like a lovely getaway! Sometimes you really do just need to throw all the “should dos” out the window and do something fun! And I am with you – I cannot believe tomorrow is JUNE!
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Thank you for sharing!
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i love spontaneous trips! they require less preparation and happily surprised by most.
i don’t agree about the challenge thoughts, life is hard or easy depending our attitude mental state about it. The same set of circumstances can be considered easy for some and hard for others. I like to try new “challenges” from time to time, more like a plan/intention, it’s okay if I don’t stick to it, but at least it’s a good plan for as long as I find it fun.
I’m also terrible exploring near by places. I still haven’t visited many places in manila, just out of laziness. 🙂
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That sounds like a fantastic spontaneous trip! I love how often your parents join in with you too 🙂
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What a great getaway! And you were so close to us! I actually have not been to LaCrosse! It looks really pretty and charming, though. We will have to check it out at some point. We are not great at taking in what Minnesota has to offer because we tend to go to my parents. We did go camping the summer after we got married at a beautiful state park off Lake Superior but I was pregnant at the time so we knew it was the one time we’d go as we are not the ‘camping while kids are in diapers’ kind of couple. But in 2 years we’ll be able to hopefully/maybe start a tradition of camping and then we’ll see more of what this area has to offer.
When I was reading your Ireland posts I was thinking that it seemed like that trip was so long ago! The last couple of months went pretty fast, except May, but also felt long since there were so many illnesses, but hopefully we have a healthier stretch ahead of.
Oh and that comment about challenges/goals sounded like a questioner or rebel! As upholders, we tend to be drawn to goals and challenges. I have realized that I don’t feel drawn to streaks, though, and SHU is the same way. I do fewer challenges/take on fewer goals now that I used to pre-kids but it feels good to worth towards something that matters to me!
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I love adventuring close to home – so many hidden gems. Sounds like a great weekend getaway and the pictures are beautiful ❤
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Sounds like you really took advantage of the ‘free’ weekend 🙂
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I too went to La Crosse that weekend to visit family! You weren’t by chance at the Trane park Sunday morning in the rain? I def said hello to another mom who said they were from out of town. Funny!
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Nope, not me!! We were in a park but I think it was called Riverside park? That would have been so funny though if it were!!
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