Heading Home- Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois

Not sure if anyone's still reading,  but in case you're wondering what happened on the rest of our trip...


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Tuesday August 2 and Wednesday August 3rd

Kiva (on the left) and Tanner

Leaving Castaway Monday Morning, Nate and I headed to Woodbury, Minnesota, just outside St. Paul to visit my Uncle Rick and Aunt Denise Gigante.  We don't get to see them very often due to the distance and when we do see them it's usually for a wedding or some other major event when we don't have much time to visit.  It was so nice to just sit down for dinner (deliciously home cooked of course!) and talk without having to rush to some event.  It was great catching up, hearing stories of my grandparents and Dad when he was younger.  Nate also loved playing with their two dogs Kiva and Tanner!

On Wednesday, Uncle Rick took the day off work and after enjoying yummy breakfast on their patio, we headed to downtown Stillwater for lunch and spent the afternoon on an old paddle boat on the St. Croix river.  Again we lucked out with a gorgeous day, although it may have been a little hot we still made the best of it.

On the St. Croix River Trip - Wish we had a photo with Rick & Denise!

Thursday August 4- Monday August 8th

On Thursday morning after another breakfast and some more chatting with Aunt Denise, we packed up and headed towards Minocqua, Wisconsin for a long weekend with Nate's family at their grandparent's cabin.

We had the evening to ourselves and celebrated our 2nd Anniversary early at a supper club.  The 5 courses of food were awesome.

Nate's Uncle Paul, Aunt Pam and cousins, Mandy, Nicki and Nat arrived in the evening with his sister Renee and Jason (who was her boyfriend at the time and is now her fiance) arriving soon after.  Nate's Dad and Cindy arrived the next afternoon and we all spent the weekend fishing, boating, water skiing, tubing, playing games, and enjoying the beautiful Wisconsin sunsets.

Some highlights were the mosquitos and spiders attacking us on the island, jumping off the rope swing, Jason catching his first fish and celebrating our 2nd anniversary!

Gorgeous

Jason caught his first fish!

So fun!

All of us!

 Saturday night we were all getting ready for bed when Nate disappeared suddenly,  I thought he just ran to get something, but when a few minutes went by and I heard whispering, I went to check on him. Turns out he had reached into his duffle bag looking for his toothbrush and when he pulled his hand out he caught his pinky on his razor and cut a chunk out of his finger!

Kinda gross, but he was a man about it - no surprise!  And this was the first actual injury of our whole trip.  Of course it would happen at the very end, but luckily it was not major and with a bit of bandaging and a few days of healing it would be as good as new!

Happy 2nd Anniversary to us August 7th! and the last night of our epic trip!!

Monday August 8th we packed up headed back to Illinois to move into our new townhouse in Oswego, IL.  We couldn't believe that we'd been on the road for 2 months!  It was the longest trip from Champaign, IL to Oswego that we possibly could have made!
Looking back at all of the places we went, the people we visited and the adventures we had, we are so thankful.   We couldn't have asked for better weather throughout the trip or safer travels.  It was such a blessing that we'll be talking about for the rest of our lives.

 Since then, Nate's started his job at Caterpillar and he even had training to drive some of the many giant machines!  We've settled into our townhouse and spent a ton of time with our kitty Hayleigh.  I'm still hoping for a job, but waiting for God's guidance.

If you're still reading, thanks for listening and I hope you've enjoyed hearing all about our trip!