La Vie En Rose: outdoors

A couple of weekends ago we went with a group of friends out to St. Cloud, MN where we cliff jumped and swam at the Quarries! It's a little bit of a walk through the woods to the actual quarry. For those of you who have never been there (this was my first time!) it's an old quarry they used to mine in, and after they were done with it they filled it up with water. Nowadays its used for cliff jumping and swimming. It's legal and safe because there is no gradual slope into the water, its pretty much a straight cut in the rock and it's super deep. We had so much fun. It was the perfect day for it too, hot and sunny!

The big cliff- it was probably around 25 feet high. It feels like much more when you're on top of it convincing yourself to jump!

This is cute, right..?

Me jumping off the big cliff!

Mini photoshoot with the beautiful Kathleen!

My love.

Love those ear freckles.

Can I just finish this post by saying how much I love Minnesota? I love it a lot. Like really.

This weekend was our annual cousin camping weekend. Every year on the last weekend in July my family gets together with our cousins and second cousins and grandparents and great aunts and uncles and all the like to camp together. It's not any back woods camping by any means, lots of campers and bathroom facilities nearby. But it's always so much fun. This year (as many of you living in Minnesota experienced) we had temperatures in the 50's over the weekend! The forecast for Saturday said 70 and sunny, but it didn't exactly go quite like that. There were clouds covering the sun most of the time and scattered raindrops fell throughout the day. But we made the best of it.

We started Saturday morning with some Tai Chi in the park led by my aunt. I've never done Tai Chi before but I really enjoyed it. I was expecting to be like yoga, but it was much less physical and much more mental, meditative. It was an interesting experience due to the screaming kids, raindrops and wind surrounding us. But I still enjoyed it. We proceeded to build a fire and make campfire pizza sandwiches for lunch (best things in the world!). There was a lot of catching up and laughing and munching and smiles. Later in the afternoon we had a few intense volleyball games going. My forearms were bright red and swollen by the time we were done with tiny bruises forming. I also bruised my thumb. It would be nice to know how to properly play volley ball and avoid such injuries. I was not the only one injured from those games either! It was extremely fun though.

We always do a big meal on Saturday evening where everyone brings a dish to share but then we grill our own meat or whatever you choose to bring. This year I made a massive amount of pasta salad and only about half of it was eaten. Good to know for next year to not make four boxes. Our nights always end with a large campfire circle and lots of laughter. Sooner or later something really inappropriate comes up and with the encouragement of smart phones outrageous laughter ensues. Going to bed the first night was cold and uncomfortable. It was in the mid to lower fifties and we did not properly utilize our blankets, so both Tanner and I were cold all night. Also our air mattress of course had a leak so laying on my side really meant laying with my bony prominences hitting the ground. The next night we used a nice, newer air mattress with no leaks and slept underneath our warmest blankets/sleeping bag. I slept much better.