Benziger babes

Daddy checking in here for my contractual yearly post.  We all hopped on a plane again, this time to head back for a long overdue trip to the Midwest for a "vacation".  I use the term loosely since Katie registered for a Board review class (basically 10 hours of class each day Sunday through Friday), and the rest of us had to take care of Theo and Marit.  Thankfully, it what can be described as a Festivus Miracle, Marit finally decided to take a bottle just days before leaving.  Hallelujah, the week wasn't going to be so bad after all! Grandma and Grandpa had lots of fun things planned to keep the kids busy and on the go.  We tried to go to a reptile house (closed the two times we tried - grrr), but they also had some outdoor exhibits and we timed it perfectly as we got to see the volunteers feeding worms to the snapping turtles!  We went to a great children's museum that captivated Theo for hours, and also went to the Chicago Botanical Gardens, largely ...

Last weekend we took a quick trip up to Vancouver for the Women's World Cup quarterfinal game. We were lucky to get to watch Canada play in Canada (the only better team to watch would have been USA) but unfortunately England scored two early goals and held on for the win 2-1. Despite a disappointing outcome, the Canadian fans were fun and we had a great time. We also happened to be sitting by a dozen or so other Macalester College alums who had traveled from all over the US for the game! Small world! John Leaney, our old coach, would be very proud! Macalester Women's soccer players at the World Cup game Our weekend started with an Amtrak ride up along the Puget Sound/Salish Sea coastline from Seattle to Vancouver. Theo was blown away that we were going on a train and could hardly fall asleep despite the train leaving around 8:30pm. We arrived at our VRBO condo rental on the 32nd floor of downtown Vancouver around 1:30am and were exhausted. The next morning we slept in an...