Friday, September 24th, 2010

We took the day off of work and headed up to the North Shore for the long awaited birthday weekend.  No, not my birthday; Natalie's birthday.  Every so often she would ask me when her birthday was.  I would say "A long time."  Then it got to be "A couple of months."  She always wanted to know in days, so I would have to do a rough calculation and say "65 days.".  Then Monday came and I was able to say 5 days.  Then every morning she would wake up and tell me how many days it was.  I think someone was pretty excited.

On the way up, we stopped at Jay Cooke State Park.  The weather wasn't cooperating, but we figured it was worth a shot to see if we could make the trek across the swinging suspension bridge.  It took us two tries to walk across the bridge because it started to rain on us during our first attempt.  It was pretty windy, so the swinging bridge did swing a little, but no one was afraid to go across.  We were going to go on a little hike, but the trail was way too muddy from all the rain they got on Thursday.  Puddles were everywhere!  When we left the park, we decided not to go back to the interstate and instead follow a sign that said Duluth with an arrow to the right.  It was a gorgeous scenic route that put us in West Duluth.  I had a feeling we were going to drive right by the nursing home where Grandma Jackson lives in.  I was right, so we swung in for a quick visit.  I really wanted to get a picture with her and the kids, but she didn't want it taken.  It actually made me a little sad, so I'm going to have to remember when I get older that as much as I don't want my picture taken, the person asking really does want that picture of me.  I don't have many (if any) pictures of her and I or her and the kids and I just wanted to have one.  We also stopped at Grandma Bea's for a short visit and made it to Silver Bay at about 6:30 pm.