Mommy and Carson

This was such a sweet day on our trip to Minnesota.

We spent the last few days of our vacation in Hill City. Possibly the smallest town ever. (I know there are smaller towns according to the population signs; Luckenbach, TX for example. But that's not a real town.) Hill City is an actual, real-life, thriving small town. The grocery store was the size of a gas station, and there were two paved roads and the rest of the main city streets were dirt. I loved it.

We spent our afternoon fishing on Little Bass Lake. It was gorgeous.



Carson hated, and I mean hated, his life vest. It cracked me up. He kept trying to lay back like he was passing out or something. Poor kid. I guess it was pretty restrictive, but he was acting like a dog in clothes for the first time: totally freaked out and afraid to move except to lay down. Hilarious!

He also kept trying to touch the water, or just plain wanted out of the boat and in the water. He loves the water, or as he says, "wa wa!" We didn't catch a bunch of fish that day, but we did have a great time.

That night, we headed out to the town bar/restaurant, Harry's, and took part in a betting ritual we had never seen before... a MEAT RAFFLE. That's right- they sell raffle tickets for meat. In the freezer next to our table there were packs of steaks, roasts, bratwursts, and sausages. The winner of the raffle had their pick until all were gone. We didn't win any meat, but I did have an opportunity to act as white-trash as I ever have- I took a shot while holding my baby.







Notice my "wavy" hair. My hair is stick straight. Crazy straight. That very morning in our villa shower, I noticed a bottle of Wash and Curl shampoo. That's right. Straight out of the 1980's and straight into my shower stall, here it was. I had to try it. You know, in the interest of science.

Crazily enough, I think it actually did work to some degree... I just used my Aunt Nina's styling product for curly hair and scrunched my hair as it air dried... and then I did it again the next day using my regular ol' shampoo to compare. And you know what- everyone said it looked better the day I used Wash and Curl shampoo. Whaddya know? I also had several compliments on how good my hair looked that day... which led me to reevaluate my usual hair style. Which is straight. Very, very straight.

Carson couldn't hang out at Harry's as long as we wanted to since he had such a fun-filled day fishing and all, so we ended up walking around outside the bar to entertain the little guy. Across the dirt road, there was a family hanging out in their front yard and when they saw Carson toddling along the side of the street, called out, "Hey! Want to come over and show your baby our puppies?" I thought about two seconds, when I replied, "Of course!"

These puppies were so dang cute. A Chihuahua and Minuature Dachshund mix, and so stinking adorable. Carson loved them too.





You know, I just don't think there are many places in the United States where you can go to a bar, meet everyone there (several of whom held your baby) and then walk across the street and play with puppies. Seriously. What a great day!