My sweet nephew

He's so happy and cuddly... I love him so much!

Next stop, Grandpa's...

Meet bus #2

Meet the proud new owner of bus #2

The happy bus driver at his first stop... Grandpa's

All Aboard!

Belle was very adamant about having her own seat (of course).

There is a lot of fun to be had on a bus. You MUST raise your hands when driving down a big hill...

I think the back seat was miss Lily's favorite...

Lily's first ride ever on a school bus and she got to share it with her family on Grandpa's new bus

Sam was a very careful bus driver... he loved putting out the stop sign and safety gate

Come to the Balgaard's to ride the yellow school bus!

Birthday's are for surprises....

That is what my mom would ALWAYS say when we were little.... torture. I simply couldn't wait to know what Robby had planned for my surprise golden birthday weekend. He had been planning this little adventure since October! We had planned a big escape out to the mountains to ski... but after a lot of medical bills and me being on medicine that prevented me to alpine ski he knew we had to tame it down a bit. So he planned a fun, relaxing weekend mixed in with some adventure. He was planning on taking me into the wilderness for two nights but due to a conflict at work we had to cancel Friday night. It worked out great though because we made a spur of the moment reservation at Larsmont Cottages (only 20 miles up the shore from our house!). They gave us an awesome deal on our room plus a gift certificate to their grill. Our room had a fireplace, jacuzzi and beautiful view of the lake and they had an outdoor hot tub. It was the perfect way to prepare for our rugged weekend adventure.

Pretty view from our room!

They lit a campfire and provided stuff to make smokes! Yummy!

I can't get enough of Lake Superior... I just love it!

The outdoor hot tub was amazing! We may have stopped by to use this on our way back home... shhh don't tell!

One more pretty lake picture...

On Saturday morning we woke up and had breakfast in bed (my favorite!). Then we ventured up the shore to the Gunflint Trail. We entered into the boundary waters to stay in a ski-in yurt! Saturday was an 8 mile ski to our yurt and it was beautiful weather for it. We were dropped off at the beginning of the trail and had 20 miles to ski in two days. I was super impressed with how well Robby did on his ski's... since he has only been skiing a few times!

Here is the yurt... super cute with a red door right?!

Meet our Yurt host... Blanca. She brought all of our gear out on her snowmobile! Blanca is very stylish... she's been riding snowmobile her whole life. :)

We were so tired after our ski that (instead of cooking our filet mignon) we heated up our leftovers from the Ledgerock Grill and ate it right out of the pan.

It's the best feeling to be cozy warm next to a wood burning stove. I love the crackling sound and it brings back memories from when I was little. So homey and cozy.

Sunday morning we woke up and made blackberry pancakes for my birthday!

Yum! My favorite breakfast!

We skied back 12 miles... It was a long ski and we had to keep moving since it was only 3 degrees! It was gorgeous though!

We skied through an area where the Ham Lake fire went through the Boundary Waters in 2007. There was a recent story in the paper regarding this fire and it's such a tragic story. All I could think about was the poor man who was accused of starting the fire... and in my opinion it wasn't his fault and was a complete accident. He ended up taking his life after the heavy burden of guilt he felt for burning 40,000 acres of a place he had spent exploring for 30 some years.

We skied the Banadad Trail in the Boundary Waters. It was a fairly easy trail... except for a few giant hills which they call the whoopee one and whoopee two. Yikes...

Overall, it was an incredible Birthday surprise. I might go as far to say it was "the best Birthday ever!" The perfect mix of fancy and ruggedness...