Ironwood

On Friday night we headed up to Iron Mountain to meet Dad and the kiddos the night before Benjamin's UP Finals Track meet! It was great to see everyone and we got there on Dad's birthday! We didn't really know what to get for Dad so we got him a nice black polo. (I know, lame.) Anyway, we're all sitting down in one of the hotel rooms when I notice that Dad was wearing a black polo exactly like the one we got him!! We had him open it anyway and he just laughed.  Getting him a shirt was a little lame, but getting him a shirt identical to the one he was wearing is worse. Sorry, Dad! We'll do better for Christmas.

Benjamin's meet was a lot of fun to go to. I ran into quite a few people I knew and it was exciting to watch Benjamin high jump. He cleared 6'2" for a 2nd place finish. It was a great day for him, but it was disappointing that the other guy won. One of these days we'll go high jumping at BYU's track together.

Christy and Carolin

Spencer and I left after his first race (he did two races and high jump) to head back to Ironwood so we could see Chantel before she left town. We got there and had time to give him a tour of the town in a fruitless hunt for a pasty place that was not out of business and was open for dinnertime. Okay, so a tour of Ironwood only takes like 30 minutes on foot, but it was fun to show him where I grew up. Ironwood's kinda lame compared to Grand Haven. I had a fun time chatting with Brian and Chantel when they came over. It was really nice to see them. I kinda felt bad for Spencer though. It's not that much fun hanging around talking with people you don't know about a town and people you don't know.

Spencer and I at the falls

For the rest of our stay we tried to find fun things to do. We took a hike to the waterfalls and to copper peak ski flying hill. We would have gone to the beach or something, but it wasn't warm enough for that. We played games with Christy and Carolin. Benjamin stayed pretty busy packing for BYU and finishing up his Eagle Scout stuff. Way to go Benjamin! You got it all done! We ended up cutting our stay in Ironwood a little short to go down to Minneapolis a few days early, which was really good because we got to spend more time with all the little kids and babies.

The UP summed up in a picture. :)

We'll be back to Ironwood in December and we'll have to go skiing or tubing and sledding. It was nice to be back for a while and to see everything that Dad, AnnaMarie, and Caroline had done to the house in the last year though!