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We had a nice trip to Minnesota. We were able to see Tensae's biological cousin whose adoptive family was in our same travel group to Ethiopia. It was by pure chance or perhaps fate that we traveled together and learned of our children's heritage. I am so happy that they will be able to stay in contact with one another as they grow. It amazed me on this visit just how much more they look alike, sound alike, and even run alike. They are a beautiful and resilient pair. We were also able to see my eldest sister as she so graciously offered up her house for our visit with Tensae's cousin and family despite my sister having to drive out of town for work the same night. The kids loved seeing their eldest cousins who are in their 20's and like little moms to them whenever we visit. While at my sister's house Tensae was able to overcome her fear of their very large but lovable Saint Bernards.

And of course they got lots of time with their paternal grandparents who we stayed with and lots of visits from their friends in small town Minnesota. The kids even got to visit a working farm, see the pigs and ride the tractors.

But of alas we could not make a trip to the Minneapolis area without a stop to the Mall of America. Now I am not a huge fan of malls and I very seldom buy clothes at them but my son LOVES Legos and biology. So we had a fun-filled day on Saturday before leaving on our evening flight. We had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, walked through Underwater World (A underground aquarium at the mall which Discover Channel rated as the best Shark experience), and played with the piles of Legos at Legoland. And I managed to get away with only buying them one souvenir each, a stuffed stingray for Tensae (Which also made a great pillow on the airplane!) and a container of Legos for Ethan at LegoLand. If you ever visit a LegoLand store they have this great thing were the kids can pick out exactly which Lego pieces they need and for a flat price you fill up a round container. And if you put them together and fit them just right (Which takes about three times of filling and then re-organizing since it is not a square container!) you can get a lot of Legos for a very good price. The kids did great on the plane and we were blessed to come home to a extremely green yard and blooming flowers. The grass seemed to enjoy a week with no dogs and tons of rain. In the five years we have lived in CO I can't remember ever a spring with this much rain. According to this website we are not even in a drought this year: http://drought.unl.edu/DM/MONITOR.html And so yes (I say this because we were asked in MN) we do have mosquitoes and even a ditch full of chirping frogs in CO.