Mini Golf

So, while we were in Mason City we took Tori mini-golfing for the first time. She had a ton of fun, though, after 18 holes she was definitely done.

It was really fun to watch her swing her club and get so excited when the ball went into the hole. At the beginning of each hole John would try and set her up so she would be hitting it the right way - though it was awkward since we're pretty sure she's left-handed.

The craziest thing was that she got TWO hole-in-ones!! They were done pretty much all by herself, too. John just helped her stand in the right place and hold her club the right way and then stepped back as she swung and twice it went right in the hole.

Below is a picture of Tori in the car wearing her Burger King crown that she got with Dad. She loved it and is still wearing it around the house weeks later.

Mason City

So all of us are back from Mason City (where John was doing a 10 week rotation). We are very happy to be back in our own home, but we really miss the wonderful schedule John had there and all the time we were able to spend with him. Below are a few pictures from our time there.

These are some pictures of us at Clear Lake (the town right next to Mason City). It's sort of an overcast day, but usually the lake was beautiful and we spent a lot of fun days there. A couple of the doctors that John worked with in Mason City owned boats and one of them (Andrew) took us out on his a couple times. What made it even more fun, was that Andrew had two little girls that were 3 and 4 that Tori had a lot of fun playing with. This was Tori's first time on a boat and she was thrilled! She loved going fast and she had a blast tubing! I was surprised that she was brave enough to ride in the tube - after riding in it with John and me she even got in it with just one of the other little girls. She didn't want to stop and kept asking for more. The funny thing, though, was that as soon as it was about nap time Tori fell right asleep on the boat wrapped up in a towel in my arms and we tried to wake her up multiple times, but she would not wake up until the boat stopped.

Below is a picture of Tori in the swing at one of the many parks we went to. There is not too much to do in Mason City, so luckily the weather was wonderful and Tori and I spent a ton of time playing at parks.

These two pictures are just of us hanging out in the little apartment they had for us, which we also did a lot of.

Tori's Birthday in Mason City

On Tori's actual birthday, we were in Mason City for one of John's rotations, so Tori had a little party with just mom and dad. The day turned out really well and John got off work really early in the morning, which let us spend a lot of fun time with daddy in the morning. We decided that we would take Tori to a place sort of like a tiny Chuck E Cheese's in Mason City called Cody Bear's Cave, but it didn't open until 4pm so we weren't going to start any of the birthday stuff until then. John is on-call just about everyday during this rotation, so of course knowing our luck he didn't get a single call that day until 4:30pm and had to take a guy to the OR for surgery. Happily he was done by 7pm, so we just started all the birthday stuff then and Tori got to stay up until 10pm on her birthday (which she thought was great).

Above Tori is eating her birthday dinner (pasta - her all-time favorite). Below is a video of us singing happy birthday and a picture of Tori licking the frosting off her cupcake.

Below are pictures of Tori and John playing with some of the video games at Cody Bear's Cave. Tori loves arcade games and had a blast!! There were a lot of fun exciting games, but the one she seemed to enjoy the most was the little truck that hardly moved.

Below are a few pictures of Tori opening some of her birthday presents from family.

Mom and Dad gave her the Beauty and the Beast tea set. She had seen it in the store with me while shopping for other friends' presents and told me she wanted it for her birthday. I think we have had multiple tea parties with every kind of tea (Tori's favorite to make is "hot chocolate tea") everyday since her birthday.