Nelson Family Blog: Summer 2025

Well, I don't know what happened, but I forgot to blog for the past 7 months. I'm going to attempt to catch up on what has been happening, but they are going to be short updates with pictures to catch us up to January 2026.

June 2025:

-Emma turned 13, and for her birthday I took her to a MN Lynx game for free. We got some free tickets from a family member of the Polzins, and we enjoyed a great basketball game. The Lynx won, we had a good girls' weekend in MN, and it was overall, a great time. We also fit in a trip to Mall of America, and visited grandma Patty while we were in MN.

-Emma had a friend birthday party right after we got back from MN. She invited Hannah P, Hannah T, and Lily for a sleepover, and then the next morning we all piled into my car (even Katie joined us) and we headed to Yankton to paddle board, swim, eat, and just hang out on the beach. We had a beautiful day, an empty beach, and we all had a great time.

-Emma also played fastpitch softball again with her friends. They had a great time, improved throughout the summer, and we spent many evenings in June watching our favorite softball player.

-Emma also attended SDSU basketball camp in June. We were hoping she would have a great time, but she ended up absolutely hating it. She didn't go with anyone, so she didn't really have any friends to hang out with and the camp was really intense and overwhelming. It actually caused Emma to hate basketball, and I regretted sending her to the camp. She's back to liking basketball a little bit now, but I'm not sure she will ever recover her love for basketball, and that is really sad to me.

Mall of America

Kitties on the farm

Birthday Party

Softball season

The dreaded SDSU basketball camp

Elliott and Jacob paddle boarding

July 2025

-Over 4th of July, we went camping at Lewis and Clark Recreation in Yankton, SD. We had a great, long weekend. We saw fireworks, we went to the city park for the 4th of July celebration and saw live music, worked on a community mural, and then got absolutely poured on and had to run 8 blocks to our car. We were soaking wet by the time we got back, but it was memorable. We spent the rest of the weekend biking, have campfires, and just generally having a good holiday.

--John and I volunteered at Lallycooler. This was a new music festival at Great Bear. We volunteered on the second night in a beer tent. We worked our 4 hour shift, and then we were able to hang out in the volunteering area and have great seats to see PitBull live. It was a really fun night. We also got to watch TLC, Frank Ray, Kory and the Fireflies, and Uncle Kracker. We really had a lot of fun. We hope to volunteer there again next year.

-In the middle of July, Elliott and John joined Jeff, Jim and some family friends to go to Canada on a fishing trip. They all had a great time, caught some big fish, and I think they plan to do it again sometime. Elliott especially liked the road trip, the fishing outings, and just hanging out with the boys for the week. Emma and I enjoyed some quiet days at home, had some swimming days, and just had some lazy summer days while the boys were gone.

-I played Bethel softball again this past summer. It was pretty fun, and the kids (and John) came to watch quite often. We weren't very good, but we had fun. It's never a bad night to be playing softball in the summer. Our year-end tournament ended without us winning a game, but we had a good time.

-We also said goodbye to the Wordells in July. We had Vicar Wordell for a year, and his wife Erica, taught the lower graders, played softball, and was a good friend to Emma and myself. It was sad to see them go.

4th of July Bike Parade

Camping Shenannigans

Community Mural

Art Sculture Walk

Volunteering at Lallycooler

August 2025:

-2025 marked my 20 year class reunion. Not sure how that happened. But, we made it to the reunion, and actually made a whole day out of it. We really like New Ulm, and they were having their "Spike in the Street"event where they haul all kind of sand in, and over 4 city blocks they set up sand volleyball courts. Then, the crowd can grab food and drinks from the surrounding businesses and watch the games. We did that for a while. John and I got a drink at Sweet Haven, watched some volleyball, and ran into my aunt Janel. Then, we met Michelle at Black Frost, and had a drink with her before going to my class reunion. It was really nice to see everyone, and we actually had a really good time at the reunion.

-Turner County Fair. It was a pretty typical fair season. We brought our campers to the fair and stayed in them all week. The bunny show went well for both kids and Emma actually got overall Champion rabbit, so that was very exciting. The static projects did well. And we did our 4-H food shift like usual and overall had a good fair. We also celebrated our 15th Anniversary during the fair, and the kids decorated the camper for us, it was really cute. John and I decided we would officially celebrate sometime later in the fall.

-My co-workers and I rented the Sip N Cycle on a Saturday in August. We all had a blast. We just pedaled around, acted like idiots, and sweated our butts off because it was like 95 degrees outside. Most of us drank too much, we ran through the splash park to cool off (and I maybe collided with an 8 year old and made her cry, and made myself bleed). But it was a great work outing. We went downtown for food and a couple more drinks after. It was such a fun night.

-First day of school! The kid's went back to school on the 21st. Emma is now an 8th grader (that is so hard to believe) and Elliott is a 5th grader (also hard to believe). They wouldn't admit it, but they were actually ready to go back to school.

-Emma also played on a Memorial/McGovern fall fastpitch softball league. It was so good for her. Her skills really improved over the season, but more importantly, she met some girls that will be going to Jefferson with her next year, so that was amazing. She made a couple really good friends, which should help with the transition into high school next year.

-We also went to the SD State Fair for a day. We had fun walking around, seeing all the sights, eating the foods, and seeing the projects that the kids brought to the fair. On the way home, we stopped in Mitchell to eat supper and then stopped by the Corn Palace. A great way to say goodbye to the summer.