Ladd Photos

We started off our day wandering around the Wisconsin State Capitol, including taking in the nice view of Lake Monona from the roof. Then we walked down to nearby Monona Terrace, which is a community and convention center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

In a suburb outside of Madison, we visited the National Mustard Museum, which is home to the world’s largest collection of mustards and mustard memorabilia. It was an unique experience and we even got to sample several very interesting mustards.

Further along the road to Minnesota, we stopped at Carson Park in Eau Claire, which is home to the baseball stadium that Hank Aaron make his professional baseball debut, playing for the Eau Claire Bears.

Our family’s multi-year quest to find a moose was finally successful! The zoo also has a cool elevated walkway, a large collection of goats, and many other interesting animals. We finished our time at the zoo by having the boys take a ride on a camel, which was a first for both of them.

After dinner, we went to take a look at the Minnesota State Capitol in St Paul.

We spent most of the day walking around downtown Minneapolis, hopping between buildings via the sky bridges and exploring the architecture.

In the evening, we visited our 20th MLB stadium, watching the Twins beat the Tigers at Target Field. We happened to catch Brooks Lee’s MLB debut, who is the son of the Cal Poly head baseball coach. After the game, we enjoyed an awesome fireworks show.

No trip to Minneapolis is complete without a visit to the largest mall in the United States. It had every store you could ever imagine, and small theme park in the middle.

Our flight home to San Diego had a long layover in Las Vegas, so we had time to leave the airport and explore the Strip.

Gavin is playing for Crush again this summer. These are a few shots from the first day of a two day tournament in Perris, CA.

Day two of the tournament in Perris. Gavin started off pitching a gem in the first game. Then, in the bottom of the 1st, while up to bat, he took a fastball right off the elbow, knocking him out of the game.

A trip to the ER and a few x-rays later, his elbow wasn’t broken, just severely traumatized. He will be wearing a sling for a week, but should make a full recovery.