More Vacation Highlights

While we were in Rapid City, we decided to stay in a hotel because it was getting late and there were still a few things we wanted to do in town, before we left to see the rest of the Black Hills. Well, Dennis found this hotel and we were surprised to find out that it had a water-park inside (and we got a $20 military discount!!). The kids were so thrilled and loved every minute of swimming and the waterslides! These were just the kiddie slides, there were two other slides that sent you out of the building and back inside again before you reached the end. It turns out that Sadie is a bit of an adrenaline junkie as she loved the slide so much she wanted to go again and again and again...Besides that night in Rapid City, we camped out the rest of the trip. The weather was pretty good to us and only rained 2 nights, but we stayed dry. This is the first camping trip that we've been on where I can say that both kids did awesome every night. Sadie always has a hard time settling down at night so she just told us stories until we were asleep and she would fall asleep sometime after that!On to Mount Rushmore where we had icecream cones. Actually, they had gigantic waffle cones that we were anticipating sharing with them but, both kids ate their whole cones without letting us have a lick--those turkeys!

Flashback

Sometimes history repeats itself. Let's take this trip for example. My family took this exact same South Dakota trip some, ahem, 30 years ago. As I page through my mom's photo albums, there are pictures of me next hanging on dinosaurs, posing by Mt. Rushmore, and visiting Reptile Gardens.
Reptile Gardens hasn't changed a whole lot in the last 30 years as far as I can recall. They still have lots of reptiles and put on shows every hour, but it seems that the man who wrestles the alligators has either retired or succumbed to the inevitable death and the rattlesnakes that they had in the gift shop have been moved to a safer location!

The good thing about tortoises is that they get really old, and one of the tortoises at Reptile Gardens is 127 years old (or something like that. So here's a little then and now.

Then:

That's my mom (rockin' the Farrah look) and me (and my brother is the boy jumping) circa 1983.

Now:

Ok, so I can't be sure it's the same tortoise, but whatever, it makes for a good blog post. And they don't let you sit on the tortoises anymore, which is probably good for the tortoise but not so good for those who like to recreate photos!

Theme #2: Posing with statues

I think a trip to the SD Black Hills is a perfect family vacation with just enough kid stuff, outside stuff, museum-y/zoo-y stuff, history stuff and kitsch to keep the whole family happy. Here is just a little taste of the excitement. Theme #2: posing with statues.
No trip across South Dakota's I-90 would be complete without a stop at Wall Drug. Afterall, there are billboards for miles on either side of Wall advertising for free ice water and 5cent coffee. I mean, how could a parched person resist. Plus, the kids had souvenir money to spend and they were itching to spend it. What did they buy? Eli bought a gun, a licence plate that said "Eli" (it's really hard to find things that say "Eli".) and shark teeth. Sadie bought a unicorn and some crystals. Then, they decided to sit nice to this fine lady:Rapid City has a very cool free park that is called Storybook Island. Every story is represented by a statue and some sort of play structure. The kids could have spent hours here and had a hard time focusing on one thing. Every time they started to play on something they spotted something bigger and better to play on, so mostly they just ran around yelling "look at that" and "take a picture of me by this" and "Wow!". More of Reptile Gardens to come later!

A handsome cowboy in Medora, ND:

Theme #1: Posing with Large Animal Statues

How many gigantic statues of animals can a person fit into a trip? Quite a few. Here is theme #1: Large Statues.

The Buffalo at Jamestown:

On all of our drives from Fargo, where my parents live, to Napoleon, where Dennis' parents live, we pass this gigantic buffalo and we've never once stopped (usually because the kids are sleeping). Since we were on vacation we decided to trudge up the hill to pose by the gigantic beast. Sometimes you forget how hard the wind can blow on the prairie until you're up on top of the highest hill for miles around. Notice that Dennis is standing diagonally and not falling over. Yeah, it was windy. Because it was so windy and because we were seeing buffalo, Sadie was convinced that we were at Yellowstone and kept saying in her whiniest voice over and over, "I don't like Yellowstone. Let's go home."

The dinosaurs on the top of the hill in Rapid City, SD: The day that we went to this free park was a pre-historic themed day that I managed not to take pictures of. Dennis' good college friend, Darrin, is a professor of paleotology at SD School of Mines in Rapid City. He took us around the school's geology museum and into the secret vault of fossils and let the kids hold t-rex teeth which was pretty awesome. (As a complete side note: I asked Darrin what he thought of the PBS Kids show Dinosaur Train, and he said we thought it was awesome and quite accurate. So, watch up and know that you and your kids are learning factual information!) Darrin knows lots and lots about pre-historic mammals and the kids really liked him a lot... after they got over the fact that he's a 6 foot 6 inch, 300+ pound albino with a mullet!!

New Salem Sue:

Not much to say about Sue except that she is the world's largest holstein cow and we stopped to take a picture by her!!

Not Yellowstone

For 2 months we were prepping the kids for a vacation in Yellowstone. We talked about geysers, hot springs, bison, moose, bear, and elk and youtubed them all to death. The kids asked everyday when we were going to go to Yellowstone. Well, wouldn't you know that the week we planned on being in Yellowstone the high temperature was supposed to be about 45 and they were calling for rain and/or snow every day. Since we were planning on camping the whole time, we decided that Yellowstone sounded like a miserable idea. So, we went to plan B: the Black Hills in South Dakota. This turned out to be a wise decision as we had beautiful weather and we still got to see bison.
I'll be posting the next couple of days about our trip, but I'll start with where we started, at the grandparents.


After our visit to the grandparents, our first stop was Badlands National Park.More pictures of that and some theme pictures too. I know you can hardly wait so I'll give you a hint of what's to come:

• Reptile Gardens
• Mount Rushmore
• Wind Cave
• Mammoth Site
• Waterfalls
• Theodore Roosevelt National Park
• Lots of bison
• Wall Drug
• And much, much more!!

A New Bike

Eli and Sadie got a new "tag-along" bike for our family bike riding pleasure. It was getting to be a little challenging for Dennis to pull both kids in the trailer not to mention that they both barely fit in it anymore. Eli loves pedaling along with me. Sadie is still just a few inches too short but she likes to take rides in the driveway.
Note: we always wear our bike helmets (and shoes) when we go on rides that go beyond our driveway. These pictures were taken just so we could show them on the blog. The kids did a great job taking pictures!

Sadie's Last Day of School

This year Sadie attended a one day a week pre-school class. Parents come and play with their children for part of the time, then the parents leave for discussion group (ahem, coffee drinking) while the kids stay with their teachers for a little activity and snack time. LeAnn and Carol are absolutely awesome and we were so lucky to have them for Sadie's first teachers.

Have I Mentioned?

After much debate and hemming and hawing and hair pulling and second-guessing and touring and visiting and question asking, we have decided to send Eli to kindergarten next year. This was a difficult decision for us as we had decided that since Eli has a late August birthday that it would be better for Eli to wait a year for lots of reasons: he's small, he's shy, kids grow up too fast, etc. But, we really wanted to send Eli to Schoolcraft a charter school housed at the Concordia Language Village. They only have one section of each grade and only allow 18 students each year, giving priority to siblings. There is an application process and new students are selected by lottery. Because of siblings, this year their were only 2 slots available. We put Eli's name on the list, just in case and we were notified that Eli was selected! After visiting with the teacher, touring the campus, and talking with other Schoolcraft parents we decided that Eli has been given an opportunity that we just can't pass up (considering that there are 43 kids on the waiting list!). We are all so excited. Schoolcraft is truly a magical and awesome place to learn. I can't even begin to describe the sense of community I felt when I was there. The kids we met were so kind and compassionate and they all LOVED school. They were so engaged in their learning and truly learning in a way that Dennis and I have always wanted to teach. Here are some highlights of the school:

• French lessons everyday


• Every kinder and first grade student receives piano lessons


• homemade lunches


• Expeditionary and Outward Bound School philosophy


• PE includes: swimming, cross country skiing and sled dog racing


• Peacemakers conflict management (which we've heard is nothing but outstanding!)

The picture above is from the Concordia Language Village website. Click here to view pictures of the French Village Campus, where Schoolcraft leases space. Plus, check out all of the other programs that CLV offers. It is an awesome place!

A Lesson on Wood Ticks

It's wood tick season here in Northern Minnesota. For the record, I hate wood ticks. They make my skin crawl. In fact, just the thought of wood ticks makes me feel like I have them crawling all over. You are probably scratching your head and rubbing your legs right now thinking that you have them crawling on you just because I brought it up. Sorry.

We've all had them on us multiple times. Once Sadie and Dennis came back from a walk so covered in them that they both had to strip down to their undies just to find them all and to pick them all off of their clothes. Sadie, in particular, has has multiple in her hair embedded in her scalp. So, now it's nightly tick checks before bed!

I did learn an interesting little tidbit about wood ticks that I thought I'd share with you. This is a method for determining if a wood tick is a girl or a boy (not that it matters, they're still gross and they both suck your blood), but the kids enjoy figuring it out.

This wood tick is a male:

Can you see the white stripes going down it's back? Those are his suspenders.


This wood tick is a female:

The white ring around her neck is her necklace.

Cool little factoid I thought you'd all just love to know!!

In the Woods

April was the most beautiful springy month. I don't think it rained a day the whole month. We spent so much time outside enjoying the swingset, hammock and park that I almost forgot that we lived in Minnesota. Then, May arrived. It's been hovering in the low 50s and I'm pretty sure it has rained every single day so far. I can feel the spring duldrums setting in and I'm not even sure that there is such a thing. I guess now I know what it's like to live in Seattle or London. All I can say is that I'm glad I purchased me some new rainboots because those babies have gotten wet!

Yesterday afternoon, the rain let up and the sun even peeked it's lovely face out for a minute or two. We decided to go for a little tromp in the woods. The kids were enjoying the wild flowers and lovely leaf buds that are showing their face. Plus, they found deer bones thrown around including the skull, backbone, ribs and we managed to find all four legs (gosh, what lives in the woods behind our house? Maybe I should be worried...)Here is Sadie's lovely flower collection. BTW, if you are wondering how to achive that wonderful artsy sort of '70s blur in your photo, just take your finger and place it over the lens. Then remove. What is left is called a fingerprint and it will make all of your pictures look like this:

We also found our first black morel. The first rule in mushroom hunting is that you never share where you found your treasures. We cooked it up and ate it. It was divine. Now I'm on a mission to find more. I'll keep you posted.Fishing opener is this weekend and it's a big deal around these parts. It's supposed to be an awesome opener because of the early thaw. I don't know why, something about spawning and fish being hungry... Luckily, the weather channel is telling us it's going to be 70 and sunny. It'll be a good day for the fishermen and a good day for me if it's true!

Soccer Stars

Eli has been waiting and waiting and waiting for soccer to start. Finally the day came and Eli couldn't wait to get to the soccer field. Well, wouldn't you know, it was pouring rain. We went anyways and true to Eli fashion, he refused to go out on the field and play. We hadn't signed Sadie up figuring she wouldn't be that interested, but she was out playing before Eli was. It was a good thing I brought the checkbook, because we ended up signing her up too. Eli came around and by the end was having fun with the rest of the kids.

Eli's Hair Creations

Cool Outfit

Oh, to have the freedoms of a little girl!

Dangerous Game

Oh, to have the freedom of a little boy!

Wearing the Mississippi River

I know I've said this about 100 times, but this spring has been amazing. I think it's been warmer the past three days than it was all last summer. We spent the day yesterday at Itasca State park (which is the headwaters of the Mississippi River) with Uncle Greg, Aunt Michele and Cousin Ben. It was a glorious day, temp was about 67, no wind, sun shining, absolutely perfect...

When you're there, you must walk across the river. I mean, how many people can say that they've walked across the Mississippi River? I started off taking both kids across at the same time which turned out to be a really bad idea, so I brought Sadie back on the beach and brought Eli across first.
We made it across the river the first time with no problem. Our feet got a little cold in the frigid water, but we made it.

But, the second time... Well, this picture was taken right before Eli slipped and got wet. He started to cry and wanted to be carried, so I picked him up and lost my balance and fell in too. We didn't get too wet, but it was kind of funny!

Sadie just wanted to be carried across, which was ok with me. She ended up falling in later when she was just playing on the rocks collecting snail shells. So the three of us got wet while Dennis managed to stay quite dry (he didn't even take his shoes off!). We had a picnic, did a little walking and the kids did a little bike riding all while catching up with Greg and Michele (who is 38 1/2 weeks pregnant!). It was an awesome day.

Easter

We made a very fast trip to Bismarck over Easter. Why not Napoleon? Well, Dennis' mom was in the hospital there having a series of tests done (which we're still not sure what was/is wrong with her, but she is home now and feeling better) so we camped out at Dennis' sister's house. This house belongs to the much talked about Emily and Ashley, who are pretty awesome cousins. They kept my kids entertained by taking them to the zoo and dying eggs and playing games and reading books and teaching them gymnastics... Oh, and they babysat the kids while Dennis and I went to church on Easter Sunday. See, they went to the Easter Vigil the night before so they were free to watch my kids while Dennis and I went to church and actually got to listen to a sermon. Turns out that Sadie's Easter dress was a waste of money. Anyways, we always have a great time when Dennis' family is around so I'm glad we got to see them, and Cindy's clan, and Mick and Mel, and Terri, and Paula, and Grandma and Grandpa too.I'm including this picture of the baby goats because baby goats are soooo cute, not as cute as lambs, but pretty cute none-the-less.

And on an entirely different subject, Dennis reached his goal of running around the lake today. I wonder what his next goal will be? I hope it's something like, cleaning the house all by himself for 52 consecutive weeks... Now, I need to quit daydreaming go rub my husbands aching muscles!

My Birthday Present

Oh how I've longed for a hammock to lounge on in the summer: a cozy place to read books, take naps and snuggle all outside while the sun warms me and the gentle winds lull me. Well, this year, I took my birthday present into my own hands and ordered one for myself and told Dennis that he was getting me a hammock for my birthday. The weather, oh the beautiful spring weather we've been having, has been absolutely perfect for hammock lounging.

The kids have had reading time every day in the hammock since it arrived. Just look at that thing. It's monstrous and has turned out to be the perfect place for snuggling.

Sadie's First Dance Performance

There was a tiny-tots expo in Bemidji yesterday, a place for local businesses, schools and organizations that have anything to do with young children to gather in one place so parents can be aware of these services. It was a lot of fun. Lots of games, crafts, and activities for young kids. They gave away some cool prizes (markers and band-aids, no candy!!) and the kids made some cool things. First City Dance, where Sadie dances, gave a little performance. This was Sadie's first time dancing in front of strangers and I was a little worried that she wasn't going to do it as she didn't want to put on her tap shoes when we arrived. But, she rocked it. She's in a class for 3-5 year olds. She's standing next to the only other 3 year old in her class. They've only been working on this dance for several weeks. It's for their spring recital, which Sadie won't be in because we're going on vacation that week! Enough jabbering, here she is!!

The Latest Pictures From School

These pictures were taken by Frances at Enchanted Garden in February and March. Sliding on the ice that has since melted (thank goodness for an early spring.)
Hot, hot soup.
Hot, hot soup.
One-a-penny, two-a-penny,
Hot, hot soup.The beginning of what ended up being a beautiful spring flower arrangement.


I'm including this picture only because Eli is finally dancing. It only took 6 months...

Turn Off TV Month

Technically it's Turn off TV week and it doesn't start until the week of April 19-23, but we've been spending too much time watching the old boob tube, so we're declaring it turn off the tv month. We started Monday (as we were speding 6 hours driving on Sunday and needed the DVD player in the car!) and we're ending it on April 29 (because I'm going out of town on a women's retreat that weekend and figure that Dennis might need it!). So far it's going well, but I must admit that I am bribing, ahem, motivating the kids. Legos have been promised if they can survive and they are excited for their Legos so we might just make it. Lots of activities have been planned. Thank goodness for an early spring and playing outside and for the Crafty Crow!!