A Celebration of Learning: Eli's Transportation Expedition

Eli's crew spent the semester being engineers and learning all about transportation. They focused a lot of their time on transportation problems in the community and came up with ideas on how to solve these problems. The solutions were creative and interesting. They also learned a lot about physics, simple machines, tools, and transportation of the past, present and future.

Eli sharing transporation problems in the community!

The Fast Master

 


Eli worked with a partner to make a commercial to sell their Fast Master.

Transportation time line

Building vehicles at the celebration

Making boats.

The Longest Winter Ever!

I think we might actually be done with what was the longest winter ever!! Woot! Yesterday, was ice off on Lake Bemidji and the snow finally all melted from our yard.  We had lots of snow this year. The skiing was good, but after 6 months of snow, I'm glad that it's gone. I've never experienced a winter like this.... I can't even explain it because just the thought makes me crabby.

The picture above was taken at Lake Bemidji State Park on May 14. Lake Bemidji still had ice and it was super windy. The waves blew the ice onto the shore. It was eerily cool. The ice was like a giant blob creeping up the shore. It sounded like a tinkling freight train. We stopped after school to view mother nature at work. Then the next day, it was gone. Finally I can say, "Welcome Spring!"

A New Nephew

Back on February 15 my brother called in a panic. It seems my SIL was going into labor and their plan of having her mom come and watch the kids wasn't working. They couldn't get ahold of her and Talia wanted to get to the hospital "right now" and would I please come over. I was out the door in 5 minutes arriving at about 6:00ish. They were out the door by 6:30 because my brother was adamant about installing the car seat and he needed to vacuum out the car. Don't ask. Brothers do weird things when their wife is in labor. Darren called about an hour and a half later saying that Talia already delivered the baby. Bennett came fast and furious, but at least it was at the hospital and not in the freshly vacuumed car! He was a chubby little thing and big compared to her other two peanuts. Welcome to the world Bennett Gabriel! We can't wait to watch you grow.

The hospital announcement.

A happy family.

Proud (and tired) mom and dad.

Dennis holds Bennett for the first time!

Skip to the last weekend in April when Bennett was baptized. Here he is at 10 weeks!

Proud auntie.

Doting cousins making Bennett smile!

Waterpark Fun

During Spring Break way back in March we went on a totally kid-friendly trip to Wisconsin Dells. We stayed at a hotel called the Wilderness which boasts 4 indoor waterparks, 2 mini-golf courses, too many arcades to count, a haunted house, a ropes course, a gigantic indoor playpark, laser tag and more. It was a crazy noisy experience and I'm pretty sure every kid and their parent in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois was there. It was insane. As you can imagine taking pictures at a place like this just doesn't happen mostly because I was wearing my swimsuit the whole time which meant no pockets and when I did have my camera we were in a place that was dark like the glow mini-golf courses or the haunted house or the laser tag. Plus, I was too busy participating in said attractions and had my hands full so taking pictures just wasn't going to happen. But, here are a few highlights anyways!!

Eli loved the wave pool and the indoor/outdoor hottub. Sadie prefered the water play areas with fountains and dumping water. The water slides were fun too but the lines were long.

One of the 3D mini golf courses...

One of the many fountains that Sadie made me take a picture of her sitting on.

One of the great things about this trip is that we did not even have to leave our hotel. We were there for 4 days and only left our hotel once!! There were 2 tvs even so the kids could watch their shows and Dennis and I could watch ours. I even saw my first episode of Duck Dynasty-- who knew?? Needless to say, after too many trips of driving, driving and more driving the kids were thrilled to experience a hotel vacation where they didn't have to sleep in a tent and had nothing pressing to do but kid fun!
We did leave to go to restaurant one night that we heard was fun because they deliver your food by train. We made reservations so we could get one of the train tables, but we still had to wait for our table. The kids loved sitting up at the bar, ordering root beer, wearing buffalo hats and sitting on a saddle. How fun is that?

And look... the food does come on a train. It was a fun night out.

I'm sure the kids can't wait to go back and that they would count this as one of their favorite trips of all time.  Dennis and I loved seeing the kids have so much fun!

New Girls

All photos courtesy of Sadie's ipod!

We had a masacre this winter. A masacre that killed the last our poor little girls including our dear sweet Annie that we all loved so much (including our neighbor who found her not once, but twice in his house). She was a special bird who never failed to make us laugh. Who knew you could love a chicken so much!? Were were all heart-broken that day.

 We were chickenless which meant we were also eggless so we were patiently waiting for chickens to arrive at our local fleet farm so we could get some new girls. Then, the chickens showed up but spring didn't... we waited as long as we could and finally the kids convinced Dennis that we absolutely could not survive another minute without chicks. We bought 4 chicks which is enough for us and our purposes. The kids each picked one out. Sadie picked a bantam and named her Chippy. Eli picked out a Blue Polish and named her Smokey. Dennis got a black sex-link and named her Clementine. They picked out a Polish for me since I wasn't there and I named her Catalina. The Polish have crazy feathers on the top of their heads and right now they look a little crazed as their fluff is changing to feathers! They are pretty cute. Now if they'd just hurry-up and lay already.

Peacemaker Club Project

One part of my job is to advise an after-school club called "Peacemakers." We have spent 6 months working on a radio program about exclusion and bullying to be aired on a local radio station KBXE. Here is a news story featured on Lakeland News:

Schoolcraft Open Mic Night

One of Schoolcraft's PAC fundraisers is an open mic night. It is held at a local pub called Brigid's. The students sign up to perform. There was everything from piano, to jokes, to cup pounding, to pogo stick jumping. The talent abounds--and where the talent was little, the confidence was there to make up for it! Eli and Sadie selected a piano song to play. I was even suckered in to playing a duet with Sadie. I have not played in a piano recital since I was in third grade, but I think we rocked it! It was a great experience for the kids and for me too.

Don't Give Up On Me!

Dad: Funny, Mom: Love, Eli: Weird, Sadie: Cuddly

Hey all! Don't give up on the blog. Eli and Sadie's blog is not over, it was just on a long vacation. I am promising you that I will catch you up with all of our happenings during the month of May. Keep checking back for highlights!!

Service and Compassion: A Haircut

A few months ago when Sadie's class was studying about Expeditionary Learning's Design Principles, she decided that she was going to cut her hair and donate it to a good cause so she could do "service and compassion". She wanted to wait until her hair was long enough so it wouldn't be too short. We decided to donate her hair to "Beautiful Lengths" because they require less hair, only 8 inches versus the other organizations that require 10 and I felt like her hair would actually be used for what it says it's going to be used for.  She was pleased with the length and with knowing that she's helping people with cancer.

Winterfest

Today was Schoolcraft's annual winterfest in which everyone participates in fun outdoor winter activities. The weather was a perfect day for outdoor play, a balmy 20 degrees. Kids and staff came dressed in their warmest clothes and had a great day! Note: I spent most of the day with the kindercrew because they seemed to need the most help, putting on, taking off, emergency bathroom runs, warm-up breaks and the like, so there are way more pictures of Sadie than Eli...

Cross country skiing was first on the list...

 Then a little playing while we waited for our next activity.

A warm-up with hot chocolate and games/coloring:

Next was wagon rides, I never seem to get good pictures on wagon rides...

The activity that the kids were most excited for was dog-sledding. I have to admit that that's what I was most excited for too!

Sadie getting her turn!

And me getting mine!

Then, a fantastic chili lunch and back out to ice-fish!

Our last activity of the day was stories by the fire complete with marshmallow roasting and s'mores!! It was a perfect ending to an almost perfect day. It was a fun and exhausting day. What a wonderful celebration of Northern Minnesota and all of it's wonder and opportunity.

Crazy Hair Day

It's spirit week at Schoocraft this week. Today is crazy hair day. The kids were excited to get their hair done this morning. I think this is the first morning ever that Sadie woke me up and told me it was time to get her hair done, usually I'm tieing her down in her chair to comb through that mass of hair! They both turned out cute, but Sadie's is pretty stallar!

Eli's spiky blue do.

Eli and some classmates being crazy!

Sadie's bun-hawk.

Sadie and some classmates being crazy!

Happy Valentine's Day

I sent the kids to school this morning with their homemade Valentine boxes. They were armed with Valentines and big smiles ready to party!! I hope you are spending the day with those you hold near and dear to your heart. xoxo