Swimming Lessons

Our friend really wanted her daughter in private swimming lessons with Eli and Sadie. After looking at the cost (which is very reasonable) and figuring the (sort of) individual attention and with Eli's tendency to not perform in front of unknown kids, we decided it was worth it. The kids are in love with Megan who is an awesome teacher. We meet a couple of times a week at the HS pool where Megan is a coach. The kids have the whole pool to themselves and have a great time.

Sadie is working on getting her whole head wet. She doesn't like to fully submerge herself.
Listening very very carefully...Splash!

Summer School

Sadie has been waiting and waiting for summer because she knew that she would be old enough to go to Eli's school. Sadie and Eli have "school" one morning a week during the summer months. In the fall, Sadie will continue at Frances' and Eli will move on to Kindergarten. Without further ado. Here are Sadie's first school pictures:
Cutting veggies for soup:A little drum time:Hide-n-go-seek in the rain:Tea time:Pizza time:Two side notes.
1) Eli is not the only boy at his school anymore. 4 boys have joined the girls, so Eli is super excited.

2) Totally random, but I might want to remember one day... I have this thing when I'm playing with the kids that whatever we're doing, I try to incorporate the word "pickle" into everything. If they ask what's for lunch the answer is pickles. If they ask what the name of my pet/car/baby is, it's pickles. If they ask the name of a bird I tease and call is the pickle bird. Well, the kids have started to do the same but their word is "pizza." I ask them, what should auntie Talia name her baby? Pizza. What do you want to drink? Pizza juice. Which book do you want? The pizza book.

The Vacation Finale

These last few shots are just random ones from our South Dakota trip.
South Dakota is a great place to go if you are into dinosaurs or any other prehistoric animal. We went to The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs for a tour. They also to archeological digs with kids every day that we missed by 20 minutes. The kids were totally bummed.We passed through Deadwood, SD and took in a few of their Wild Bill Hickok reanactments. While waiting for one show to start, we taught the kids how to order from a bar. They ordered root beer and Eli learned how to flirt with the barmaid.It turns out that if you get the show early enough, they call you up from the audience and you get to part of the reenactment. Well, I got to play the part of riverboat Captain William Massie. It was a pretty easy role. All I had to do was play poker and pretend to get shot. Eli forgot that this was not real and had tears in his eyes when Wild Bill was shot and I ran off with a hurt hand. He got over it as soon as I came out and took a bow. Here I am with Wild Bill:One of the most beautiful parts of our trip was our drive through the Spearfish Canyon. We found a quiet place to camp, quiet as in not another soul around and had a fun night nestled in between the canyon walls. We woke in the morning and did a hike to the waterfalls then continued on our way up to North Dakota.We spent a couple of days exploring Teddy Roosevelt National Park (which is where the photo at the top of the blog was taken). Then we headed home with a brief stop at both of the grandparents. When I asked the kids what their favorite part of the trip was they said, "all of it" but I think Eli narrowed it down to seeing buffalo and Sadie agreed. I think the best part was that the kids were awesome travelers and enjoyed camping, but thought the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park was a highlight because the kids were so entralled (afterall it took 2 and half hours to go 18 miles because we had to stop and look at everything!). Dennis loved when Eli got the meadowlark to sing and that he got to go on a long hike all by himself... Good times were had and we'll have memories to last a lifetime!

Theme #4: Wild Animals

This trip was full of wild animals. It started with the porcupine we saw in the ditch as we were leaving Minnesota. I've never seen a live porcupine in the wild before(versus all the dead ones we see along side of the road). True to Dennis style, he had to get a closer look. The porcupine did not like that and we watched as the porcupine pricked up it's quills and was starting to take aim. Dennis got the hint and got back into the car. We started keeping a list of all the animals we saw along the way. It included a lot of birds and a lot of these:
There are lots of prairie dog towns across the plains where buffalo roam. Sadie thinks they are about the cutest thing ever and I love watching them bob up and down as their warning signal to each other that predators are around. We saw thousands of them and they never failed to entertain.

This big horn sheep was posing so nicely in Badlands National Park:

Mountain goat at Mount Rushmore:
We saw buffalo at all the parks we visited, but the biggest herd we saw was at Custer State Park. There were lots of babies and it was pretty cute:
Lovely mountain blue birds:Pronghorn:In Theodore Roosevelt National Park we spied some wild horses:And this beautful elk:

Only one more vacation post... I hope you're not too bored yet!

News Flash: Where Not to Put a Shoe

On Sunday, we took a trip to the emergency room. Sadie put a Polly Pocket shoe up her nose and we couldn't get it out no matter how hard we had her blow and it was too far back to grab it with a tweezers. Well, wouldn't you know when we got there the dr. couldn't see the shoe and said she either sneezed it out (she had a little sneezing fit) or that it was back too far in her nose, which meant that it would just go down the back of her throat and she'd swallow it. So, we went home, with a lost shoe not knowing where it disappeared to.
Skip to 8 hours later, we're driving home from a barbecue at a friend's house and I was looking back at Sadie and she turned her head to just the perfect angle and sure enough, I caught sight of that elusive Polly Pocket Shoe. Sadie swore that she couldn't feel it and when Dennis looked, he said he couldn't see it either. Well, I must have x-ray vision, because I saw that shoe hidden in her nose, only it had moved forward quite a bit. We held her down and in one swift move, I reached the tweezers in and pulled the Polly Pocket Shoe out!
We had a long discussion about where not to put little tiny plastic shoes.

Theme #3: Putting Our Faces in Holes

Why do people like posing in these silly murals with a hole cut out for your face? I'll never know the answer to this and life's most perplexing questions, but we posed in every single one we saw and the kids made me take a picture at each of them. I'm only sharing a few!

At the Jamestown Buffalo:Doesn't Dennis make a beautiful Snow White?
Such a brave, brave snake catcher:This hole is the original entrance to Wind Cave. I'll spare you all of the cave pictures because they are pretty dull.As proof, this is what Sadie thought of the cave:In the cave's defense, it was nap time and Sadie had been staying up late and getting up early for the whole trip. Plus, it was dark...

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!!