Happy Thanksgiving

It was 55 degrees yesterday...and today...

We're supposed to get 1-2 inches of this white stuff...

The Dentist...cavities...

How do you spend the day before Thanksgiving...when you don't have school?  For the boys, it was time to get cavities filled.  Their cleaning was three weeks ago or so and we found out Kieran had a cavity, he's had two or three before.  Luke had four....four....he had never had a cavity before...making up for lost time.

Being Kieran has had a filling before...plus he doesn't want me in their with him anymore, he went alone.  Luke wanted me to be in the room...which is fine, I don't do a whole lot but am there...

All of Luke's cavities were small...he didn't get any of the 'sleepy juice' as Kieran calls it...

Kieran on the other hand, his left side of his face was numb for a few hours...even the side of his nose...

Angry Luke

This is Luke....angry...and well after the sad Luke face has passed....

Luke decided he wanted to take a Spanish class at school, it's every Monday from 3-4 pm at the elementary school and he really enjoys it.  He misses the bus on Mondays and needs to be picked up from school.

I got home today about 3:55 pm and was busy putzing around waiting to walk down and pick the kids up from daycare...and then the phone rang....my first thought was "it's a pretty dumb time for the school to be sending an alert out...."

The voice on the other end said "hi, we have Luke at school after Spanish...."  At which point, I cut her off and said "oh shit....it's Monday....this is not the kid to do this to...."  I apologized for the language and was out the door before the conversation was over.

Got to school and Luke was waiting with Mr. Daugs - the principal.  Luke did not have the angry face on...it was pure sadness.  Mr. Daugs and I had a nice conversation while Luke waited in the van...it happens, usually to other people...damnit...it happen to me this time....

We stopped at the Dairy Queen for a sundae...the total bill was $2.02 and I gave the gal $2.10.  Luke was given the change....

Lesson learned - Luke says everything is even if he gets a sundae and $.08 after....not that I'm doing that again...

Jay Cooke State Park

We went camping at Jay Cooke State Park again this past weekend....what a difference a year makes! Last year, we already had about eight inches of snow and temperatures were in the 20s....see last year's post here.  Because this has been one of the warmest falls on record, temperatures were still in the upper 40s or lower 50s...it was nice.

That being said...the first morning there was still some frozen puddles around...it was the first frozen water the kids had seen this fall...

Most of the pictures that I have are either landscape type (I've got a new phone and was playing with it) or of Luke...being the first to wake up, he needs to leave the cabin or else he wakes everyone up.  So Luke and I took early morning walks....

One of the early morning walks the kids 'discovered' a huge rock wall...which they were led to, but they played there for a while...

We also took the 'Hiking Club' trail too...it was about 3.5 muddy miles that we were able to log after finding the password.  The picture below shows the boys too interested in the map...took them awhile to find the password...

Luke and I decided Saturday afternoon to drive Hwy 210 until it was closed (from the flood in June 2012) and we found an overlook that I had never seen before...way off in the distance you can see the swinging bridge.  We brought everyone back the next day...

Early mornings are nice, especially with a flock of Black Capped Chickadees...there were around 10 of them...this is the picture that shows them the closest to Luke.  One landed on my head...and we didn't even have food for them.

Early mornings also give a nice view of the St. Louis River as the sun is coming up....

And you're able to find some cool, early morning ice formations....

Of course, late night fires are okay too....

Especially if you're the only one there...

We also made a stop up by the Thomson dam...there you can see a nice formation of slate that was folded during previous continental movements.  Can you see it?  Below...left of bridge...

I don't remember every walking to the old railroad bridge that is now part of the Munger Trail...the river gorge looked nice from there too...

A nice weekend...

Happy Halloween

Yesterday started pretty early for Sarah and I, we were scheduled to run the Monster Dash 1/2 Marathon in St. Paul.  Unfortunately, the rain that was forecasted to originally stop overnight, continued well into the morning - it stopped after we had finished running.

Sarah had gotten herself a Wonder Woman outfit and me a Superman shirt with cape, so we wore that for the run...good run, nice scenery along Summit Avenue & the Mississippi River...but lots of rain...

Later, it was time for Halloween trick or treating.  It starts at Mackenthun's grocery in Waconia.  They have a little path through the store where people hand out fruits, chips, candy, etc.  A lot of people go, the line was really long...Sarah and the kids all dressed up...

Whose stronger?  Wonder Woman or a dinosaur riding a dinosaur?

Only Elsa the ice princess can cast magical spells though...

After the store we stopped at Papa's in Norwood before fueling up with dinner so we could head out around the neighborhood in Cologne.  Kieran ditched us to head out with a couple of friends.  The rest of us left the house at about 6:15, we stopped back at the house at 7:30 to drop candy off (the bags were too heavy) and kept trick or treating until about 8:00...

We think the kids got enough candy...