Raider Volleyball

Lukie has been looking forward to going to Raider volleyball games for over a month.  His favorite lifeguard asked him if he'd be coming to any of the games and he apparently said yes.  I found him looking at the schedule quite a while ago and he said there would be a game in Glencoe on August 29.  I said 'but it is in Glencoe, can't we wait until they're at home?'  He replied, 'we've gone to games in Mankato and St. Cloud, Glencoe is closer....'.  Good point dude...

So we went to Glencoe, Silver Lake High School on Tuesday to watch the first volleyball game of the season (and first ever for Luke and Lex)...

Luke really enjoyed it...the game is pretty fast paced, which kept his interest...

Of course, one of his favorite people who has been incredibly friendly to him was playing too...so that helped...

He wanted me to take pictures of the game as it was being played...he and Lex both had fun...Luke was completely into the game...

The Raiders won in three sets (3-0)...I know we'll be at more volleyball games in the future...

Lusk, Wyoming

A week ago, four of us got in the car around 8:00 pm and headed west.  We were planning on heading to Alliance or Scottsbluff, Nebraska to see the total solar eclipse.  Our plans changed around 2:00 am, around the point where we would need to be turning south off of I-90, we started to look at cloud forecasts of the western Nebraska area.  Most of the forecasts kept looking iffy...and if you're heading for totality in an eclipse, iffy isn't good (turns out that you could see it in these locations, the clouds just opened up as totality began according to friends of mine).  We knew Wyoming would be clear, all the forecasts said Wyoming would be one of the best places to view the eclipse, so we decided on Lusk, Wyoming (similar distance and time as our Nebraska locations).

Our route would then be a 685 mile drive, out to Rapid City and then south around the Black Hills and into Lusk (population 1,500)...long drive, sure, bet Lex fell asleep shortly after leaving and woke up in Wyoming...Luke woke up in Rapid City while we stopped for gas and fell asleep shortly after that...the drive back was similar...

We got into Lusk around 6:30 am and hand figured out during the drive that the county fairgrounds would be a viewing location, but the fairgrounds didn't open up until 8:00, so we had time to kill...

Once in the fairgrounds, the eclipse didn't start until around 10:25, with totality beginning at 11:46...but it sure was a nice view...

When the eclipse started...it was time to get the glasses out...

If you look closely in the picture above, Luke's not even looking at the sun, he's looking at me...

Here's first contact taken through the glasses...you can barely see the moon starting to cover the sun in the upper right...

We had almost an hour and a half to kill while waiting for totality, every so often we would peek at the sun, but there where other things to do too...like look at the eclipse through telescopes close by or projection screens where you could see the sunspots too...

We had to eat lunch...

We saw the eclipse by looking at shadows between leaves...if you look closely, you might see small crescents, those crescents are the sun being covered by the moon...

And every minute, more and more of the sun was being covered...

And we waited...

What's cool is that minutes before totality, the sky dims and it looks light twilight...here's two pictures taken within minutes of each other (compare them to the picture above of the scene in Lusk)...

See the street lights that have come on?

And then it was time for totality....we spent 1 minute, 52 seconds within the shadow of the moon...and yes it gets dark...

But the sun being covered is amazing...you can see the corona extending a huge distance...it was awesome...here are pictures that Craig took...

Here's a picture that was heavily cropped...look in the upper right at that pink 'flame,' it's a solar prominence that is bigger than the Earth...

And then it was time to leave Lusk...and it took awhile...

Craig said it best when totality ended - "that was worth driving 10 hours for...."

The Drive-In

The Drive-In was last weekend and of course we went...

Friday night, it was just Lex and I, Luke had a birthday party sleepover that was more important.  Lex called it "Daddy and Lexy's date night" and she was in charge.  She decided she wanted dinner at McDonald's, to swim with me at the pool and go to the drive-in...altogether, it was $5 for dinner, $20 for the drive-in and the pool pass has long been paid for...a pretty cheap date...

The guards at the pool (who we know pretty well) thought that it was pretty cool that we were on a date...

No pictures from McDonalds or the pool, but as soon as we got to the drive-in, she had to go on a pony ride...

And why not ring a bell on the way to watch the movie?

She wanted a selfie (she's watched Luke enough) in the twilight before the movie started...

Of course, our date ended shortly after that picture...Lex met some girl while playing and the girl ended up watching the movie with us.  Lex and her had a great time talking throughout the movie, I kind of did my own thing (the next day when we went swimming again, the guards at the pool thought it was a riot that she ditched me on our 'date night'...life goes on...)...

Saturday night, Luke came with for the drive-in...and even he needed to go on a pony ride...

Both nights, they would watch the first movie and then the fireworks (which end around 10:20 or so) before moving inside to sleep during the second movie.  The second movie, which is geared towards adults ends around 12:30 or so.  What did I find Saturday evening (actually early Sunday morning) at 12:30?

Lex...

Luke...

We'll be back...

Carver County Fair

I've been going to the fair for a lot of years and was talking with someone how much it's changed in all that time...not the fair itself, just that we used to get to the fair at 9 pm and close it down...now we get there in the morning and leave by dinner...but it's still a blast to get to every year...

The fair ended last Sunday, Luke/Lex and I went to the fair the Friday before and had a lot of fun...

The first thing we did when we got to the fair was eat...we all devoured an order of cheese curds (we had 2 or 3 total while at the fair)...

After eating, Luke had seen a rock climbing wall while walking in...he went up to the group running it and found out it was two climbs for $5...so he really wanted to try...

There were four climbs you could do, each with a different degree of difficultly and he did the middle two difficult climbs...he tore up that wall...

It was pretty easy coming back down...

From there we had to hit the exotic animal farm...where Lex could pet as many animals as she could...

From there it was the 'regular' animal barns (llamas, poultry, sheep, hog, horse, etc.)...where again she touched more animals that anyone else, it really bothers Luke that she stops at every single animal trying to touch it...

At least I could convince him to take a goofy picture sitting on a fake llama...

From there we headed to the midway...Lex has always loved the merry-go-round...

They did a couple of rides together, like this flying ride...

And the big slide...

And even the bumper cars...Lex could touch the pedals when the restraint wasn't down, but couldn't when it was...therefore she had to ride with Luke...

We all did the Ferris Wheel...

Luke did a ride I've never done, called something like the spaceship, but it's entirely inside a vehicle so no pictures...here's one of him on the tilt-a-whirl instead...

Before leaving the fair, we watched an aerial show called 'Galaxy Girl.'  She goes ~200 feet into the air without being attached to anything...

That chick is nuts...

But it was a good ending to a great day at the fair...till next year...