I got caught...

We've been taking biking trips often since Lex is no longer on training wheels (usually 45-60 minutes long), Lukie will hang with me until he gets bored and then he's off...

Now how do you get Lukie jealous?

You meet up with him at the park and show him the 'I got caught' certificate from the Carver County Police...an officer was parked as Lex rode past and gave her his 'citation.'  Since she was wearing her helmet, she gets a free ice cream cone at the Dairy Queen...

Lukie was not happy...especially since he road ahead of us (with his helmet on) and probably missed the officer by a minute or two...

William O'Brien State Park...

Monday, the kids and I took off for William O'Brien State Park in Scandia.  It would be a new stamp for our passport and the hiking club trail was six miles long, a good step towards Lukie's 50 mile hiked patch.  Unfortunately, the park office was closed that day and we couldn't get a stamp (we could mail the book in to the DNR office in St. Paul and they'd stamp/mail it back, but we're hesitant to do that, looks like we'll just visit again)...

The forecast for the day was cloudy and temperatures in the upper 70's, so we figured it'd be a good day for a longer hike.  Of course, when we got there, the clouds had lifted and the temperature was already in the mid-80s.  Oh well, time to start walking...

It wasn't long before we had left the campground area and most of the people, walking under this train tracks really is what started the hike...

The hike took us through several types of ecosystems - there were hardwood forests, oak savannas and prairies...

We had a nice picnic lunch at the top of this hill overlooking the distant St. Croix river valley...

Of course we found the hiking club password...

What was new for us was all the types of animals we saw (usually Lex is talking enough to scare them off before we see them) -- we saw several snakes, frogs, toads, deer, eagles, cranes (including babies) and this beaver lodge, though no sight of the beaver...

After a couple of hours, we were back at our starting point and ready for a rest...

Here's the hiking video...

Updated Hiking Club Mileage:

Lukie/Me - 47.2 miles
Lex - 39.5 miles
Kieran - 24.6 miles

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom...

If you're Lukie (and Lex) who have been waiting for the new Jurassic World movie to come out for months, you take a picture next to the cardboard cutout of a dinosaur while at the theatre...

Lex is actually petting the dinosaur...Lukie loved the movie, says we 'need' to buy it when it comes out...

Lake Maria State Park...

Yesterday was Day 2 of the Andyman Baseball tournament (the opening game was Friday night at 7:30), meaning that we started the day with a ballgame at 8:00 am.  There was a break before the second game of the day at 5:30 pm, so we went out and completed another State Park Hiking Club trail at Lake Maria State Park...

The state park is the home of the threatened Blandings turtle, which we saw a statue at outside the nature center...

And then it was time to start the hike...

The park is heavily forested, with no bedrock outcrops and some prairie lands...

Halfway through the hike, we took a snack break alongside a lake...

And we eventually found the password we needed...

Not too bad of a break between games...(we already had the passport stamp, we just needed to complete the hike)...

Details of our hike can be seen in this video...

Updating our Hiking Club Mileage:

Lukie and I -- 41.2 miles

Lex -- 33.5 miles

Kieran --24.6 miles

I still need to call into the state office to get Lex her 25 mile patch...Lukie's goal is to have a 50 mile patch sometime this summer...

Lex's Bike Riding...

It has been a long process to get Lex riding a bike without training wheels...I got a notification a few weeks ago saying that Lukie accomplished the feat three years ago (he was five), Lex is shortly turning eight.  It was time to push the envelop some and get her riding a bike...

I got her a bike...we did some riding with the training wheels...and yesterday was go time...

Lukie, Lex and I took a ride (them riding and me walking)...Lex had training wheels on at this point.  When we got back, I sent her inside while I took off the training wheels.  She came out and Lukie, Lex and I went to a slight hill on grass.  After 20 minutes of several fails, but some success, we decided she needed to go to the closest sidewalk that had a similar slope...

But Lex felt that she would rather travel 4-5 feet on the sidewalk before turning into the grass...well...screw that.  After watching her do that for 10 minutes, Lukie and I decided we needed a bigger parking area and we settled on the Sports Complex...

The first time we let her go...she was off...

Of course Lukie was racing her...she didn't fall down on the parking lot and did a great job.  She was very proud of herself...

Of course, Lukie told one of the guards about her new skill and said that 'he doesn't like it cause she doesn't fall down as much anymore....'  What a guy...

Here's a video of one of her early rides...

She's been practicing since - left turns are what she needs practice on according to her...

Bike riding ability stats:  3 kids, 3 kids riding without training wheels taught by me.  Where the hell is the other parent?  That answer is coming soon...

Ballgames...

Summer has started, meaning ball season has started...

Lex has games on Tuesdays and Lukie has games on Tuesday/Thursdays...we're busy...

***Lukie was not pleased I was taking this picture...

School Year 2017-18 Awards...

At the conclusion of every school year at the Elementary, they hand out awards to students who have earned them...both Lukie and Lex brought home 3 awards each...

First was the recognition of being in the after-school Spanish class (for the second or third year in a row)...

They both also received citizenship awards, not surprising considering they're good kids...

Lex received an 'Outstanding Attendance' award signifying that she only missed two days of school for the year...

But the big one, and the one that Luke had sought after all year, was his 'Perfect Attendance' award...which comes with a free candy bar (he choose Skittles)...

He had wanted this one since seeing his classmates get one last year...he routinely pointed out when a student in his class missed their first day of school of the year...he came close to missing one, the first night of Christmas break he woke up throwing up and had a rough day or two, but it happened on a break...no school missed...

Geocaching...

Lukie has been interested in geocaching (using GPS to find little caches that have been placed by people) for some time...there are two geocaches that are pretty close, but were convinced that they've been removed because we have not been able to find them repeatedly...

We even tried to find a couple at a county park near Upper Sioux Agency State Park, but couldn't...

So today, Lukie/Lex and I went to Baylor Regional Park looking for his first geocache...we've been there before for a public night at the Observatory, but we spent a couple of hours at the park checking out the beach, fishing pier, the floating hiking trail, but the goal was find the geocache...

We had parked out by the peninsula on the right of the picture above and hiked in...the smily face was the geocache (it became the smily face after we found it)...it was a good hike...

It took us into a mosquito filled forest, with the mosquitos the geocaches guards...but we found it...

You have to look close, but it's in that little nook in the tree...Lukie was happy...

Upper Sioux Agency...

Lukie, Lex and I had a new camping experience for us Sunday night, we were at the Upper Sioux Agency State Park near Granite Falls...before we got to the campsite, we had to explore the nature center, the old agency and take the 'hiking club' trail...

In the nature center, we found the skin of a bull snake, a big one...remember Lukie touching the bull snake at the zoo in March...well, he still thinks it's a good idea to have one for a pet...

Lukie and Lex patiently walked around the old agency, listening to me tell what would have gone on there (before and after 1862), but Kieran would have loved the history...

Here they are looking at the restored employee duplexes...

Another employee duplex (all the buildings were destroyed during the conflict in 1862)...

Here they're looking at where the Annuity Center was, this is were the Dakota would have been issued their annual goods (provided of course the government or Indian agents would be giving what was promised to them...many times they weren't).  During this time, the annual annuities weren't given out fully (apparently due to the Civil War) and the Indian Agent of the time went to local traders trying to get more supplies to the Dakota.  One trader, Andrew Myrick, essentially said "if they are hungry, let them eat grass."  Early on in the conflict, Myrick was found dead with grass in his mouth...

Of course we found time to take a picture with the sign...

From there, it was time to start the hiking club trail, listed as 4.3 miles...taking us through a variety of terrain.  From grasslands, woodlands, up and down the Minnesota River bluff...it was a fun hike...

Of course we found the password (Lukie's hiked more than 40 miles, Lex is a little more than 30 as part of the hiking club..Kieran is still less than 25)...

Near the end of the hike we found a pretty large painted turtle, who really just wished we weren't there...

If you want to see our hike, take a look at the video below...

From there it was time to get to the campground and our new experience...

We were going to be sleeping in a tipi...which was awesome...it was cool getting the fire going with several tipis around (and relatively few people)...I cannot imagine how awesome Sitting Bull's village in June, 1876 would have looked (it was probably the largest village ever on the Great Plains...it had thousands of tipis and a pony herd approaching 10,000)...

I even had someone else willing to cook the hot dogs...

And Lukie and Lex spent over an hour trying to perfect the roasted marshmallow (many, many were burned in the process)...

It rained the next morning for about an hour or so, some water got inside, but didn't really affect us.  When the rain stopped we hiked about 1.5 miles roundtrip to the confluence of the Yellow Medicine and Minnesota Rivers (Yellow Medicine is on the right, the Minnesota on the left)...

I even went back up the bluff to get a sense of scale with Lukie and Lex at the bottom, you might have to look closely...

It was fun...we'll be sleeping in a tipi again...