Christmas

 The second year in a row we had no snow on Christmas day....for the second year in a row, we had lots of snow on December 26...the top picture is Christmas and the bottom is 7:00 am on December 26...

Oh well...winter starts on Christmas I guess...here's the kids on Christmas Eve...

And just Lex...because she likes pictures of herself...

Christmas morning was interesting as it usually is...the boys are thrilled that they got a Playstation 4...it's been on pretty much every waking hour we've been home...

The really smiled once they figured out what it was...

Lex was happy with whatever...this case it was a scooter...

Look at last year's post about Christmas...see...no snow then either....

Star Wars - The Force Awakens

 These are the tickets the boys and I have been waiting for...sure the Good Dinosaur was okay and Alvin and the Chipmunks - The Road Chip might be alright...but Star Wars: The Force Awakens was almost a sure thing...

No spoilers here, you'll have to see the movie yourself.  But the boys were completely enthralled with it...Kieran had questions during it, but Luke just watched...

Not even popcorn or pop could distract them from enjoying the movie...

NOTE:  both of these pictures were taken before the movie when the lights were quite dim and the three of us shared a large popcorn and a pop, they didn't have their own...

After getting back from the movie, the boys both played 'Star Wars' for a couple of hours...bet they do that a lot this winter break...

Santa...again...

We saw Santa again last weekend, while the Lions hold the annual 'Christmas in the Park' activity.  There is a candy cane hunt, sledding (not this year), bonfires, horse-drawn wagon rides...and Santa.

Santa is delivered to the park in the horse-drawn wagon...Luke and I were standing together as Santa arrived and the first thing Luke said was, "dad...that's not Santa...this Santa is skinny and Santa is fat..."

He did go to see him anyway though...best not to tempt fate this close to Christmas...

Lex had no concerns about this Santa...she would've talked for hours I'm sure...

Kieran though...he just said "he's fake...." and he never went to see him...  The whole Santa idea might be over (though the vast majority of the 5th graders in my school are also non-believers...so at least he won't be that one 12 year old getting ridiculed for believing in Santa...)...

We'll see how long Lukie goes...guess is not long with Kieran yapping about things...

The wagon rides were fun...Lex loved them even though they were really short this year (the horse/wagon were placed way out of the way with a limited amount of walking space - almost out of sight, out of mind type thing).  But Lex just kept going until we left...here she is with Cousin Claire and Cousin Charlie...

Minneopa Falls State Park

Last Saturday, December 5, the kids and I drove down to Mankato to visit Minneopa State Park.  The park recently received a small bison herd that we wanted to see, as well as take advantage of the warm weather and do some hiking.  The DNR and Minnesota Zoo have plans to add bison to several state parks over the next few years.  Minneopa was the first to receive bison because it match the criteria that the DNR was looking for:  an open prairie near a large population center.

Unlike Blue Mounds State Park (where you can hike the perimeter of the bison enclosure) at Minneopa visitors can drive through the bison range.  It's a several mile drive, round-trip.  Sarah and I had drove through in mid-October without seeing the bison, so this was attempt #1.

 We had driven almost 3/4 of the way through the range and were almost back to the exit without seeing any bison.  At that point we were looking for any evidence of bison that we could find.  Here's what Luke found (from inside the van)...

 Yep...there must be bison somewhere....seconds later, Kieran found these...

So there are bison in that range...not that we saw any.  It was only after leaving the bison range and getting outside the fence that we finally saw the bison...

Bison are at Minneopa, we counted eleven and some of the cows are apparently pregnant...

After the bison sighting it was off for our hike...it would be a little over three miles...and some areas were quite snowy...

While other areas didn't have much or any snow at all...

It's hard walking in big snow boots...so some of the benches along the way were appreciated...

The trail that we were on basically follows the perimeter of the bison range...but we already knew were the bison were...

For large periods of time...it was Lex and I alone...the boys tend to take off on there own...

After the hike...we had to make a quick stop at the falls (a short drive away)...

Very little ice...with such a warm fall and early winter, I guess that wasn't too surprising...

Santa Claus

Santa came to the bank in town yesterday and of course the kids needed to checkin with him before Christmas...

Lex had a whole story for Santa, but it comes down to her still wanting a horse for Christmas...

Luke came prepared...he brought his list.  It includes an iPad, dinosaur stuff and Legos....

Kieran's request was pretty simple...he wants a road Tom Brady jersey (the white ones that they wear at away games)...

It's good that we're beyond the tears part when seeing Santa...

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...