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...

Rabbit Catching

Luke and papa built a trap a few weeks ago in the hopes of catching a rabbit, a squirrel, an opossum or anything really.  There's been a few close calls in the last weeks, the trap had been sprung but nothing was inside (Luke's convinced that those were an opossum but the creature's tail stuck out from the door allowing the animal out).

Then Luke and Lex noticed that the door was down this morning.  It was raining, but that didn't stop them from running out the door to have a look...and Luke was just giddy...

The reason for the excitement?!?

Maybe it's hard to see, but it was a rabbit...now the goal was apparently to 'make city rabbits, country rabbits' so we piled the trap in the car and drove out in the country (less than a mile away) and prepared to release the rabbit --- I was hoping to get a picture of the rabbit as it got out of the trap...

No chance to get a picture...after initially refusing to leave the trap, it took off like a bat out of hell and was gone...the kids loved it...

The trap is set again, waiting to catch another animal...

MN Vikings Training Camp

For 52 years, the Vikings have held training camp in Mankato on the campus of Minnesota State University, Mankato.  We've gone every summer since at least 2012.  This summer is the last year training camp will be in Mankato, next year it moves to the new facility the Vikings are building in Eagan.

So Luke, Lex and I visited camp on Tuesday, the last day the Vikings would ever be in Mankato...

There's a ton of things for kids to do at camp...like throwing footballs at targets...

Taking pictures with cheerleaders...

They had games of Jenga you could play...Luke played Lex first...he won...

Then he played me...he won again...

New this year was a place you could measure your vertical jump (and compare it to some of the players jumps)...

It's customizable for every height, so they have to raise or lower the device before you can start...when it's ready, you jump...

Lukie was pretty happy with his jump of 75 inches...

Lex always likes to take a picture with the big Viking...

We had to take a picture by the sign commemorating 52 years in Mankato...Lukie's frowning because he didn't really want another picture and I said if he wasn't smiling I'd start whacking butts...he's calling my bluff...

And yes...there's even practice you can watch...

Another good day...

Luke's New Pool Trick

Luke has spent a lot of time swimming at the pool this summer...he's basically a pool rat, but he loves it.  He'll ride his bike up and spend a few hours there.  Every time that he goes to the pool there are friends from school there, he loves that, but what he also likes is the lifeguards.  All the guards know him and talk to him like a person and he respects them a ton.  He's got his favorite two, one's a college guy and the other is going to be a high senior.

The cool thing about these two is that they look after him.  Take Sunday for example, he was swimming (and both of them were working) when there was some weather that moved through just south of town (3-4 funnel clouds were seen, nothing severe, didn't even rain).  When I went up to check on him, the college guy said "Mary and I already told Luke that one of us would take him home if we closed."  Which that was cool...

This summer Lukie has become so much of a stronger swimming and is brave off the diving board.  He is really good at dives (which he learned in June), cannonballs, can openers, among others, but was missing a flip to his repertoire...

Sunday, Ben and Mary started to teach him how to do a flip and it didn't go well before Luke gave up.  When I walked up to the pool to get Luke yesterday afternoon Ben said "Luke learned a new trick."  So here's a series of pictures showing his new trick....

After Ben got him to do a flip, apparently Luke did 34 flips in a row, I saw at least 10.  He's got a couple of more weeks to swim at the pool this summer...

Willow River State Park

Luke, Lex and I went to a new state park for us in search of a waterfall...we even had to go to Wisconsin to see it...Willow River State Park.

Fortunately, it was just across the border, a few miles from Hudson.  There was an okay nature center, with a fox snake and a few turtles.  The other animals were all stuffed.  But the goal was to go see the falls, so we drove to the parking area indicated on the map and found a 16 stall parking area completely full of vehicles.  The ranger there gave us the other option of driving back to the nature center and hiking 1.5 miles to the falls (a 3 mile round trip hike)...so we were off...

It was a paved trail for almost all of the walk, not exactly difficult.  When we got there we saw mass chaos in the falls themselves...never even seen anything like it at Gooseberry...people all over jumping from one level to another, dragging young kids through the several inches of moving water...Wisconsin...

But it was a nice looking series of waterfalls...

The kids liked it...

If you're willing to climb a big set of stairs, you get an overview of the scene below...

It was easier going back down than it was going up...

There were a ton of people there, both in the water and on the bridge overlooking the falls...

The nature center was located next to this huge swampy area filled with vegetation with a small river flowing through the middle, not particularly pleasant to look at, but it turns out it used to be a lake with a nice swimming beach...

Turns out that the lake was formed by a dam holding back the river and in 2012 it was found that the dam could potentially fail soon.  So the decision was made to breach the dam and draw down the lake.  The park obviously lost a signature feature of the area and it's been decided recently to re-construct the dam to bring back the lake...

It was a good day, but Wisconsin State Parks are nothing like Minnesota's...we are definitely spoiled here...