The Science Museum

We'd been wanting to go back to the museum for sometime now, but then Lukie saw that there was a new exhibit on the Friday night newscast...so we had to go Saturday.  The exhibit was all about mazes...

But before we even got inside, there was a traveling exhibit that showed all the Super Bowl winning teams rings that were made by Jostens in celebration of the big game coming to Minnesota in February...

All the rings were replicas of the originals...heres the first ever from Super Bowl 1...

And last years from Super Bowl 51...

They have changed a bit...

Back to the museum...

The maze exhibit was cool...we went twice actually.  There were lot's a mind games, several small mazes and one large maze to get through.  In the big maze there were things that tested your perception or was just fun...like...

Different mirrors...the one below gave Lex tiny legs...

This one gave Lukie no neck and me no head...

There was a cool web maze...it took them sometime to figure it out but they did...Lukie even said "it's kinda like I'm Survivor..."....

This puzzle was cool.  You need to take the pyramid of spherical disks from the right to the left.  You could only move one disk at a time and you could only place a smaller disk on a larger disk...it took a while, but Lukie figured it out with just a little help from me...

Of course Luke had to race the T-Rex (and Lex raced TC Bear)...

And of course Luke lost the race to the T-Rex (and Lex beat TC Bear)...

Luke and Lex experimented with Bernoulli's Principle...

Lex had fun with the tornado...again...

We saw the cool new Omni film called the Rocky Mountain Express that focuses on the building of the trans-Canadian railroad, specifically the portion through the mountains....

Luke paid his respects to the mummy...

But then Lukie wanted to see the river from outside...of course it was raining by then...would've look great if the sun was out....

On the way out, Lukie wanted a picture with Iggy, even though it was drizzling...so we did...

It was a fun day...we swam at Safari on the way back, caught a movie after dinner and all fell asleep after the movie (though I think I did during it)....

Homecoming Week

This week is homecoming week, with the following days for dress up days (in the elementary):

Monday - Sport Day

Tuesday - Crazy Day

Wednesday - PJ Day

Thursday - Dress Your Best

Friday - Raider Pride

I didn't take any pictures of sport day yesterday, but here are their crazy day outfits....mismatched socks, t-shirts inside out and colored hair spray (the glitter doesn't show well in the pictures, but it was pretty obvious in person)...

Off to a volleyball game tonight...for the first time in school history the team is ranked in state (currently #9) and we've watched a lot of their games...

Friday is the homecoming parade during the school day for the kids, the pepfest and of course the homecoming football game that night....

Squirrel Catching?!?

So the rabbit trap, which has sat empty for several weeks, has apparently transitioned to a squirrel trap.  A cob of corn was placed in it a couple of days ago and disappeared quickly....

This afternoon, Luke/Lex put another cob of corn in before heading to Target and Safari Island for a couple of hours...when we got back the noise coming from the trap was hard to miss...this squirrel was pissed...

Lukie thought it was awesome...we took it out of town, to the same place we placed the rabbit...

Lex wanted nothing to do with it...it's not as cute as a rabbit and she hasn't been feeling that well this weekend...Luke...he's on it...

The difference between the rabbit and the squirrel, besides the noise?  This thing came out of the trap like a bat out of hell...both Luke and I jumped...I was lucky to get this picture...

Of course we've effectively doomed the squirrel to death...it's probably spent the last month or two caching food for the winter and we released it a long way away from those caches...good luck squirrel..

Junior Varsity Soccer

So we had a new experience for us tonight...we went to a soccer game.  Now the kids and I have always gone to a lot of high school sporting events (baseball, football, volleyball, basketball, etc.), but we had never gone to a soccer game.

Last week, a 9th grade student wrote a great, humbling note to me asking if I would come to her JV soccer game on Teacher Appreciation Night (which was tonight).  I e-mailed a reply to her saying that she was either too incredibly kind or telling big fibs...that I was the least cool person in the district, but that I would definitely be there (the students know that if they ask me to come to an event of theirs, I will be there...I've seen softball, baseball, volleyball, choir concerts, I've got multiple girls hockey games on the calendar this year), so Luke/Lex and I were in Delano by the 4:15 start time...

BTW...the student who asked me to the game and another student both came to me yesterday to say they were calling my bluff on my e-mail reply...apparently they know me pretty well...they are some incredibly good people...judging from talking to them, we'll be invited to more soccer games in the coming years, not just on Teacher Appreciation Night...

The game was fun (although cold and windy), Luke and Lex watched the first half before the elementary school playground called their names...plus a couple of kids of one of my co-workers wanted them to play too...

But Lukie and I got the selfie he wanted....

Delano won 4-1...the student who asked me to come almost got a goal, it was pretty close...

Again...my guess is that this won't be the last soccer game we go to...

Luke's 'Star of the Week' Homework

He brought this back from school earlier this week and it's due this coming Monday.  I helped him by getting 4-5 pictures printed, he decided on the two he attached.  Lukie got busy filling out the rest of the form before we went to a volleyball game while I was running around tonight...

FYI - the third super cool fact that got cut off is "I like to hike at state parks."

Pleasant Surprise...

This was a very nice surprise tonight getting back to Norwood...

Nice note left behind for me....granted, we need to work on spelling the word Thursday...

Lex Cheerleading at Raider Football

Lex took part in a cheerleading camp this week after school.  She practiced her cheers every night, I know I knew the cheers (last night at the volleyball game she chanted one of the cheers for the entire 3rd set).  The culmination was a chance to cheer at halftime of the Raider football game tonight.

She was looking forward to it...

Here's a close up...

Can't find her?  How about a little help...

Luke wouldn't tell you this, but he had fun watching her for a bit...of course he had fun watching the game and playing with his friends too...

The game ended regulation in a 0-0 tie...never seen that before.  Went to two overtimes where New Richland tied the game at 12 and then threw a halfback pass for the 2 point conversion to win the game 14-12...disappointing end to a fun night...

The State Fair

Luke, Lex and I went to the state fair last Sunday, the day before Labor Day.  Luke had the option of doing it on his birthday or the day before and he eventually choose the day before.  It was the baby girl's first time at the fair...

Can you tell she was excited on the bus ride to the fair?

First stop at the fair?  Same as always...Lukie wanted to show Lex the DNR fish pond...

Then because we do so much hiking in state parks, they had to get in a giant hiking boot..

Luke said that we just 'had to' walk to the top of the DNR's fire tower too...

There are a lot of steps down...especially is you want to run down them...

From the DNR building, we just 'had to' go to the Miracle of Life building.  Lex loved the little baby piglets, plus the 2 hour old lamb...

And who isn't open for some giant slide action?

From there, we trucked across the fair trying to beat the lines and headed for the world's highest traveling ferris wheel...this thing was huge...

It was hard to capture a sense of scale of this thing...

But the kids loved riding it...

In Lex's words...'it's way bigger than the one at the Carver County Fair....'

 Seriously...it was tall...

After riding that...it was time for Lex's first pronto pup...she ended up having two...

Hey...did you know the Super Bowl is in Minnesota this year?  And on NBC?

After some walking around and seeing things...it was time to ride the space needle...

Of course we saw the dairy princess getting her likeness carved into butter...

And we saw they largest pumpkin at the fair...Lex said 'dad...that's heavier than you!'

Lex's first ride on the Sky Ride was a hit...

And we made a second stop at the DNR building...Lukie thought he was funny...

And who could pass up a second ride on the Giant Slide?

Boy did the crowds come in during the day, but 4:30, it looked like this...

The good news is that the kids looked like this and were done...

A great first trip to the fair for Lex...just making memories...

First Day of School

Here's the first day of school picture for Luke and Lex...

Luke couldn't wait for school...his two best friends are in his class and he was excited!  Lex, well she just likes school and was ready too...

I'll add a picture of Kieran when my first day of school with him happens...

Luke's Birthday

The countdown has been on for over a month...Lukie has been excited for a while...

At least three weeks ago, Lukie asked me who he'd be with on his birthday and when I told him me, he said "good, I want to be with you that day."  He decided what we did for most of the day.  (Though I could've done without him waking me at 5:30 saying it's his birthday...being Labor Day, Safari Island wasn't opening until 8:00 so I was trying to sleep in)...

Luke decided he wanted to swim (it's been a few weeks since the pool in Norwood closed), so we went to Safari Island to swim.  Lunch was a tough decision - he was thinking Unhinged Pizza or Rey Azteca's (a Mexican place).  He went back and forth, even entering the parking lot he said Unhinged, but changed it to Rey Azteca's as we walked up...Lex and I didn't care either way...

Then cake tonight before the first day of school tomorrow...

He wanted a picture without Lex though...

Apparently it's harder to blow candles out when you're nine...because he had a hard time with the last two...

And here's his presents that he's a little excited for...

And yes, I know, nine years old is too young for a phone...but with Kieran being kept from us, we need to be able to contact each other.  Now we can...he loved using the camera at the fair yesterday...