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...

Shakopee Jack O'Lantern 5K & Pumpkin Run

Last Saturday was the Shakopee Park and Recreation's annual Jack O'Lantern 5K and kids Pumpkin runs.  Since Kieran has been in Cross Country camp and clubs the last few years (and since he did a 5K a month ago), he wanted to run the 5K distance.  Sarah had to work the race, so I had to run with him...

The first half of the race he spent a lot of time talking about a lot of things...the last mile or so, not so much talking...here we are at about the 2.5 mile mark...he was done talking.

He was tired enough that he said he was not going to race me to the finish line...he said he wouldn't sprint...he lied...I wasn't paying attention and he took off...

The second race of the day was the 5 and under race, so it was Lex's turn.  Sarah was out front pacing the 1/2 mile race, so I had to run with Lex too.  She talks more than Kieran!  Plus, she held my hand for half of the run.

Turns out that Lex was the first girl finisher....so she got her own medal...she was very excited!

The last race of the day was the 6 & up group...time for Dino Luke to run his 1/2 mile race...

I don't think it is easy for him to run (he has to hold the dinosaur's head up) in the costume, but he did it and finished...

It was a nice morning...a little cool and windy, but that's October in Minnesota....

Minnesota Zoo

Last Sunday the high temperature was forecast to be 80 degrees (it got to 85!) so we decided to spend the day at the MN Zoo.  It was a great morning getting to the zoo at 9:00 am...

We headed for Discovery Bay first...the tanks that used to hold the dolphins, now have some endangered Hawaiian Monk Seals...they were bigger than I expected.

You can view them from below and and above, just like you could with the dolphins...

Sarah was especially curious...how do you determine the sex of a Hawaiian Monk Seal?  I don't think we were able to determine it visually...

After Discovery Bay, we went outside for the Northern Trail and the Farmyard.  Being early in the morning, many of the animals were more active than usual, like the tiger...

The tiger was just released to its enclosure, so it was really active...

What was kind of cool and unusual was the brown bear exhibit.  They are off display due to their behavior over the summer (read about it here) which resulted in a broken window, but the zoo was allowing visitors inside the enclosure and explaining how they are designed (it was really interesting).

They explained how the rock is made to look like real rock.  How it is designed to not have any ledges that the bears could get a foothold and climb and other designs...

Inside the enclosure, you could see bear claw marks on the trees and pits that the bears have dug to sleep in...

Of course you could take some goofy pictures too...

On the way out we looked at the snow monkeys.  How long have they been at the zoo?

Great day to head off to the zoo...

Minnesota Valley State Recreation Area

Last weekend was warm, 75 degrees on Saturday, so the kids and I headed to Jordan to take a hike.  We went to the Minnesota Valley SRA, which helped us accomplish two goals:  we got another stamp for our state park passport and we logged a hike as part of the DNR's Hiking Club.

For the hiking club, you are required to hike selected trails in the state park system and look for a password somewhere along the trail.  When you have the password, you can log to total miles hiked with the code.  This days hike was about 5 miles...great day for it....

The colors were just started to turn on the leaves...a couple of lakes or ponds and the river for the kids to throw rocks into...

It was always a race to see who would be first...

Saw some deer, turkeys, lots of birds (including a type of crane I couldn't identify, they were a ways off), some coyote poo...

Kieran tried to call in some sort of animal....

Being such a dry fall, there wasn't much water around, this pathway should have been over some sort of flowing water...

Towards the end of the five miles (after we found the password) some of us tired...

And needed lots of rest...