Happy New Year

How do you ring in the new year?  We went sledding this afternoon for a couple of hours before the kids rested up (they're getting dropped off at Papas house tonight for a sleepover...good luck papa...).  These aren't the best pictures and I only had the phone out for a couple of runs, but oh well...

See...they actually do get along with each other sometimes...

Lex just giggles the whole way down the hill...doesn't matter if she falls out or not...

Kieran and Luke actually prefer to fall out...though with the three of them they had enough weight to go a long ways.  We went a couple of times with all four of us crammed onto that sled...we went a long ways...

There were a few people in the neighboring houses watching us...be interesting to see how many would watch after 4:00 or the work day...

Luke does sometimes take care of her...though he did push her off the sled a few times too...

Kieran prefers to be on his own though, this time pretending to be sleeping...

Downside of sledding is it can be a long walk back up the hill...

Lex did fall a few times and took a good shot to the eye once or twice.  We'll see if she gets any color with this one...

Thanks for bearing with this extra post...it finishes the year with 70 posts (nice, even number)...averaging one every 5-6 days or so.

Happy New Years to you all and good luck in 2016....I know 2016 is shaping up to be pretty interesting for us...

Frozen Minnehaha Falls

We went to Minnehaha Falls yesterday, it had been a while since we were there last (maybe April?).  We like being outside and active...waterfalls are bonus...

Being below freezing, the gorge really does a nice job showing groundwater movement.  The bedrock is comprised of sandstone, shale and limestone.  The limestone is the top layer, the waterfall forming rock, while the sandstone is the easily eroded bottom layer.  In between is a layer of shale, essentially impermeable clay.  As water soaks down from the surface, it encounters the shale and moves horizontally until falling out in the gorge.  Looking closely, you can see the icicles showing the upper limits of the shale...

Here's a picture from the bridge above the falls looking down into the gorge...all that color in the creek are coins people have thrown in...Luke wanted to go get them...

We walked all over the falls area, but not down into the gorge...the stairs were pretty icy and Lex would've had a hard time...

Upstream of the falls, the kids had more fun knocking snow off the rails...especially Lex...

Of course we had to take a selfie...

Lex felt left out, so we had to take another....not that they're any good...

Before we left, Lukie wanted one just with me, so we snuck away from Kieran and Lex for a quick minute...

Minnehaha is a pretty cool place to visit...all for $1 parking...

Quinzee

While we didn't get a lot of snow before Christmas, a couple of storms have come through leaving us with about 8 inches (just guessing here) of snow.  A perfect amount to make a quinzee...maybe we'd use it to sleep one night or at the very least, the kids would have a snow fort or shelter outside to use...

The first step is to pile up a lot of snow...large areas of the back yard currently look like it hasn't snowed...

The second step is to pack all that snow down...that's where the boys came in...I piled it up and they packed it down...Kieran complained that it was too hard to get to the top of the pile...

Luke...I just threw him up to the top so he could get to work...

After the pile was ready, we would've take sticks (10-15 inches long) and placed them all over the pile to give us a gauge on where the outside of the walls were when we dug it out...to bad the boys made the sticks 2-4 inches long...anyway...we were ready to let it sit for a couple of hours before the dig...

We were digging blind basically, but it worked out...

Lex came out at the end to reap the reward of having a snow shelter....

The air hole sure is nice, brings some nice cool air inside the quinzee...it gets pretty warm inside...

I did make one big mistake with it...when it was all dug out, I was adding more snow to the outside and top of the quinzee and accidentally broke through (the spot directly above Lex's head).  I patched it with a big chunk of snow and added loose snow all around the hole, figure it'll all come together and seal itself...at least that's the hope.

It's big...all four of us can lay down comfortably inside of the quinzee...we'll see what we do with it...

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...