Edgewater, Duluth...

Lukie, Lex (and Kieran) have spring break this week.  Lukie and Lex were hoping to do something fun, they were clear that they did not want to sit around the house all week and do something lame (like just the circus who mistreats animals like elephants and lions), so we originally had planned on spending Monday night up in Duluth at the Edgewater Hotel and Waterpark back Tuesday night due to our needs.

But that changed and we were able to spend Monday and Tuesday night in Duluth and they couldn't have been happier.  I took a couple personal days, that were originally approved for Mon/Tues, but were easily changed to Tues/Wed when the plans changed.

We got to the Edge about 8:00 Monday night...

On the way to Duluth, Lukie had determined that the pool closed at 10:00 pm.  The picture doesn't show it, but they were excited to get to the pool...

Do these show their excitement a little more?

Monday night was the only time I didn't get in the pool, so it's the only time I have pictures of them in the pool...

I creeped from above for awhile...

But they liked knowing I was watching (and taking pictures)...

They both loved the slides.  You fly down the body slide, I even think it's fast.  The tube slide is fun too...they both make sure it's an even count on how many times each of them has gone with me as a double (apparently, it's more fun if they're riding with me)...

Here's Lex coming down...

Using the net cross the floats turns into a race to knock the other off...

Lukie loves to try to beat his sister...

But if she knocks him off, he's happy too...

He doesn't like it really, but he's still having fun...

I just thought this was an interesting view...

Of course there is a huge bucket of water that drops water...

Lukie and Lex were ready...

Lukie looks brave...

Lex is in the middle of the oncoming storm...

When Lukie realized he missed, he tried to quickly back up to get 'hit' but it still missed...he got hit plenty over the next couple of days...

What they were most excited about was being able to wear their crocs again...

It was a great couple of days...coming soon:
1.  The arcade
2.  Gooseberry
3.  Canal Park
4.  Jay Cooke

Lex's Wax Museum...

Last week, Lex had her 3rd grade wax museum at school and she asked me to come (I took a couple of hours of comp time) and I was there...

She decided she was going to be a Iditorod musher.  Their class followed the recent Iditorod, doing what they called the 'Iditoread.'  Each student followed a musher and pledged to read a certain amount of minutes for each checkpoint.  Lex decided her wax museum character would be her musher...

She had a presentation prepared to read to people (and she just kept reading it to me, even though we had read through it several times)...

As soon as she was done reading, I convinced her to take the hat off (she was sweating and hot)...

She did well and was excited...

Minneopa Falls State Park...

So Lukie and Lex are doing A.A.A. (Arts, Academics and Awards) at school.  Students choose a category to submit pieces of work.  Lex is going to be creating something like last year.  Lukie choose to submit a photograph of something...

He said right away he wanted to do a picture of a waterfall or bison...which means we've got a couple of months to visit some waterfalls or bison...right up our alley...

Today, we visited Minneopa State Park, which has both of Lukie's request.  We knew that the bison drive was closed, road conditions are really poor due to the snow and rain this last week, but hoped that the bison would be by the fence (they weren't).  At least the waterfall never moves (at least on our timescale)...

It was really icy walking to the falls viewing area, but Luke got to work...

It's always a cool waterfall to see and it had really opened up, presumably sometime this week...

Back at the car, I asked Lukie to show me the pictures he took (he took three total...not many) and this is the one he showed me...

He wasn't kidding that he wanted a picture of a waterfall...apparently he didn't want anything else in the picture either...

He asked if I took any, so I showed him the one I took without them in it...

He said 'I like it better with the trees and sky in the picture.'  Lesson learned for the future...

Upstream, there is a lot of ice coming down the creek but it's getting caught well before the falls, when it really opens up, there will be a lot of ice going over the falls...too bad we didn't see any...

Captain Marvel...

We are a bit of fans of the Marvel Universe and have been waiting for Captain Marvel to come out in theaters.  It came out on March 8th and tonight we finally went to the movie...

Captain Marvel is the last character to be presumably brought into the the Avengers group...ask Lukie and Lex, they'll tell you all about it...

Even cooler, is that she's a female superhero that Lex loved watching and Lukie didn't even blink an eye to...

Lex said "she's my favorite Avenger!"  Lukie and I asked her who was better, Captain Marvel or Wonder Woman?  Lex said it was close, but Diana was still her favorite (Diana is Wonder Woman's real name)...

Now we can't wait for April, when the Avengers assemble again and try to reverse 'the snap' of Thanos (ask Lukie and Lex for details)...

Avengers:  Endgame.  Coming in April...going to be awesome...

Raider Basketball Games...

Considering it's March...it's time for the Raiders girls to be in the postseason for basketball...after winning their 7th conference title in a row, they entered the sub-section tournament...after an easy opening round win, they played at Minnesota State University at Mankato for the sub-section final...of course we were there...

They had lost to Jordan once before this season, one of the Jordan girls had the game of her life, but no one was really concerned about the game...

Until it started...

It took minutes to realize that shots taken by Central players were not falling...I don't think we've ever seen a game where the shooting percentage was so bad...

But, we kept cheering them on...after being down by about 10 at halftime, they closed the gap to two early in the second half...

But, that was as close as they'd come to tying the score...Jordan went on a run and won by almost 25. A good season...and we were there cheering them on again...

Lukie's Last Basketball Games...

Sunday was Lukie's last basketball games for the 2018-19 year.  From December to March, Saturdays are devoted to basketball.  Usually there are two games to go to per Saturday (it's different if there are tournaments) and games take place in towns like Norwood, Annandale, Glencoe, Waconia, etc.  It's a lot to get people moving (if the game is early, could be as early as 8:00 am on a Saturday) or a long wait if the games aren't until the afternoon.

But Lukie loves playing the game with his friends, he really doesn't care if they win or lose, he's just looking for fun...and he loves when people come to watch him...

Here he is practicing beforehand (the team was there, just happened not to be near him)...

What does Lex do during the games?  Usually she watches, but the Iditoread started Saturday (where students pledge a certain amount of minutes read as a musher reaches checkpoints on the Iditarod), so she read...

And read through another game...

We switched gyms (and Lex switched books because she had finished her first book) and she kept reading...

Lukie (#44) just kept playing the games...

It turns out that he scored the last basket of the year for his team...he had fun...

Here's a couple of group pictures from the previous weekend.  Below is both the 4th grade boy's and girl's teams, they don't play at the same time or place often...

And just the boys team...

Another great season and time watching them...baseball soon...

Rock Tumbling...The Last Stage...

After nine days of tumbling during the 'polishing' stage, it was time to open the tumbler...

Lukie couldn't wait...here it is, ready to open...

Once it was opened, it looked like sludge...the rocks were in there somewhere...

Getting rid of the water leaves you the rocks covered in sludge...

He had to clean the rocks off...

And was happy when he did...

These were his favorites (he didn't like the granites much for some reason)...

But Hoth survived...he was really worried about that...

He's already asked when we can get new rocks to start the tumbler again...