Central Elementary AAA...

The Elementary has AAA (Arts, Academics, Achievement) every spring.  Students decide to enter selected events based on interest level.  Luke had never chosen to enter, until this year when his teacher highly recommended that all students enter.  Lex entered a worm garden last year, here's her scorecard.

They both entered events this year.  After looking at the possibilities, Lukie went with photography, which he admitted wouldn't take much work (though actually, he had to practice quite a bit because his early pictures of waterfalls were not good...he learned a lot about zoom and focus).  Lex went with the creative art again...

Luke took this picture of the Lower Falls of the Gooseberry River using his phone.  It was a nice picture, I figured he'd choose a picture of the Middle Falls that everyone takes, but it turned out nice...

Lex decided to make an igloo out of Starburst (it was a lot of Starburst...) candy and cotton balls representing snow.  The past two years, I've had her diagram out what she wants and this was her aim...

Lex received a 3rd place ribbon for her efforts...

Lukie received a 1st place ribbon for his efforts...

In the grand scheme of things, Lex did a lot more work for her project than Luke...though both learned lessons...

Fortnite & Avengers...

Fortnite (an online game that kids, mostly boys, from age 8 thru high school are playing way too much) has come together with Avengers:  Endgame and incorporated that into the game temporarily.  You can be on the Avengers side (and pick up cool weapons like Thor's Stormbreaker, Captain's shield or Ironman's thrusters) or you can be on the evil titan Thanos' side...

Almost at bedtime the other night I heard "Dad!  Come quick!  Now!" and I went running expecting the worst.  Turn's out, Lukie spawned into a game as Thanos...

This is what I saw on the screen...Thanos dropping into the game...

Lukie was a little bit excited (he doesn't ever kneel while playing)...

Once on the ground, Thanos (Lukie was ready for some destruction)...

Lukie was more focused than ever...

He didn't get off that knee the entire time playing as Thanos...

Lukie ended up with 27 kills as Thanos...that's good.  His high before that was something like 7-8 during a game...

Just like in the movies, Thanos' goal is to capture the Infinity Stones.  Here Lukie (Thanos) is coming up on the Soul Stone, after getting the purple Power Stone previously.  He didn't get it though, at the last minute he was attacked by a wave of people on the side of the Avengers...

It didn't matter...he was excited...'27 kills dad...that's good!'

Avengers: Endgame...

Avengers: Endgame came out on Thursday and we saw it last night...we were really looking forward to it...we've had our tickets for the 7:00 pm, Friday night show for a while...

We won't be talking about it for awhile, got to let people see it too, but we loved it...

We had to have popcorn...

And then settle in for the show...

This is one that we will be seeing again in the theatre and buying when it comes out...

A boy and his Legos...

Lukie has been saving some gift cards and pooling some birthday money for an object recently...we found out what he was getting with it yesterday.  He had seen a recent Lego magazine sent to us and he spied his number one choice (he bought it yesterday at Target)...

It was a Lego set from the upcoming Avengers - Endgame movie...the set is called Avengers Compound Battle.  For us, who've seen all the movies, it talk about what's going to happen.  Is Thanos (the big, bad guy) going to come back to Earth and attack the Avengers?  Thanos' gauntlet (with all the infinity stones) is locked away in the compound, does that mean the Avengers somehow are able to get it from Thanos and he's trying to get it back?  Or maybe the title of the set has no correlation with the movie...

But anyway...then it's time to start building...

And Lukie loves building the sets...

He likes the accomplishment of finishing the set...

But then will spend hours playing with it too...

And he really plays with them too...he's got an elaborate game going that involves Star Wars Legos, Avengers Legos, Jurassic World Legos, Transformers, and dinosaurs...and trust me, you don't want to be the one who accidentally moves one out of place...

He's just have fun...being a kid...

Lukie's Mount Rushmore...

Lukie had a pretty cool assignment due this week.  To create his own, personal Mount Rushmore.  He needed to identify the four most important people to him, draw them as if they were carved into a mountain and describe three reasons why they made his list...

Here's his finished product...

I didn't see the project until he was already done with the back and most of the drawings were done.  From left to right above are me, his grandfather, his uncle Craig and a certain freshman collegiate volleyball player...

Note:  above the mountain are clouds...one of the clouds is shaped like a dinosaur...that would be Lukie...

His descriptions about why the four of us were chosen are above, maybe you'll be able to read them, maybe not...it was a cool project...

Spring Sports...

The Spring sports season has started (even though snow is coming in the next few days) and we're off to the games...

This was a 7th grade baseball game of Kieran's...there he is at shortstop...

Maybe a little zoom helps...

 Then he was up to bat...

And Lukie was watching...he was pretending to be sleeping...

A fun evening at the ballpark for some...

More games are coming...with warmer temperatures too...

Time to play ball...

Summer ball team lists came out a couple of days ago and this morning the weather was perfect to get out and throw (on and off showers affected most of the afternoon)...

Lukie wanted to play some catch...

One of my favorite things to do with these kids is to play catch (or camp, hike, or just enjoy doing whatever they want to do)...

Lex was taking some pictures...she had a blast...

Then I took a few while we were playing catch...

This was not a good throw...Lukie was laughing too hard (he thought I wouldn't catch it if I was holding a phone)...

This one was much better...

We ended up pulling the pitch-back out and throwing pitches to each other for a while...it was a great time...

Lukie's Business Letter...

Lukie had an assignment at school recently where he had to write a business letter.  The students had to choice the business they were going to write and it had to be fairly formal...give suggestions to the company (they could not ask for anything)...

Lukie chose to write the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he's not a huge football fan, but if he had to chose between teams the Bucs are his (he likes the pirate theme)...

He was very excited to show me this letter after school today!

Apparently, he's one of the first in his class to receive a reply.  He also received the autographed picture of the head coach...

He's a pretty happy guy...

Jay Cooke State Park...

On the way back from Duluth, we made a stop at Jay Cooke State Park...

Frankly, I was hoping to see some snow melt affecting the height and flow of the St. Louis River...there wasn't much change though.  The Thomson dam keeps a pretty regular flow on the river and the snowmelt hadn't really begun in earnest yet...

But, we got on the bridge and hiked some...the wind was whipping through the valley...

Lex was in this picture, but with the wind, she looked like cousin it and Lukie asked her hair to not be in the picture...

This is just another one of those great scenes in Minnesota...

The Minnesota Zoo...

We went to the zoo for the first time since seeing those amazing Jack-o-laterns last fall...

Right when we got to the zoo, we watched the Bird Show, which is awesome - there are many birds that fly right over your head and the show is very educational...

Then we headed for the Minnesota Trail, we saw this cougar looking proud over it's domain...

And probably stalking us...

Bears have been waking from hibernation recently and apparently, this one is no different...

Trying to avoid the crowd, we went outside to find the tiger on the northern trail...

This is Lex trying to sleep next to one of the two tigers...

The moose was also pretty relaxed...

And the camel...

 The last few summers, the zoo has had kangaroos and other marsupials, but not this summer.  But, apparently it's no prob-llama...

We went to Discovery Bay...saw the turtles and sharks...

After watching a show on what we can do for animals, Lukie and Lex touched the quill of a porcupine...

Apparently, Lex took a nap with the Hawaiian Monk seal...it didn't nap...

The sea otters outside were pretty feisty with each other, Lukie loved that...

 Lex has always played with the penguins...it's like a laser pointer for cats with her...

 But she could stare forever at the flamingoes...

 On the way out, we went through the MN Trail again...Two cougars were out and active...

We could've watched for a long time...

Never a bad day at the zoo...