Last year we had a Memorial Day party and tried to amaze the kids with the Mentos fountain. With subpar results.
Well, the dog liked it.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
For Your Reading Pleasure
I was just looking at L's screensaver, which is all of our family pictures and this one popped up.
This was the magazine selection in my room at the B&B I stayed at on Staten Island for Jen's wedding. This picture always makes me laugh.
This was the magazine selection in my room at the B&B I stayed at on Staten Island for Jen's wedding. This picture always makes me laugh.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Art is everywhere
The composition of this picture of Sam and Stella has been nagging me for a couple days now. I flipped the picture (the original one is in the Sculpture Garden post)
And the layout echoes Wyeth's "Christina's World."
Kinda cool, huh?
And the layout echoes Wyeth's "Christina's World."
Kinda cool, huh?
Fooling the kids into learning once again.
Saturday we were wondering what to do with the fam. Movies were out of the question as marauding hordes would surely be flocking to see Batman.
L though the Geek Factor would shift and create a geek vacuum, or a geekuum if you will, away from the Science Museum of Minnesota, which has a StarWars exhibit for an extra fee. So we loaded up the kidlets and headed out. We really didn't care if we saw the SW exhibit or not, which was fine as when we got there (at 1pm) the next ticketed showing was at 5:45 pm. So no. Also the cost was a little prohibitive.
So, we meandered through the exhibits and there were geeks galore. Apparently the geeks can cram a lot of geekdom into their weekends, which offers opportunities for Batcinema and viewing costumes from a movie made in 1977.
L and Sammy went into an older kids exhibit (ages 8 and up) and made slides of a fruit fly's saliva gland. Of course, Sammy reported this as "Dad ripped a head off a fruit fly." I was on Stella duty and we flitted about from one area to the next. I thought she'd like the dinosaurs, but they were a little too overwhelming in scale and in sharpness of teeth. Go figure, she liked the weather exhibit best of all.
When we were leaving, there was a guy in full stormtrooper gear walking around greeting guests. Stella looked at him, and then excitedly shrieked, "Sammy! It's the guy from your Video Game!" So there's her context.
I had a great idea to walk to this candy shop in downtown St Paul, Candyland, that L and I had gone to when the Sci Museum was at it's old location.
I had L enter in Candy Store on googlemaps, and it was just a pinch away from the museum, which translated to a few big city blocks in real life. I was getting a little worried, but then we caught a whiff of freshly popped popcorn and followed our noses.
Stella especially loved the Snoopy, Lucy and Linus statues out in front. We got 1 1/2 lbs of taffy, cheese corn and a small lollipop. Yum!
We headed home amid ever blackening skies and hit CiCi's pizza buffet, which was "eh" okay. Not great pizza, but okay because it was right there for the kids to eat. The skies were getting blacker and L took a look on his cell phone at the radar. We quickly finished horking down the chow and tried, and failed, to beat the rain. Wow, it just dumped!
Saturday night was low key - Sam L and I played Rock Band (using our 2 person band: "Red for Revenge" - singer and guitar, instead of "Cupcake Misteak" or 3 person band with drums. Red for Revenge allows for us to take breaks now and then.
Sunday we cleaned - woo. And went to Wagner's Drive In for burgers. Pretty tasty. Stella had a hot dog with a poppy seed bun. She did not appreciate poppy seeds.
Have a great week, everyone!
L though the Geek Factor would shift and create a geek vacuum, or a geekuum if you will, away from the Science Museum of Minnesota, which has a StarWars exhibit for an extra fee. So we loaded up the kidlets and headed out. We really didn't care if we saw the SW exhibit or not, which was fine as when we got there (at 1pm) the next ticketed showing was at 5:45 pm. So no. Also the cost was a little prohibitive.
So, we meandered through the exhibits and there were geeks galore. Apparently the geeks can cram a lot of geekdom into their weekends, which offers opportunities for Batcinema and viewing costumes from a movie made in 1977.
L and Sammy went into an older kids exhibit (ages 8 and up) and made slides of a fruit fly's saliva gland. Of course, Sammy reported this as "Dad ripped a head off a fruit fly." I was on Stella duty and we flitted about from one area to the next. I thought she'd like the dinosaurs, but they were a little too overwhelming in scale and in sharpness of teeth. Go figure, she liked the weather exhibit best of all.
When we were leaving, there was a guy in full stormtrooper gear walking around greeting guests. Stella looked at him, and then excitedly shrieked, "Sammy! It's the guy from your Video Game!" So there's her context.
I had a great idea to walk to this candy shop in downtown St Paul, Candyland, that L and I had gone to when the Sci Museum was at it's old location.
I had L enter in Candy Store on googlemaps, and it was just a pinch away from the museum, which translated to a few big city blocks in real life. I was getting a little worried, but then we caught a whiff of freshly popped popcorn and followed our noses. 
Stella especially loved the Snoopy, Lucy and Linus statues out in front. We got 1 1/2 lbs of taffy, cheese corn and a small lollipop. Yum!We headed home amid ever blackening skies and hit CiCi's pizza buffet, which was "eh" okay. Not great pizza, but okay because it was right there for the kids to eat. The skies were getting blacker and L took a look on his cell phone at the radar. We quickly finished horking down the chow and tried, and failed, to beat the rain. Wow, it just dumped!
Saturday night was low key - Sam L and I played Rock Band (using our 2 person band: "Red for Revenge" - singer and guitar, instead of "Cupcake Misteak" or 3 person band with drums. Red for Revenge allows for us to take breaks now and then.
Sunday we cleaned - woo. And went to Wagner's Drive In for burgers. Pretty tasty. Stella had a hot dog with a poppy seed bun. She did not appreciate poppy seeds.
Have a great week, everyone!
Saturday, July 19, 2008
NaNaNaNaNaNaNa- Bat Moon!
Sammy and I had our latest Canoe When The Moon is Full. It was the Bat Moon. I'm thinking it was a coincidence with the Dark Knight premiere, as we did not get any Joker swag.
Here's the pins that you get when you do the walk/canoe events:
This was Sammy's favorite CWTMIF event. It was very rustic - at the Baker Near Wilderness Settlement. The previous two were at more populated and public facilities (ie no snack bar - or lighted paths/parking lots here).
The last two canoeing events, were a more dusky affair - not exactly that dark. The naturalist/guide stalled waiting for more people to show and we heading out on a relatively long trek through the woods to get to the dock. We encountered hundreds of fireflies on our walk, which was amazing.
Like I said, this was rustic - we had to unlock our canoes and portage them along a path to the dock. Sammy was a champ and was able to hold up her end of the canoe with little difficulty. Our guide put a couple lanterns on the dock as a homing beacon, and Sammy and I were off in the twilight, Sammy sporting a blue glow necklace, which served both fashionable and functional purposes - so others could see us and not smash into us.
This canoe trip we enjoyed as we were off by ourselves. The lake has no public access, so we were the only 8 canoes on it. There was no wind, which makes canoeing easier, but the bugs were pretty rough and the sky was clear, unlike the last time we went - Firefly Moon, rechristened Lightning Bug Moon.
We were rewarded by seeing the huge moon rise over the lake. We also spied Jupiter brightly shining in the East.
As most of the canoes were spread out on the lake, we couldn't hear many other voices - a faint "Marco!" "Polo!" coming from a couple canoes from the distance.
I told Sammy to be quiet for a moment to see if we could hear any animals or bird sounds. Sammy was quiet for all of 15 seconds and then said, "I have to break wind." Then the squeakiest little fart emanated from her. Okay, so much for sounds of the wild.
We ending up being on the water until 10pm and got back to the lodge about 10:30. As there were no lights heading back to the lodge and the parking lot, we got in a little bit of stargazing too. Sooo pretty.
Sam and I are going to finish the canoeing events and are thinking about doing the Full Moon walks or snowshoeing in the winter.
Here's the pins that you get when you do the walk/canoe events:
This was Sammy's favorite CWTMIF event. It was very rustic - at the Baker Near Wilderness Settlement. The previous two were at more populated and public facilities (ie no snack bar - or lighted paths/parking lots here).
The last two canoeing events, were a more dusky affair - not exactly that dark. The naturalist/guide stalled waiting for more people to show and we heading out on a relatively long trek through the woods to get to the dock. We encountered hundreds of fireflies on our walk, which was amazing.
Like I said, this was rustic - we had to unlock our canoes and portage them along a path to the dock. Sammy was a champ and was able to hold up her end of the canoe with little difficulty. Our guide put a couple lanterns on the dock as a homing beacon, and Sammy and I were off in the twilight, Sammy sporting a blue glow necklace, which served both fashionable and functional purposes - so others could see us and not smash into us.
This canoe trip we enjoyed as we were off by ourselves. The lake has no public access, so we were the only 8 canoes on it. There was no wind, which makes canoeing easier, but the bugs were pretty rough and the sky was clear, unlike the last time we went - Firefly Moon, rechristened Lightning Bug Moon.
We were rewarded by seeing the huge moon rise over the lake. We also spied Jupiter brightly shining in the East.
As most of the canoes were spread out on the lake, we couldn't hear many other voices - a faint "Marco!" "Polo!" coming from a couple canoes from the distance.
I told Sammy to be quiet for a moment to see if we could hear any animals or bird sounds. Sammy was quiet for all of 15 seconds and then said, "I have to break wind." Then the squeakiest little fart emanated from her. Okay, so much for sounds of the wild.
We ending up being on the water until 10pm and got back to the lodge about 10:30. As there were no lights heading back to the lodge and the parking lot, we got in a little bit of stargazing too. Sooo pretty.
Sam and I are going to finish the canoeing events and are thinking about doing the Full Moon walks or snowshoeing in the winter.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Psych! You're Enjoying Art!
To get out of the house, we took the kids to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and let them run around. Well, it was more like Stella ran around and we all chased her.
In these pictures you can also see my new RED hair color.
Back Home
Well, Sammy's home from her camp - it was at the University of St. Thomas - Science and Technical Camp for girls. She had a good time, but had some homesickness early on. She made some new friends and did a lot of cool things like:
It lost power halfway through and the plane "caught a thermal" updraft and kept on climbing higher. The RC club guys were impressed with Sammy's flying skilz and called her "Amelia Earhart." Sammy was impressed because she had just done a report on AE a couple months ago.
Thursday we had a bad storm roll into MSP. It took out the power at work around 12:45 or so. The power wasn't restored until 8:30 that night. As we were released a little early from work, I took advantage of the extra time and rolled into St Paul to pick up Sammy with plenty o' time to spare. I hit Izzy's ice cream and had a cotton candy single scoop with a cream cheese Izzy on top. Oh, for yummy...
Next, as I was dying of a headache, I headed over to Eric and Annie's house and visited there. (Well, I kind of just died on the couch after Annie very very kindly gave me many headache relieving drugs and a coke, which helped tremendously.)
Annie came along to Sammy's graduation, which was a big surprise to Sammy. They had a very cute ceremony (with a lot of "whooo"s and screeches at a pitch that only middle schoolers can achieve.) Sammy was given the "Helping Hands" award as she was always pitching in.
So we got our baby back. She was so tired and overwhelmed from the week. She slept great in her own bed and I think she's getting back to normal. Yes, I think she's sick of us again.
- Made a crystal radio.
- Created little discs in a plastics lab.
- Made and flew a RC airplane.
It lost power halfway through and the plane "caught a thermal" updraft and kept on climbing higher. The RC club guys were impressed with Sammy's flying skilz and called her "Amelia Earhart." Sammy was impressed because she had just done a report on AE a couple months ago.
Sammy and Stella at the Fly Field
Sammy waiting to fly her plane...
Thursday we had a bad storm roll into MSP. It took out the power at work around 12:45 or so. The power wasn't restored until 8:30 that night. As we were released a little early from work, I took advantage of the extra time and rolled into St Paul to pick up Sammy with plenty o' time to spare. I hit Izzy's ice cream and had a cotton candy single scoop with a cream cheese Izzy on top. Oh, for yummy...
Next, as I was dying of a headache, I headed over to Eric and Annie's house and visited there. (Well, I kind of just died on the couch after Annie very very kindly gave me many headache relieving drugs and a coke, which helped tremendously.)
Annie came along to Sammy's graduation, which was a big surprise to Sammy. They had a very cute ceremony (with a lot of "whooo"s and screeches at a pitch that only middle schoolers can achieve.) Sammy was given the "Helping Hands" award as she was always pitching in.
So we got our baby back. She was so tired and overwhelmed from the week. She slept great in her own bed and I think she's getting back to normal. Yes, I think she's sick of us again.
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