January 2016 Week 2

Friday, Jan 8 To accentuate the little bit of snow that fell yesterday, we got some more so it was quite beautiful in the morning. As a bon...

GTCYS Retreat

Lauren had a retreat at Camp St. Croix for a second year in a row. I volunteered to be a chaperone this year and was treated to a chance to ...

Walker Sculpture Garden and Loring Park

Today's requested field trip was the Walker Art Center (Gloria's choice). It was a last minute GO because we were watching the weath...

Purgatory Sunset

A quick post to remind myself some day of the nice quiet walk that Jim and I had around Purgatory Park at sunset...without kiddos. He spends...

Richard T Anderson Conservation Area

I keep a file in Evernote of activities that I'm considering with the kids - field trips, classes, places to visit. This location made i...

MN State Fair

We went to the State Fair for the first time in at least 10 years (perhaps more.) We didn't go in with much of a plan except that we kne...

Mills Church Camping 2015

Another great weekend of fun! This year, we did not sleep out at camp - we set up our gazebo and picnic stuff/kitchen but went home to sleep...

Meadow Park

We took the neighbor girls, Nora & Grace, friends of Natalie and Jamie, with us to Meadow Park where they played tag, hide & seek, e...

Coon Rapids Dam

We were going to go to the Coon Rapids Dam earlier this week but it didn't work out on our schedule, so we rescheduled until today. It w...

Deephaven at Dusk

I'm not really sure why so many people are commenting that it's almost the end of summer when it's only the first week in August...

Bees and Flowers

~A couple favorite photos from a friend's garden: interesting pollinators and beautiful blooms.

Aquatennial Fireworks 2015

We enjoyed another round of fireworks viewed from the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis. This pyrotechnic show is by far the best around here...

Deephaven Beach

Just a slightly random photo I took at Deephaven Beach on another wonderful summer evening. Someday this won't be part of our usual summ...

Excelsior Trolley

Natalie and Jamie wanted to go on the Excelsior Trolley again since they remembered it fondly from last year. We looked at the museum for a ...

Minnehaha Falls and Ford Dam

We visited Minnehaha Falls today and parked in a different area than usual. This enabled us to cool off in the little wading pool and also c...

Caponi Art Park

Today we went to Caponi Art Park for the first time. I chose this day because there was supposed to be a family-friendly art activity and sh...

Group Fun at Deephaven

Today we went to Deephaven along with some of the kids that Katie and Lauren are friends with from church. Ben Hoober brought his slack l...

Geese Families

I always enjoy seeing the goslings in the early summer. Not crazy about what they leave on the beach, though!

The Unofficial Beginning of Summer

Today looked like the first "real" day of summer since we can mentally depend on the idea that an 80-degree is more the norm than ...

Bike Ride with Lauren

Lauren has really been into bike riding (probably because of her BF Adam's love for it, but that's fine) so she and I went for a lit...