Duluth Day Trip

We took advantage of our relatively close proximity to Duluth and headed up there for some Lake Superior fun today. First we hiked the Congdon Park trail, which was full of little gems of waterfalls and bridges and stone-skipping. It was uphill for the first half of the loop, but we took lots of diversions close to the creek and pretended we were rock climbers to make the trip up easier. On the way back down, we took the main, paved trail and went really, really fast (like, I had to run to keep the kids in my sight). Karl said he was flying. Laura ran most of the way down smiling instead of complaining. I think it will be a new Duluth tradition.

After our hike, we headed over to Canal Park. Renting a four-person bike to ride along the lakeshore is also a tradition. We stopped below Fitgers and the kids used up most of the hour-long bike rental to play on the shore.

Laura said these rocks would be a great place to nap!

Karl got in his fair share of rock-throwing today.

We pedaled back to the bike rental shop in the nick of time (but forgot to get a picture of our fancy bike. You'll just have to refer to last summer's post). Then it was off to watch the ships.

We ended the day with an early dinner at Grandma's.

First Day of School 2010

It's very hard to believe, but on Tuesday Laura started 4th grade and Karl started 1st. Suddenly I have entire days with a quiet (and clean) house! Both kids were very excited for school to start, and so far it's going very well. Yay school!

A Very Meissner Weekend

Steve and Megan were in town this past weekend, so we got to spend lots of quality time with Matt's family. Since we were all going to be together, it was the perfect time to get a family picture done. We decided to go with fancy hair for Laura, and I thought she looked so cute in her rag-curlers that we took before/after pictures before our photo session. Matt and Karl are not included in the pictures because their before-and-after pics would pretty much be the same thing.

After our photo shoot, we spent the evening at Pam and Fred's. The kids always love the pass-the-present game, but Nathan wasn't so sure.

 

Here are all the Meissner grandkids (we did the best we could with pictures, ok?): Nathan, Karl, Aly, Kathryn, Emily, and Laura.

 

The next day, everyone came to our house. Nathan liked hanging out in Karl's room, probably because he has lots of cars and dinosaurs.

One thing this weekend taught us is that it is very hard to get pictures of groups of kids, especially when they are silly cousins.

Next time, we'll all have to meet up in Alabama!

Minnesota State Fair 2010

We went to the State Fair yesterday! Every year, we go to the State Fair on the Sunday of the Milk Run, and the kids have to get up super early and wait for me to run before they can actually start all the fair fun (even though I would say the race IS part of the fun!). This year, I was scheduled to work on Sunday, and, even though I could've gotten out of it, we decided to try going to the fair during the week. It would be great: we could leave when we wanted, the kids wouldn't have to wait for my run, and I wouldn't have to walk around the rest of the day all sweaty from running. I would actually get to wear makeup to the fair this year!

Then things started getting busy at work for Matt, and people were flying in from New York, and he had tons of important meetings, all of which overlapped our day at the fair. Suddenly I found myself having to take two kids to the busiest place on earth by myself! At least we were meeting the Elliotts, so I'd have help once we got there (but oh, how I fretted about getting there). Usually, we walk around with Angie and Jason for a while and then go off and do our own thing, but yesterday I told them I was sticking with them the whole time (we had to, since we ended up riding together)! We also met up with Dan, Peggy, and Wyatt, who also knew what a fantastic day it would be.

I will say that going on a Wednesday is much easier than going on Sunday, just because it's that less busy. There weren't many lines for anything, and the weather was absolutely perfect. The kids couldn't believe we could just get there and start walking around, without waiting through a long race (but they'd better not get used to it, because I plan to be back at the Milk Run next year...)

Cousins at the fair: Wyatt, Karl, Laura, Colin, and Justin

Karl was brave and went on the Space Tower for the first time, with Jason, Colin, and me.  We could see both downtowns, and waved to Daddy in his Wells Fargo building in St. Paul.

All the kids went down the giant slide. Look how excited Laura was after her ride!

Wyatt, Peggy, Dan

Me, Colin, Justin, Angie, Karl, Laura

Laura loved getting ice cream from "Custard's Last Stand" (I often wonder how she knows these things). We sat across from the boys, who eat their ice cream very enthusiastically!

Obligatory scary ride picture! (Just to clarify: This was the first go-round for Laura on this ride, and she actually loved it by the end of the first turn. She went back on it at least once more. I just happened to capture her look of horror when it first started, and, well, the kids have earned a reputation of having looks of terror on the most benign rides, so I had to add this to the collection).

Overall, it was a great day, even though stinker Matt wasn't there. Ahhh, now school can begin!

Rush City Music Festival

For the past several summers, Rush City has hosted a music festival, and it is never very good, but we are a small town so we do our best. Yesterday was the second annual 5-mile run/walk (I missed the race last year because I was sick with swine flu). The walkers started at 8:00, even though the "website" (yes, those quotation marks are intentional) said 8:30, so there were some walkers who started with the eight of us who ran (and why would they start the walkers first anyway? My head is full of questions about the whole thing). This is how the race started: a woman stood at the "starting line" and said, "ok, ready....go!" and started the stopwatch on her phone. We had to run a 2.5 mile loop twice, which included juking and jiving through the seating area they were setting up in front of the stage, and running through standing puddles in the fairgrounds. When we finished, we were rewarded with a bottle of warm water! It was quite sad.

On the bright side, my running buddy Penelope was there to watch me run. I didn't run with her in the race because, you know, it's hard to run with a dog in a crowd of people... but really I wasn't sure how she'd do in a distance race, because she's more used to the slow plodding training runs we do.

The day did get better. We went back for lunch at the Music Fest and it was very tasty! Also, we spotted Fred's car in the car show. I wonder if Fred ever imagined his grandkids posing in front of this car when he bought it in 1968. That would probably have blown his mind.

Pam and Fred had Aly and Emily for the weekend, so the day got even better when Laura and Karl joined them! Here they are at a playground:

The weekend was chock-full of fun in Rush City, because today was the Big Splash at the Pool, and the cousins got to hang out together again. I will say that I love our pool and will do anything to help it out, so I'm glad we had a sunny hot day and a great turnout for the event. Karl, Laura, Aly, and Emily (yes, the goofy-faced children in this picture are mine).

Water Park of America to the Rescue!

It was a rainy, cloudy, grey day on Wednesday, so we took advantage and met our waterpark buddies (a.k.a. the Elliotts) at the Waterpark of America. It was a last minute decision which Laura appreciated, because she said she wouldn't have been able to sleep the night before had she known where she would be going the next day!

We walked up thousands of stairs (there's my obligatory comment about stairs, Laura) and took so many rides on the family raft ride that Laura, Karl, Colin, Jason, and I all had our assigned spots in the tube and knew exactly where to sit when our turn came up.  It was also a great day because the lines weren't long!

Too bad my pictures aren't better, but you'll just have to use your imagination. I've been waiting for the Elliotts to post to their blog so I could steal their pictures, but they're being slower than I am!

Laura gave a big thumbs up as soon as we got there.

Karl and Colin

Here's the only picture I managed to get of all four kids. Little stinker Justin didn't want to sit.

This is what Laura looked like at the end of the afternoon. Those were four tuckered-out kids!

Camp Runestone for Young Wizards

This past week it was Laura's turn to go to (day) camp. She also took a class through the Science Museum, but it was held at Hamline University. It was basically science for book lovers, because she spent the week going to different classes to discuss the science behind books like Harry Potter and doing different projects based on characters in literature. All the campers even had "dorms," which was the students' designated spots in a big lecture hall. Needless to say, Laura had a blast!

On Friday, there was an open house. Here we are sitting in Laura's "dorm."

 

Laura made a "polyjuice" concoction, and we were supposed to guess which three juices she combined. I was right! It was pineapple, apple, and grape, which actually tasted pretty good.

Here are Laura and Karl, both in their Science Museum Camp t-shirts, at Hamline. I'm so proud of my two little scientists!