Megans Birthday

Megan is getting old enough to really enjoy birthdays now, as well as "plan out" how she wants them to go. Her first request was "breakfast in bed".

Shown here with her "smoothy", cinnamon roll and donut, in bed.


Here second request was for "mandarin orange salad" on her birthday, and cake for her birthday party. I bet this is the first time mandarin orange salad has ever had candles in it. Her other requests were "ramen noodles and kool aid for lunch" and I can't remember what dinner was.



Michael had gone to grand slam sports for his birthday the last 2 years, as well as our neighbor joey, and they each get a "birthday shirt" for their birthday, so Megan "had" to go to grand slam so she could get her birthday shirt. Summer birthdays, especially around the 4th of July are hard, since not to many kids are around. Here is Megan in her birthday shirt.



Some of the other festivities were - Laser Tag





Playing in the arcade. Megan really wanted a stuffed animal out of the "claw game", which I always view as a complete waste of money as I believe it is rigged to never win anything, however Rachel must have figured it out as she won 5 stuffed animals out of it - one for every child there!



The other neat part is the "fun zone" which is a big room full of stuffed balls and guns that you can shoot at each other. Here are the girls on the bottom level.



Rachel on the 2nd level manning one of the guns.



Megan and friends Mickey and Alyssa gathering balls for the cannon.



Michael trying to crank the canon arm before it fires the balls.



Pizza time. This is actually the meanest part of the party, as no one wants to eat, we have to pull them away from playing, and they can't open presents until after they eat. Why even have food at parties?



Decorating cupcakes has become a tradition.



The party girls on the mini golf course.

Grandpa's visit

Hard to believe how fast time seems to go, but Grandpa was here for 3 weeks, and has been gone a week now, but this was our favorite picture of his visit. Megan was super happy to have Grandpa here, especially since it was during her birthday. She go a pink Nintendo DS and a game from Grandpa, which she stills plays weeks after! She actually sat on his lap a few times this visit also!

4th of July

This is always a fun time of the year for pictures. We went to downtown Lakeville and watched the big fireworks for the first time. This is the first time that all of the kids actually watched also, as usually the youngest wanted to stay in the car as it was too scary. Before we went to the big fireworks however, we tried a few of our slow shutter speed sparkler shots.


Look Ma! No arms!


Michael does the best job with keeping his head still and moving his arms.


The sparklers are either lightsabers, or in this case magic wands (since we just watched the 5 Harry Potter movies recently).


Rachel hasn't mastered the holding of the head still quite yet.


It looks kid of funny with no arms...


Logical and free flowing.


I like these laying in the grass shots, as it puts all the kids heads at the same level. However all I hear when I'm trying to take the picture is "it's itchy" or "there are bugs all over me". It's amazing that all three can smile at the same time.


Megan


Rachel


Michael

Fort Snelling

For the 4th of July we got some free tickets at the library to go and visit Old Fort Snelling - the historical site of the first outpost in Minnesota. It was a good 4th of July precursor as it reminded us of all that went into making what we take for granted now.

Here we are on top of the lookout tower. All though they never fought any battles there we had the kids lookout for "bad guys" that were coming.

Michael, Megan and Rachel all enlisted in the 1820 army using a quill pen and ink bottle.

Mommy standing by the vegetable garden outside the kitchen.

Outside the Colonels house.

What the kiddos would have looked like back in 1820.

I told Rachel to stand next to all the "highly explosive" barrels of gunpowder so I could take a picture.


Looking down the 4 story elevator in the supply shed.


Watching the blacksmith make door nails. We learned where the saying "dead as a door nail" came from.


We ended up getting enlisted in the soldiers drills and had to line up in formation.


Here we are marching into position so we can turn around and charge at the enemy.


We put the kids back in school for a little while. That was the scariest part for them.


This is what Mommy would have spent most of her time during - carrying water for laundry.

The Scary Scuba Man

I forgot to post this from our trip to Duluth, but this is the classic scary scuba suit that always shows up in kids shows and video games - most recently in the Spongebob Squarepants movie and Bioshock video game. It's always fun to see Megans face when she sees something and goes "is that for real Daddy?"

Duluth port of entry

After we checked out of the hotel we took a little walk along the Duluth port of entry out of Lake Superior and watched the car bridge go up and down a few times and walked out to the lighthouse. This is the port that the "Edmond Fitzgerald" sailed out of and sank about 18 miles out of the port - Dan Fogelberg I believe wrote a song about it. We went and toured the boat museum after wards and soaked in all of the history. Seeing the living quarters on the old boats was the most memorable thing for me, as they were so small and unlivable now.


Us at the car bridge that lifts up and down when boats go under it.


One of the three lighthouses at the port.


The kids outside the boat musuem.


Afterwards I tried to teach the kids how to skip rocks.

A Mini Vacation

Grandpa came up to visit this week for a couple of weeks so I took a week off leading up to the 4th of July. When I take vacation at home I end up doing more stuff around the house that I normally have time to do, so it ends up being harder than work actually, so I planned a 1 day trip up to Duluth for us to go to one of the hotels that has a nice waterpark inside it. The room also had 2 bunk beds (which is a dream come true for the kids). They all wanted to move and live there. Here are some of the shots of us at the pool.


Here we are standing under the "big bucket of water".


The kiddos had fun on the monkey bars over water.


Megan stayed close to the bucket so she could stand under it as many times as she could.


Megan waiting for the bucket to fall.


Michael trying to do the monkey bars without the bars.


Megan chilling on the lazy river.


Mommy and Megan on the lazy river.


Mommy became a hot tub hang out junkie also.


The kiddos taking their shower. I offered this up as a regular way to get them to take one. I would fill a big bucket of water up in the backyard, ring a bell, and they would come running to stand under it a take a shower.


Michael coming down the tube slide.


Rachel coming down the tube slide.


Even Mommy coming down the tube slide.


Daddy and Michael hitting the bottom. We had to take this one about 5 times since Michael's face was always covered by the splash.


You can barely see Rachel's face here.


Daddy and Rachel on the lazy river.


Michael coming down the tube slide.


Ever wonder what face you make right before you hit the water?


Kind of like this also.


Mommy chillin by the kid area. I love my beautiful wife!


The kiddos mid "shower". You can still kind of see Megan on the right.


This was one of Megan's favorites. It was like a tiny whirlpool that would spin you around in circles. I had to be a monster and try to eat her when I was in there with her.


Michael wore his goggles around most of the time and had some nice rings around his eyes when he was done.