Fort Snelling State Park

Last week was so nice! It was summer holding on for one last warm splash before the week of rain and fall breeze filled the air. I worked on Sunday then we headed down to Fort Snelling State Park for a hike. We had been here before but we'd never got the hiking club trail password. The hiking club trail was actually out on pike island. We had tried about a month ago but the trail was closed because of flooding (def prob closed now after last week's rain) but it was open so we ventured for a late afternoon hike.

There was the fair share of complaining and whining but overall it was fun and we like to make the kids get out and enjoy the nature. Emma brought her walking stick that she got from camping at Glendalough. Mary also acquired one at Fort Snelling, we'll have to spice them up at home to make them a little unique.

We broke out the nature scavenger hunt list to get them involved in the beginning. So fun seeing them work together and get along most of the time.

 Family shadow portrait :-)

Isaac's soccer team this year is calling themselves "the grasshoppers" so it was fun to find one and look at it for a good while. Feel like we don't see many grasshoppers up here, but we actually saw another at the park yesterday so maybe it's just that we weren't noticing them until now.

 Threw some rocks into the river while Thomas had a little nursing break.

Made it to the end of the island where the password was (the password is always usually located at about the halfway point of the trail. The trail totaled over 3 miles so this was at about the 1.5/2 mile mark. Kids liked playing in the sand.

Powering through with the motivation of dinner when we were done. We planned to go to Punch Pizza which the kids love so that kept them motivated.

We ended up at a new punch pizza closer to where we were. Turns out it is the ORIGINAL punch pizza and an actual restaurant. Unlike the one by our house we usually go to where you order at the counter. It was fun because it was really like Italy. The pizza was great! Kyle and I usually get a salad and have one slice of the kids plain pepperoni (which is still amazing) but this time ordered our own pizza with fun toppings, like arugula my favorite and buffalo mozzarella. It was really fun learning the story of punch pizza, it's the kids favorite place by our house but I didn't realize the history of it.