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.

September Happenings

Gonna make one big blog about randomness so far this month. Well September is almost over which is insane. We are back into the school routine, still adjusting I'd say. The girls are doing afternoon preschool this year. I feel like that gave Isaac such a great transition into full day kingergarten so I wanted to do it for the girls as well. The other reason being we have our BSF on Tuesdays (Bible Study Fellowship) and the girls have their own class there where they learn about the bible, it's an amazing children's program. So I didn't want them to miss that, which conflicts with the Tue,Wed,Thur preschool. So going in the afternoon allows them to do both. 

Onto the photos, we picked up this fun bath bomb kit at Costco. The girls LOVED it! We made up a couple batches of bombs. Will need to get it out again soon as they've used most of them. 

The girls started a new gymnastics class and have gone two times so far. They love it. I like the new location, a little more serious than the other class we did the past couple of years. 

They even got to do the rings!

On Wednesdays we have Thomas in ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education) classes. This is when Thomas and I go to a class together with kiddos his age and play. The girls go to the sib care which is basically like another preschool class. This is the same teacher Isaac had for sib care when the girls were infants in ECFE.

Lunch stop at noodles after ECFE.

Wednesdays are busy. After ECFE, the girls have preschool, then Isaac gets home, the girls get home off the bus and Isaac has soccer in the evening. 

Isaac is pretty good at soccer and really enjoys it!

Friday night Kyle and I had a date night out with one of his co-workers. We got to ride his boat to a restaurant on Lake Minnetonka. It was a super nice evening and so fun to be out on the water.

Saturday morning was the annual Crawl fundraiser for Isaac's school. Now that he's in first grade he is the second group to start the walk around the park. He ran ahead almost the whole way.  

The girls did better this year walking around the park and we had puppy dog tail treats waiting at the end if there was no whining. We remembered last year the whole second half of the walk was miserable for all ears in hearing range. But this year they did great, however Emma did NOT wear her walking shoes like we had asked instead she had on her pretty sandals....

Enjoying puppy dog tails (they are just a twisted donut pastry with icing)

I forgot to upload the rest of the photos, but Saturday was a packed morning of the school walk, then we went to scouts to try that out for the first time. Isaac was a little slow to warm up but then he did enjoy the activities. However he decided he's not into it this year and didn't want to officially sign up. We're okay with that and have enough going on right now. Immediately after scouts we headed back to the field for soccer.

Monday the girls were back to gymnastics:

We had LOTS of rain last week! A few rainy waits at the bus stop

These were from the previous week:

Thomas and I went for a run Tuesday afternoon while the girls were in school. Glad I got it in because the rest of the week was filled with rain in the afternoons.

 Thomas's current favorite things is climbing. And climbing up into the chairs at the table. He's good about getting down now which is helpful, but if there's anything up there he's sure to dump it or make a mess of it.

The girls have lockers at their ECFE sib care, they were pretty proud of that!

Wednesday night was soccer in the rain

Little man has a bump on his head from falling. We're in the toddler tottle stage so bumps and bruises galore. He doesn't get upset, just gets back up and keeps trucking along.

Then Thursday was rainy as well. We test road a bike in a sprinkle. We ended up buying it and went back before curriculum night at school that night and I rode it a few blocks to the bike shop. Pretty much rode in the pocket of a thunderstorm, that was exciting. It stayed at the shop for a day to get a basic tune up and we picked it up Saturday (I'll blog about that separately).