Around the Minneapolis/St. Paul Area

Eric couldn't manage two full weeks off from work so we had to compromise.  We dropped him off at the airport and headed to our campground right outside the city.  I was a very nice area, very close to highways and shopping, but felt very isolated with all those wonderful trees!!!  (Oh, how I miss those trees living in Kansas!)

Well the kids and I spent the week doing fun things around the cities while we waited for Eric to fly back.  Our first stop was the Children's Musuem in St. Paul.  We spent the WHOLE day there exploring the 4 different levels of fun stuff to do.  They had it broken up into rooms and each room had a different theme.  The photo collage below is from the city (where my monkeys just wanted to be postal workers) and the construction site.  The constriction area was unique to us and we spent a lot of time there.  Kids moved foam blocks up conveyor belts, move foam beams with a crane, and worked on their plumbing skills with the water valves.

 My personal favorite room was the forest (of course!!).  The kids (and me too!) tried on various animal outfits and crawled through tunnels, dens, and lodges.  Amanda enjoyed the ant colony the most.

They also had a traveling Curious George exhibit and got to meet the famous monkey in person!  : )

After we saw the whole thing, I let the kids choose their favorite room to explore some more until closing time.  Amanda chose the city where she found some crutches in the medical building and pretended her leg was broken.... the whole time!  She had the other mother's convinced that she really had an injured leg!  : )  Logan, on the other hand, wanted to go back to the pluming area where he got super wet making those balls flow through the different chambers.

The next day we headed to the zoo and my Two Little Monkeys were fascinated with the snow monkeys!  They were very cute, indeed, and we spent a half an hour there watching them play.

Then we had to rush over to the aquarium to make the Dolphin Show.  It was super awesome!!!  After the show we explored the reef area and touched sharks and starfish in the touch tank.

 The zoo also had mechanical dinosaurs visiting.  The kids thought it was neat, but it wasn't their favorite thing.  My monkeys are just not into prehistoric animals I guess.  But I did think it was pretty cool that the creators made them life sized so you could see just how big those animals were.  My favoirte photo is of Logan standing by the pterodactyl.  LOOK HOW HUGE THAT THING WAS!!  Logan would have been a snack for sure had that thing was real.

 One of my favorite places was the grizzly bears.  This big guy was very active in his swimming hole and kept trying to eat the guests on the other side of the glass!

 They also had a very fun kids playground that we put to good use.  I took a ton of photos (like I always do) and I had a hard time deciding which to use for the blog so you just get a collage of some of my favorites!

At the end of the week, Eric flew back to Minnesota to join back up with us.  We were waiting for him to get back so we could all four visit Valley Fair Amusement Park.  These kids are well on their way to becoming full blown amusement park junkies!!!  Amanda was tall enough to ride almost everything, and ride she did.  She was totally fearless.  Logan really enjoyed himself too, but he had a nice appreciation for breathing and the crazy thrilling rides he passed on.

The next day we packed up camp and headed South.  We all were exhausted but oh, what a wonderful family vacation!

Gunflint Lodge

 Our final destination on our Great Drive North was the Gunflint Lodge on the Canadian boundary waters.  We met up with my Mom, sister, her husband and three children where we all bunked in the same HUGE cabin where my Mom and Dad use to stay when they would vacation there.  The resort was well equipped with two restaurants, boats of all kinds, hiking trails, naturalist programs and more.

They also had some wonderful kid only programs including the Kids Fishing Trip that the boys did three times!  Their first trip out Logan caught a small mouth bass and a northern pike.

 While the boys fished, we took advantage of the boat ride and hike to Bridal Falls.  So beautiful.

The next day the girls got to try out the fishing, but it was rainy with lightning so they couldn't go out on the boat.  Instead they tried fishing from a bridge, but no luck that day.

Most of what you do up there is fish, so fish we did!  Just about every day.

Then Amanda caught a northern pike and that was the last time she put her fishing pole in the water.  I'm not sure if it was a case of Been There - Done That or if she was afraid of catching one of these monsters again!  The one she caught was just a baby and still bigger than her arm!!!  Couple that with the hundreds of sharp teeth in their mouth and she said NO THANK YOU!

With the whole family coming together, there were lots of opportunities for some adult only time.  We shuffled the kids back and forth between us so we could hike, boat, or look for some illusive moose!

 On one of those moose searches, Eric and I ran across a baby bear climbing a tree!
 For some reason, the bears were more plentiful than the moose.  We sighted them multiple times!

One of the activities that the Lodge offered was trail rides.  Eric and I took 4 of the cousins one afternoon.  Everyone did super great and the smiles lasted for days. : )

We also had to try out the Hobo Hike.  We packed up our lunch into a handkerchief, tided it to a stick and headed for the overlook trail.  The view was breathtaking.  But we just didn't get enough hiking yet, so after our snack we headed back down the mountain to the Lonely Lake.  And who should we find on this Lonely Lake?  Why, a Lonely Loon, of course! 

The kids made good use of the swimming beach at the Lodge.  The water was CRAZY COLD but that didn't stop these Monkeys!  Although Amanda did try to keep as much of her body out the water as possible.  She's so much like her Daddy when it comes to cold water.  : )  Where are all the adults, you ask?  Why we're no fools.  We're sitting on the terrace sipping adult beverages well away from the splash zone!

 I tried to do as much bird watching as possible, and while I did see some new birds to add to my life list, mostly I just enjoyed the wonderful scenery...

... and wildlife.  We saw beavers, bears, foxes, deer, ONE MOOSE TRACK (but no moose), two different turtles laying eggs, loons, eagles, and more!

Our last day there, we took the kids on a canoe trip to Iron Lake.  It was so beautiful and peaceful and if we had paddled a little faster we would have seen a mamma moose and her calf.  But two kayakers got there first and scared them away (the only two people we saw all day, by the way!).  It just wasn't meant to be, I guess.

On our way back south, we stopped by Gooseberry Falls State Park.  I could have stayed there all day, and next time we make the trip I'll make a note to camp here, but we had to hurry on to get Eric to the Airport in time.  More about that soon!

On The Road to Minnesota

It's been a go, go, go summer so far and looking at the calendar it's not going to stop until school starts back up!  In June we embarked on a two week family vacation to the Canadian Boundary Waters in Minnesota.  We broke the 800 mile drive into 3 days and made time for some fun along the way.  Here is our 3 day drive condensed into one giant, collage post!

Even though we broke the drive up, we still had a lot of time in the car.  We had lots and lots of movies for the kids to watch, but when they got bored we had books, games, and some really cool magnets to keep them occupied.

We also stopped at numerous rest stops and took some time to get our wiggles out on the playground.

We also took nature hikes... I mean, after all.  I am their mother!  : )

We took our camper with us and camped along the way.  At one of the campsites we enjoyed some popcorn in the rain and a resident chipmunk decided to join us for a snack.  He was SO cute and apparently more hungry than scared of us because he got SUPER close to the kids.  At one point he even bumped into Amanda's shoe while grabbing some fallen popcorn.  As the chipmunk became more and more bold, so did the kids.  They climbed on top of the picnic table to watch him and put the whole popcorn container on the ground for him to enjoy.  The little fella even climbed into the popcorn pan at one point!

Just outside of Duluth there is this super cool Alpine Coaster.  It was super fast and super fun!  You control the breaks so you can go as fast or slow as you like... we all decided to go as fast as we could and WOW, what a ride!!!

On our third day of driving we reached Lake Superior.  The water was cold, the weather was cloudy, but that didn't stop our little adventurers.  They climbed, hopped, ran, and crawled over all the rocks.  Then we skipped some rocks, and one of us even managed to fall into the lake... (LOGAN!)

Our last photo worthy moment on our road trip was at a little river that flowed into Lake Superior about 2 hours from our destination.  The kids managed to stay dry this time, but I fell in!!! : )  Monkey see, monkey do I guess.  (In my defense, those rocks were slippery!)  We also found lots and lots of pretty rocks and crystals.  Logan swears they were diamonds and that we're now RICH!

More to Come!!!!  Check back soon as I hope to have Gunflint Lodge posted in the next few days.