It’s been hot. The outside looks so inviting, and then you open the door and basically choke on the heaviness of the air. We have been pulling out all the stops to stay entertained indoors. Amongst other things, we indulge in some PBS on Netflix. I present to you… the captive audience of Super Why!
Seriously, this is what it looks like here about 3 different times each day.
We took a roadtrip last week to attend a wedding in southwestern Minnesota. There was an overnight detour in my old stompin’ grounds – La Crosse. It feels like I was just there – unloading my sponge-painted loft bed, eating cheeseburgers at the Cellar, and checking my email in the basement of Wing Computer Lab… but it was 14 years ago that I started making memories in that town. My, how it’s changed! We did a quick drive around campus – so many updates and new buildings. We tried to go to the Myrick Park Zoo – it no longer exists (sad), and we tooled around downtown.
Certain things haven’t changed – like Exploratory Surgery at Pizza Doctors. Ezra loved the applesauce. Maggie was partial to Mac-n-Cheese pizza, and everyone liked the dessert pizzas.
We also drove up Grandad’s Bluff – the view of campus is still beautiful. We saw a few deer and some fawns on our drive.
Maggie has been talking about last year’s visit to the farm ever since the weather started to warm up. So, it was no surprise that when given the choice of activities to do with dad, she chose FARM! We headed to a new spot a little closer to our house and really had a blast!
Kole acted as the goat whisperer. Seriously, it was weird how popular he was with this group.
One of the things we liked about Mulberry Lane was that they encourage the kids to pick up the animals in each pen. Maggie was in her glory.
There were pony rides.
And milking time. Maggie made it a point to try all four teats. She may have a future in agricultural science.
We did a hayride through the pasture and out to the horse barn.
And there was a photo op – this place knew how to win us over!
Also, Maggie wants a cat.
A friend recently asked about the 52 projects. I laughed. Then I got to thinking – I don’t really know how many projects we’ve completed, but I can say that we’ve been busy knocking things off the list, and really, that’s what I was hoping for in setting the goal of a project a week this year. We’ve plastered, sanded, and painted, painted, painted.
One of our more recent projects was upgrading & expanding our raised bed gardens. Kole built three new garden beds – and to get them in place there was a lot of digging, hauling and sod transplanting. Thank goodness we’ve got a little helper.
She quickly ditched the pink, plastic Little Tikes shovel in favor of something a little more sturdy, and she helped off and on for the entire afternoon.
We broke tradition and headed to the Botanical Garden for Mother’s Day this year. Maggie enjoyed the children’s garden, Ezra liked being outside all morning, and Kole and I used the gardens to identify some of the plants at our house.
We broke out the pool last weekend. We assumed the sun would warm the water while the kids napped…
Ahem… apparently it didn’t get that warm. They got used to it eventually.
