Camping

Take a Little Dip

On a bike ride we came upon this rope swing over the river.  Joan was the first to swing over the water and back to shore.  Everyone (Madie, Wes, and Sophie included) except Karen and I took a swing over the river and all landed back on dry land except Emily.  She tipped back into the water and got her shoes and pants wet so she figured she might as well jump in.  She said the water was freezing.  Would have been fun in the summer, but not so much when it is 40 degrees.

Mystery Cave

Disappearing River

When we were at Mystery Caves, our tour guide told us we were visiting at the perfect time. We were standing by a small river (South Branch of the Root River) and he said it was disappearing before our eyes. You could not tell there, but the river was disapearing into the rocks below and flowing through the lower portions of the Mystery Caves. Our guide told us to stop out by the highway and on one side of the road the river looked normal (top picture) and the opposite side the river disappeared into the rocks (bottom picture). It was really neat! Our guide told us that the river ran underground for about 6 miles and then reemerged as a group of about 25 springs. He said that it was also very neat, but was located on private property. The state park system has first option to buy the springs, but with the financial condition that Minnesota is in, I think it will be quite a while before they own the springs.

Mom's Little Pumpkin

A Little Fall Color

Rabbit River Receding

These pictures were taken yesterday when the Rabbit River was about at its crest. It has dropped about 6 inches overnight. The forecast looks good, with no significant rain or snow in the next week. This level is about 2 feet lower than the crest last year.

Congrats Rebels

Emily's 6th Grade basketball team won the last two tournaments they were in. Last weekend the girls won their first game 52-5. The week before, in the championship game we were losing 0-6 at halftime and came back to win 10-8. Emily is very good at defense. She gets really intense! You can see a little of that in the last picture. The girls had a lot of fun and really improved over the season.

Goodbye Snowmobiles

Alex's buddy Levi came over after school today and they decided to take the four wheelers out. Afterward, Alex said he had never been stuck so often with a fourwheeler.

Pat's Retirement

Congratulations on 20 years in the Navy, Pat! We are so proud of your service to our country. Your retirement celebration in sunny San Diego was great. We had a wonderful time celebrating with all the relatives. It was a great reunion!

We went skiing last weekend at Wild Mountain with Janet, Joan and Wade for Maddie and Wes's birthday. They just turned five. We used the gift certificate that the Smiths gave us a year ago for Christmas. Thanks alot, we had a great time. We actually tried to use it last year, but Sam got sick on the way skiing so we did not use it because he was so bummed about not being able to go. The weather was perfect, low 30s and very little wind.

Below is video of Sam jumping and Sophie skiing.

Alaskan Toms

Tom and Thomas are visiting from Alaska. Mom had us over to celebrate Tom's 40th birthday. Thomas really enjoyed his cousins.

The Perfect Tree

We made our annual trip to find the perfect tree. Alex wasn't feeling good so he missed this years outing. When we got to the tree farm, we told them we needed a saw. Sam asked why we didn't bring the chainsaw and we told him it was time he and Emily cut the tree down. After driving around looking for awhile, the kids wanted to ride in the back of the pickup. Sophie got in back first and said "Dad, you did bring the chainsaw with". We had a hard time finding a normal size tree (that's about twelve feet for us). We found a pre-cut tree that would work, but it's just not the same as cutting it yourself. This tree farm has had a lot of problems with deer eating the bottoms of the trees and they said to take the top off a bigger tree. We ended up using the chainsaw, after Em and Sam got sick of cutting by hand, to take the top half of a 25 footer.

Camping

After the Twins game we camped at Bunker Hills Park. Curt and Sue stopped out Monday evening. It is always fun to hang out with friends and family around a campfire. This trip we reverted back to tents, because our pop-up camper does not want to pop-up (or down for that matter).

Bunker Beach

We took the kids to Bunker Beach water park. Everyone had a great time. Sophie loved jumping over the waves!

Keima at MOA

We took Keima to the Mall of America. We took his picture by home plate of the old Met Stadium. When Mitsuhiro (Keima's father) stayed with us in 1977 we went to a Twins game at the Met.