Duluth

Our family needed to be reminded that we enjoy each others company and we needed to find something positive about Minnesota, so we headed north for a day trip to Duluth. It was just the refresher that we needed.

We started at the zoo. We had been there once before and remembered liking it. It is much smaller, cozier, less crowded and cheaper than our zoo (which we also love).

 kangaroo

 They have a little electric, trackless train that takes you on a 7 minute ride around the middle of the zoo. The boys picked the first car, the girls picked the caboose. No one in between.

 Laura's latest obsession is birds. She and this swan were fast buddies.

 After the zoo, we headed to Channel Park because there were a couple huge ships scheduled to come in and you get to stand right next to them as they come into the harbor. But they were delayed, so we had to settle for seeing the lift bridge only go halfway up for some smaller boats a few times. 

 The kids enjoyed throwing rocks in the lake.

 And Laura found some more bird friends - the seagulls.

Graduation?

Laura's preschool graduation was yesterday. She is a very proud kindergartener-to-be now.

Lovely teachers!

The best toy in a long time

I love Fleet Farm. 

This one is my favorite. Adam's tongue, Jim's concentration, and Laura's splash all made for a perfect moment.

Notice her shirt in the water; she thought it was hilarious.

Holz Farm

Gramma Ann always seems to come about the same time every year; she almost always makes it for the Holz Farm spring festival and our neighborhood's annual garage sale (huge!). We had a great time this year at the farm. Laura and Adam enjoyed the rabbits like never before and opted not to wait in the line for the pony rides. And Adam thinks he fed milk to the cow, instead of getting milk from the cow.

Welcome, long forgotten arms and legs

By the way, knees, elbows, and toes have made an appearance at our house!

2011 bird update

Our bird friends are back in our Christmas wreath, and they brought some friends. Or enemies? There are now 3 nests in our wreath. The first nest was the usually finches, and at least one of the others is a set of robins. I'm not sure if they ran the finches our or if they are sharing. It seems unlikely that they could share, but I've seen both sets of birds hanging around lately, so who knows? No one has eggs yet, so I guess that will let me know. 

And our duck friends are back, but I'm not sure if they are nesting under the front bush again. It looks like maybe someone's been snuggling in there, but again, no eggs. 

Testing out a new posting method.

Laura's garden

This winter, Laura decided she wanted her own garden.

So far, it is doing quite well! Four pea plants are up, a row of carrots thinking about sprouting, a zinnia seed in the ground, a grape tomato plant, and a marigold in a pot that she painted. 

There are also 2 decorations: a solar light that changes color all night (although she is never awake in the dark to see it) and a pretty pink rock (quartz?) that we found in the yard a few years ago.

NOW we can talk flowers...

Ahh, I can finally say that spring has fully arrived. Sure its raining, but it is supposed to rain in May. I'm not even going to mention what it did on the first 2 days of May. (it wasn't rain)

 Planted some veggies and herbs on Saturday. I want to jump up and down and shout "GROW!" Do you think that will help?

 The jury is still out on the experimental native prairie grass/wildflower section.

Stuff is growing, but its too early to tell if its the right stuff.

Why post-bin Laden partying made me uncomfortable

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/03/my-take-why-post-bin-laden-partying-made-me-cringe/

This article put into words my confused feelings about the partying over Osama bin Laden's death. My only additional comment is that instead of asking "Have we become...like them?", I would say that we have never been all that different from "them" and maybe both sides recognizing that would go a long way towards stopping the violence.