Science Museum

We headed out to the Science Museum for a morning when we were visiting Greg and Linka for Christmas. I knew that Peter was getting to the age that he would love it, and that Emi would probably like running around. That was a good guess.

 Peter is semi-interested in dinosaurs-- so he liked seeing the skeletons and knew what types about half of them were. He also liked seeing the different sizes that they were.

 Emelia like anything that made noise or that should could play with and the musical steps. I think she may have thought that WAS the museum...  And of course, she asked a lot of questions- what is it? Why is the light there? All sorts of things. There was also a tow for a barge on the roof that both kids like driving and pretending that they were driving to our house in Winona.

 At this point, I think they both enjoy the Children's museum a little more but this was a fun new place to explore with our museum pass! I would also like to try out the History Center up there, but I'm not sure if our pass includes it or not?

Seeing the Okee Dokee's!

We took a little family road trip for a day to the cities to see the Okee Dokee Brothers sing at the library concerts. We met Katie and Kellan there and the kids had a great time! They sang a lot of songs that they knew from their CD that we have and a few we didn't know. Peter still says "they sang that one!" in the car when we are listening. The only part that was a bummer is that they didn't sing the train song- but afterwards, Pete wanted to go and say hi to them, so we waited in line and he said very quietly that his favorite was the train song- one of the guys gave him a fist bump and said MINE TOO!

 After the concert, we went to Katie's house for lunch and played and then I took a big risk. I took the three kids to the Como Zoo on my own! The girls were in the stroller and we just took our time, walking slowly around the zoo and doing whatever we wanted. It was a really nice day!

St. Patty's Day

This was probably the warmest EVER in the history of Minnesota. I was signed up to run the Get Lucky Half Marathon. The few weeks before, I had strep and was super sick, but since i was signed up, we drove up, I did the race and SUPER dad and the kiddos watched and cheered. It ended up being a fun day- especially since we got to go to the zoo and Chipotle afterwards!

ROAR!!

A very Holey Christmas

Part 3

 We also went to the Como Zoo and Conservatory. We've been there a bunch, but the kids always like to see the flowers and fish inside and run around.

 And outside we saw the Giraffe's tongue, ROARED at some bears, searched and searched for Como the Monkey (His cousin Jackson has a monkey that he named Como) and best of all PETER WAS NOT SCARED OF THE MONKEYS! He has been between scared and nervous everytime we have been there and has even screamed and ran away from the Gorillas. He told me that he did like the little ones the best, but he watched every single one of them play and even told me that he was a monkey! I couldn't agree more!

Part 2

 We went to the Children's Museum next, They have a great new exhibit that is all different story books- Peter was especially excited about the Snowy Day (he loves that book- I think mostly becuase the main character's name is also Peter) and the best part was when you walked on the foot steps lights lit up and it made the crunch sound- just like in the booK!!

 He got he picture with his buddy: Peter!! He was so excited!

 Emi spent a long time pulling the cards off of the shelf and putting them into the basket

 Pete drove a bus

 And Emelia devilered the mail!

 Pete learned about teamwork and mechanical advantage

 And Raced some boats.

 

While Garrick and Peter were exploring the ant hill, Em and I snuck off to the baby room, went down some slides, played with HUGE sunflowers and looked out some BIG windows!

Our Trip to the Cities Part 1

Last weekend was LEFSE weekend at Grandma Linka's house so that means Friday night ricing potatoes and Saturday night lots of work {and fun!} to be done! On Saturday day Linka has to turn all of the potatoes into lefse balls which means there is no room for 20 little fingers which in turn means that we got out and explored the cities. The only disappointing part was that Grandma and Grandpa didn't get to come with us!
We started at Bandana Square and watched a lot of trains travel through the twin cities.

This area was Pete's favorite- it had lots of tunnels, snow (it was made to look like where Grumpy Old Men was made) and the train stopped and the kids got to push a button on the railing to make it go, to make lights work and the gates go up and down at the railway stop.

Downtown was also depicted complete with a trolley car:

As well as the river:

There were all different sorts of trains running around, passenger trains, steam and diesel trains, some fast and some slow. They also had train tables set up in front that Pete spent a good amount of time playing on as well. All in all a fun first part of our little vacation!

First trip to the zoo!

We also went to the zoo for the first time! The Como Zoo is one of the best places in the cities- lots of beautiful flowers and animals all over the place!

Pete liked seeing a sloth up close....

Watching the monkeys...

and

then doing a monkey impersonation!