Great Grandma at the Zoo

My grandmother has Parkinson's disease. She can't really walk anymore, but deep down inside she is still my grandmother. She loves my boys and asks my mom every time she sees her where the boys are. So when my mom called and asked if we wanted to go to the Minnesota Zoo with my grandma, Dave and I said heck yeah.

 My dad packed lunch, my mom's cousin brought Grandma and I brought my kids. I think grandma may have spent more time watching my kids than the animals, but I might have spent more time watching my grandma watch my kids than watching the animals.

Great Grandma was worn out shortly after lunch, but we managed to still take in the Africa Exhibit and watch the Giraffe feeding time.

 Giraffe's weren't exciting enough to keep Eli awake for too long, though. We had a great day filled with great memories.

Elk's Park

The Saturday before Father's Day evening we went to a new park. We had to run errands at Menards so we stopped at a park that was near by afterwards. Elk's Park was wonderful. It has a shelter with picnic tables that are great for enjoying a scoop of the Flavor of the Day custard from Culvers (I don't know what makes you think we were eating custard). There is a flush potty and a great playground. Adam told us as we we were leaving, "I thought we could stay at the park all day long." There are five slides and several fun activities to do on the ground level. 

Besides the custard my favorite thing was Adam and Eli playing store. The service was really slow though, it was like a two year old was waiting on us. Eli said, "be right back" and then he'd run away and do nothing.

Unfortunately Elk's Park is on the other side of town so we didn't bike there, but it's good enough to go out of our way for a stop in the future. Maybe next time we'll bike?

Earlier that day I ran in my first 8k race for Water Carnival. I actually beat my goal of finishing in under 9 minute mile pace by running an 8:47 pace with a time of 44:26. My second goal was to run 8:30, but that was quite the stretch goal. I ended up getting second in my age group and receiving a medal!

Dino-Mite Fourth Birthday Party

My house looks like a T-Rex went threw it. Well maybe 8 little T-Rexes. And last night I felt like we had 8 little dinosaurs roaring around my house. Adam invited 4 of his friends from school, 1 friends little brother for Eli to play with, our neighbor, a coworkers son and little 3 week old Declan (his Godparents son). It was his first "drop-off" party where we didn't have the parents stay (save for Declan's mommy).

I had a roaring good time pinning and crafting for the party and Dave had even more fun shopping at the dollar store and grocery store for the party. "Not only did I find little dinosaurs, dino balls, dino mac 'n' cheese, but I got dino-nuggets!"

We had several dino inspired activities for the boys. First we let them run around the house playing with dinosaurs we left everywhere or any other toys they wanted top. Then we took them outside to soak dino-pills in water to hatch a dino sponge. Then it was time for the dino meal of dino mac 'n' cheese, dino nuggets and herbivore veggie tray. I found it interesting that most of the boys either ate the mac 'n' cheese or dino nuggets but not both... picky four year olds. After supper we went outside to do a dino dig. Each boy took turns digging out a couple mini dinos.

And then they got to hatch frozen dino eggs (frozen water balloons that had a mini dinosaur in it). Dave joked prior to the party that we should let the boys use a chisel, but I said absolutely not. But before I could say no again Nathaniel had safety glasses on and the play hammer hitting away at the ice egg. I liked watching them take turns with safety glasses and a hammer and the automatic squirt gun.

After all the dinosaurs were all hatched from the ice eggs we went back inside to decorate and eat dinosaurs cookies. We did end up with bright blue dino tracks across our carpet, but nothing that can't be solved with a little elbow grease and carpet cleaner. My parents showed up and it was nice to have four more adult eyes watching the boys.

Then Adam opened presents with a little help from his friends. He got lots of awesome presents. Eli especially loved the lego truck and offered to put down his precious nuk in order to keep the truck longer.

During present opening Hayden showed up after his T-ball practice with a real bat and the triceratops pinata smashing began. As an extra bonus we got all of that parade candy out of our house! After three or four rounds of hitting most of the boys had wandered away to play with something else so Dave took one swing at it and the boys were all suddenly interested in the candy all over the ground.

As if the candy sugar high wasn't enough we finished the party with cake and a good round of "Happy Birthday". Unfortunately the candles wouldn't stay lit in the Hutchinson wind.

Then moms and dads came to get the kids, our house was a wreck- every dish dirty and we were exhausted!

Hutchinson Park Tour 2013

Through a thorough investigation involving multiple sources I determined the number of parks with playgrounds in Hutchinson is at least 23. Our plan is to bike or walk to each park this summer and make sure they are all "good parks". Most summers I would guess we visit about 10 parks in town fairly easily. There are also 11 parks without playground equipment, so we'll try and go to those parks too.

Parks with Playgrounds:

1. Shady Ridge
2. Woman's Club
3. Rotary- "Hard Park" close to our house and we go all the time 
4. Oddfellows 
5. Roberts
6. Masonic/West River 
7. Riverside Jaycee 
8. Kiwanis 
9. Fireman's
10. Kimberly
11. North Woods
12. Lions Park East
13. Tartan Park- We call it the "Pirate Park" it's always a huge hit with the boys 
14. North/Community Playground 
15. South
16. VFW
17. Elks
18. Lions Park West
19. Rolling Meadows- Kids call it the "Easy Park" and it has no slide 
20. Driftriders
21. West Elementary
22. Junior Community Women
23. St. A's

Parks without playground equipment:

1. Miller Woods
2. AFS
3. Eheim
4. Girl Scout
5. Boy Scout Park
6. Old Bass Pond
7. Legion
8. Linden
9. Crow River Recreational Area
10. McLeod County Veteran's Memorial
11. Library Square

Parks we've visited and Instagramed pictures of, because if we go to a park and don't Instagram a picture, did it really happen? (okay I'm kidding, but the parks I missed photographing will be easy to go to again)

Oddfellows: This park is down by the river on the Luce Line trail. It's easy to get to and the boys love that there are three different sets of slides and lots of swings, plus a purple dinosaur thing.

Kiwanis- but everyone calls it Rocket Hill Park. It's a little park on our ride from school to home. There is this Rocket thing, sledding hill (or great hill running workout), a little slide playground, swings and another purple dinosaur thing. 

 Library Square: There isn't a playground, but the boys love going to music in the park every Monday all summer long and it is a great gathering spot for our community runs on Wednesday nights, too. On Friday we were there for Dairy Days Celebration lunch.

 Yesterday's adventure: We biked to North Woods Playground after a grad party. Adam called it Stepping Stone Park and said it was a good park. Two slides and two swings, they were happy boys for an hour.

We've also been to Rolling Meadows (easy park), Rotary (hard park), Women's Club, Tartan (Pirate Park), Masonic/West River and Riverside Jaycee, but I didn't take pictures so we'll for sure go again this summer.

Summer Commuting

Dave and I are committed to riding our bikes to work as much as possible this summer.  Motivation comes when I ride past the gas station and it reads $4.08.

It makes it a little interesting that we have to drop off and pick up the boys at school every day. So I ride my bike and take the carrier for the kiddos. Sometimes we stop lots on the way home which brings me to my second goal of the summer. I want to take the boys to play at all the parks in Hutchinson. As an added bonus I'd like to bike or walk to the parks instead of driving. So far we are 9 parks in and lots to go. It will be a fun summer for sure.

Boys Like Camping? No Way!

I've been camping with our friend Tom for over 10 years. In college I belonged to an organization that went on camping and hiking trips- basically anything outdoors and I got spoiled by going on several trips lead by Tom. He's detail oriented and plans with massive gear and food spreadsheets so that nothing gets left behind or forgotten. And he makes an awesome dutch oven upside pineapple cake. So when he and his wife Jamie asked if we wanted to go camping memorial day weekend at Gooseberry Falls State Park we said yes!

We left Saturday just before lunch since Dave was working until 10 PM on Friday night. I always think I'll pack ahead of time so we can just leave, but the problem is there are too many other things that I would rather do than pack, so per usual we got up on Saturday morning, took several hours packing and then got on the road. We got to the campsite around 3:30 and then set up the Taj Mahal tent. It was chilly and there were no leaves on the trees, but the boys were excited.

On Sunday we played, ate breakfast and then when the boys were getting stir crazy (and Eli close to nap crabby) we packed up lunches and went for a group hike. Eli promptly fell asleep on my back and I had fun photographing our friends interacting with my son. 

Eli woke up in time to eat lunch on a rock next to the waterfall.

We packed up to go home on Monday morning. Fifteen minutes after getting in the car Eli was passed out napping and Adam was asking me when will we go camping again. I think they had fun!