Let It Snow

We got our first snowfall last night. Just a 1/2 inch or so, but it seems to be sticking around.
The view out our bedroom window

(believe it or not, that IS the sunrise. I'm seeing the sunrise on my day off... What's wrong with me?)

From our kitchen window to the Hagan Financial building across the street


My birthday was last Friday, and I chose to decorate my house for Christmas as my birthday activity. I don't know what I was thinking, because Matt had to work at noon, so he helped me get all the boxes out, then left. This is the finished product. (Turns out it's really hard to get a good clear picture of Christmas decorations because of the lights. You'll have to imagine how these look not blurry...)
Here's our family room tree upstairs- the kids and I decorated it together.


The stairway and the little Christmas tree that Grandma Leigh Anne gave us last year (Xander mostly decorated that one). This is the view as you come in our front door.


Maia's little tree and even littler tree above it. This is right beside our front door.


My Willow Tree Nativity scene sits on the piano. Very pretty. I love the gracefulness of these carvings.


It was fun to decorate the new house, see where everything would go. Man! I had a lot of stuff crammed into that little apartment that last 2 years!

My friend Cris from Indiana told me about a Christmas tradition of theirs that the day that they put up the Christmas tree, the whole family would sleep in sleeping bags under the tree that night. I thought we'd implement this tradition into our family, but it didn't work too well because Xander had this loud dragon cough that kept everyone awake, so I took Maia back down to her bed and I slept in mine just on the other side of the wall from where Xander was and didn't get any sleep because I felt so bad for him coughing all night. Matt took some Benadryl and zonked out right next to Xander and slept like a baby all night. He must not have mother's guilt.

Matt did my birthday shopping at Scheels, but in the gift lodge, so I didn't get tennis shoes for my birthday, I got this painting


and this cool platter


and a prayer journal.

Mom got me a couple of neat cookbooks for holiday gift-giving and a pretty sweater. I mostly got money from everyone else, so I have to decide what I'm going to spend it on. Wonder if I'll be able to save up enough for Lasik eye surgery? I suppose eventually...

Oh and the other thing that I did for my birthday was borrowed "Pretty in Pink" from the library as my movie to watch. I finally got around it it Sunday night and told Matt I had to be careful how I dressed the next day because that movie along with "Desparately Seeking Susan" (minus the smoking part) influenced my fashion sense for an entire decade of my life! Lucky for me, the style of the 80's is coming back! Pull out the leather pants! Bring on the hairspray!

Quotes of the week

I had to take the kids to the doctor this week because both of them showed symptoms of Pink Eye. (Xander was just tired, but Maia really had it). While the nurse was taking Xander's blood pressure, she asked him what he wants to be when he grows up.
Apparently, he's not pondered the question in a while, so when she said, "You're really smart. I bet you're going to be a rocket scientist or something," he thought that sounded like a good option.
I said, "Well, for the longest time, he's wanted to be a garbage man."
She asked him, "Why a garbage man?"
Xander said, "Oh- I can handle extreme stinks!"
I thought that nurse was going to wet her pants, she laughed so hard!

Yesterday afternoon, Matt & I were talking after I got home from work (it was his day off), and Maia was watching "King George and the Duckie" in the other room by herself. Quick synopsis for those of you who have not seen every Veggie Tales movie ever a billion times: It's the Veggie version of the story of David & Bathsheba, only instead of wanting another man's wife, the king wants another man's rubber duckie. It's really quite amusing when you think of the duckies as wives, because they all look the same, and they all just sit on the shelf decoratively and the king gets bored with them pretty fast. ("Those are yesterday's duckies."
Anyway, there's a song where King George (Larry the Cucumber) is singing to his servant, Louis (Bob the Tomato), commanding him to go and get Thomas's duck (Junior Asparagus). The words are:

I must have it, I must get it,
You must go and get it for me...

As Larry's singing these words, Maia's shouting at the TV, "No Warry, be nice! Don't steal!" How 'bout that? She DOES know right from wrong.

As for the Pink Eye, what kind of maniac doctor thinks that it's possible to put eye drops in a 3-year-old's eye? 2 drops in each eye, 3 times a day!? It's really hard when Matt has to work 9 hours a day, so I have to do it myself. Mission accomplished- she's looking much better, and feeling better too.

Quotables

Last night, the kids & I were driving back to Sioux Falls from Yankton (Matt had to work), and I turned on the radio.

Maia wanted her music to listen to, and I said, "I'd really like to listen to my music so I don't fall asleep."

Xander translated to Maia, "Mommy has to listen to her music or we're all going to die."

Whatever works.

Happy Birthday Xander

We celebrated Xander's 8th birthday last weekend, though his actual birthday wasn't until Thursday. Friday night and Saturday we went to Grandma Georgie & Grandpa Bruce's. Grandma Katie & Papa Svale came over from Ft. Dodge, and we had a nice visit with them.

When it came time for presents after lunch, Xander was so excited to open his first gift! I forgot to warn him that this set of grandparents always give clothes for birthdays and toys at Christmas. So when he tore into his present and saw these cool Spiderman pajamas, he said, "oh. clothes." I was mortified! But later, when it was time to get ready for bed (we left after supper on Saturday evening and put the kids in PJs before leaving), he was swooping around with his webbing under the arms of his jammies. He thinks they're pretty cool now. He also got a Transformers shirt that he really likes.

Sunday after church (I'm insane), we had the party for the boys. It was a Bionicle Barraki theme. If you have any interest in learning what this is about, click here. Bionicles in general are Xander's passion.

What a sad cake. I should have just bought one. It tasted good...

Anyway, we had 8 boys and Maia at the party. It was very active. Last year, I was really worried because we invited all the boys in Xander's class (17), and I was a little scared of how to handle them for an hour and a half. I planned a lot of games and activities, and had a lot of help with execution, and things went so smoothly, I was surprised when parents started showing up.

So this year, I figured, "That wasn't so hard. I'll plan a couple of games, have a lot of space for them to run around (we had the party at church, not our house), let them play with Xander's Bionicles, have cake, presents, and we should be able to last a couple of hours."

Yeah.

If I learned anything from this year's birthday party, it's that structure is important. When you let 8-year-olds just run amok, they are really hard to reign back in. And an hour and a half is plenty of time for a party.

(Notice how blurry everyone is. They're moving really fast)

I did plan a few activities. I thought this would be pretty fun, and I was proud of how cheap and creative I was. Back-story: Bionicle Barraki are underwater creatures, and their weapon is a "squid launcher," so how about if we have a slingshot and launch little rubber "squids" out on the lawn? I made the launcher with free stuff that Matt got at Exercise University (work training) the week before. This is a Pilates Magic Circle (which the two boys are holding on the sides) and some short exercise tubing. Some of the boys were really good at it! They all tried hard.

The other thing I had planned was decoding the place mats using the Bionicle coded alphabet. Some kids had more patience for this activity than others.
But Xander got some great presents, and they all seemed to enjoy themselves.

After THAT party was over, we cleaned up really fast and headed back to our house for the family party. (Did I mention that I'm insane?) I had made a pot of chili and some apple crisp on Friday before we left for Morrisons, and we had relishes and dips. Mom, Jim, Rena, Lexi and Dad came over and we had a nice evening. Xander & Lexi disappeared (as usual), the rest of us ate for a while, then adjourned to the living room and talked for a nice long bit.

It was really cool. Everyone was relaxed, my mom & dad were telling stories about when they were married, and nobody was in a hurry to leave. I thought, "How amazing is this? Only God could heal this family." And He has. Sadly, Marie was not feeling well and didn't make the trip, and we missed her.

I'm thinking I might have everyone here (both sides of my family) for Thanksgiving...
Revolutionary.

Genetics!

OK, so for the longest time, I've said I was genetically a blank carrier for my children because they both look so much like Matt, but I was cleaning out my closet this week, and I finally found all my scrapbook supplies (temporarily lost for the last 2 years since we left Indiana). Check this out (especially notice the teeth):

Xander at age 8 (this year's school picture)

Me at age 8

See? That's the problem, I don't look anything like I did as a kid.

Yep, those big ol' bucky teeth are a gift from me. The dentist says there's enough room for all of them in there, and he probably won't need braces. Fortunately, my teeth are pretty nice looking now, so I could have given him something worse... like his attitude about mornings, or lightning fast temper... oh wait... he seems to have inherited that too.

I was telling my mom this, and she said that poor Xander is about to enter a long, awkward stage until he grows into those teeth. Sadly, he does NOT have genetics on his side for this one. Matt & I were both really ugly middle-schoolers.

Really.

And I'm not posting pictures. Some things are just better left to the imagination. (OK, most of you who read this blog remember the truth and won't argue anyway)

Anyway, I think Xander's pretty cute right now!

Halloween Fun

We had a fun night of trick-or-treating. Here's the costumes. These pictures were taken last Friday when the weather was a little warmer, and the kids went to Xander's school for the Fall Festival.

Here's Tinkerbell

and a Bionicle (again)
Activities at the Fall Festival

Last night, we got to have my niece, Lexi go out with us, then we went over to our friends' Hal & Martha's to have some chili, then bum around their neighborhood for a while. Martha said she had NEVER been trick-or-treating before. I told her she was missing out on an entire slice of Americana! Dressing up and begging candy from the neighbors. It's tradition, man! Their kids were so cute. They were dressed as Superman and a pumpkin (I didn't get pictures).

Obviously, we had to bundle up a bit more for Halloween evening than the previous pictures.

Once Xander hit the sidewalk, he never stopped running. This was as close as I could get to a picture of him!Here's the kids at a doorstep begging for candy.

Eventually, Maia wound up riding in the wagon that Hal was pulling (originally meant for Charlie- age 1). We thought it was funny that she was "flying" in a Radio Flyer. She was content with visiting about 6 houses. Xander wanted to press on for quite a while, but when Lexi wore down we decided to call it a night.

I don't do this enough

It occurs to me that I don't blog enough, since people who check in with us are still asking about Matt's surgery. That's was a while ago now. I guess I never posted an update. He got a week off from work, and is completely recovered. Thanks for all the inquiries.

Matt was gone Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week to Fargo for "Exercise University" where he learned a lot about the exercise equipment that Scheels sells and how to be a fitness consultant rather than just a salesperson.

A couple of weeks ago, Matt made the declaration that when we go back to Indiana in January (oh, by the way, Indiana friends, we're coming back for Rachel Vetor's wedding the first weekend in January), he wants to be fit. Not just thinner (he's lost probably 30-40 lbs since our return to SD), but fit. I decided that if he's going to look that good, perhaps I shouldn't look as flabby as I do now (I know, sheer vanity), so I took that as a challenge and started working out every day. I am currently on day 21 of doing some kind of workout every day, and I must say, I can see results. I'm not as scientific as my dear friend Tina who has charts and graphs and measures ratios, pounds and inches. I don't even have a scale. Of course, she's a scientist and I'm an artist. All I know is that my pants are looser, and nobody asks me if I'm pregnant anymore (which really did happen about 2 months ago- wake up call!)

How's Matt's progress? Well, he's been for 2 bike rides since I started my workout regimen. And now he knows more about strength training, so he says he's going to put a plan together and get serious about starting this weekend. But he's gone down a pants size, a shirt size and one or two holes in his belt. Not since 3 weeks ago, but since last year. Of course, he works 40+ hours a week...

Conversation with Xander

Last night on the way to a meeting at church, Xander & I were talking about his science assignment, which was to think about different parts of plants that we can eat, and I mentioned leaves and how we eat the leaves of herbs like Rosemary and Thyme...

X: Thyme?! What's that?
A: It's a plant. It's spelled T-H-Y-M-E
X: Never heard of it.
A: Just because you've never heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. (this is a point I have to make with him frequently)
X: I don't believe it's a real word.
A: Well it is.
X: Look. I've been learning all kinds of new words in 2nd grade, and I never learned that one, so I don't think it's a word.
A: OK...
X: I mean, I know we walk by faith and not by sight...
A: GOOD APPLICATION, XANDER!
X: But I still don't believe it's a word.

Where does he get this constant need to be right? (Answer: from his dad)

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

Today Maia informed me that the difference between boys and girls is that boys have a "hooflebobber," and girls don't.

Maia in Preschool

These are some pictures from Maia's preschool teacher from a recent field trip to her home with the class:

Here they all are making playdough:

The whole class with Miss Julie

I find these two particularly amusing.
Apparently, this is the side of Maia she shows at preschool:

Little Duckie

This week was Yellow week at preschool. The kids were encouraged to wear yellow, and they painted sunflowers on Monday, and made duckie headbands on Wednesday.

Here's our little yellow duck
It was so cute to see the whole class wearing their duck hats at dismissal time!

Cross Country Kid

It must "run" in the family. Ooh. Sorry. Anyway, Xander has decided that he'd like to try out Cross Country as a sport. I know, seems a bit young, but kids have a lot of endurance! We're hoping he takes after Uncle Casey and not mom & dad.

The Sioux Falls Running Club is sponsoring 4 cross country meets for kids in grades K-6. There's no workouts, no extra practices or anything like that, just show up at the designated place on Wednesday afternoon for 4 weeks, and run in a race.

K-1 grades run 1/4 mile, 2-3 grades run 1/2 mile and 4-6 grades run 1 mile.

We showed up last week, not sure who else would be there. We saw many All City kids, including Xander's best friend, Isaac. They didn't really run together (Isaac's small and really fast), but they had fun sharing the experience. We're halfway through the "season," and here's some pictures.

He does not get this from me.
Look how he's smiling!
(I was a very crabby runner)
Week 1

Week 2
Xander's time was 10 seconds faster
(not because he trained- Just lucky, I guess)

This is Isaac right before the finish line.
He's a hurtin' unit- came in about 5th or 6th.
The girl about to pass him is one of my piano students :)

Another student, and a good friend from our last church, Megan

Full Steam Ahead

I'm going to apologize now. I may not get many more blog posts entered before next summer.

I thought I was being reasonable when I set my schedule because I don't have to be two places at once most of the time.

WOW am I busy. Last week, I had to get up and get dressed to go to work (teaching at USF) for the first time since May. Not bad, really. I kind of messed up and had to make a few adjustments, but now things seem to be going smoothly.

So, what's going on?

Maia had her first day of preschool at First Baptist Church. Isn't she cute? Her Tinkerbell backpack has wings on it. She's in Miss Julie's Doodlebug class with 7 other kids. The small class size makes it kind of obvious when one mom (who shall remain unnamed) doesn't read the schedule and therefore takes her preschooler to school an hour late on the very first day.

Much like Xander's school, the First Baptist preschool (chosen primarily for its proximity to USF, but turns out it's an excellent program- lucky us!) requires parents to be classroom helpers 3-4 times per semester, so I helped out in the Doodlebug room last week. Maia was extra clingy and whiny that day, but Miss Julie says that's not typical behavior for her.

By far, Maia's favorite thing at school is art. She is a very careful artist, who is getting pretty close to coloring in the lines, and likes to take time with her artwork, adding details like eyelashes to her ladybug rock that she painted the other day.

She goes on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and stays after on Mondays so that I can teach all day at USF. I am carrying a course load of 14 USF students and 16 at-home students. Each of my 30 students gets a half hour of my undivided (hahaha) attention each week. (seriously, when is my attention undivided?)

Amazingly, I'm able to keep Fridays open to have a rest day (much needed), and Matt & I take turns with our 1/2 day of commitment time at Xander's school each week, so I do have a little time for myself. Turns out I really need to do housework then because otherwise, this big house can get really cluttered really fast!

Xander is going to run in a cross country meet this afternoon. He has kind of half-heartedly been training for it, he will run a 1/2 mile with other 2nd and 3rd graders. This is the first athletic extra-curricular activity we've done with him, and we think he'll enjoy it. That's today (Wednesday) at 4:30 at a school that's pretty close to our house. (WAY closer than All City!) He will do that for the next 4 Wednesdays.

Matt's fully recovered from his surgery. He's just got a few little scars from the holes they poked in him. Now we just have to figure out how to pay for it. Turns out, having your appendix out doesn't cost nearly as much as having a baby removed from you. That's good! Not as nice of a keepsake.

Poor Matty is grieving the end of bike season at work. He has spent this week putting his beloved bikes in backstock and putting coats out on the floor in their stead. But hey, "Only 6 more months until bike season!"

It got pretty chilly here over the last couple of weeks. We've already had a couple of frosts, and the leaves are starting to show their colors. I guess Winter is inevitable, but I hope we have a long Autumn. There's something about Fall that is like a cushion to help me get mentally ready for Winter.

The Start of School... and Sickness

We started school 2 weeks ago. I can't believe it. I haven't written in a while because I can't seem to get my life in order enough to find time to write.

It's not that I'm really that busy. When we moved to SD, I made a conscious effort to cut back on the number of things I try to cram into one day. For the most part, I have stuck to that, and I'm glad I'm able be a working stay-at-home mom.

But the sudden impact that school has on my otherwise leisurely schedule has come as a sudden jolt after the lazy hazy days of summer.

Xander started school on Monday (August 22) and he had his first sick day on Friday the 26th.

Poor guy! He was really sick. I awoke from a dead sleep at 1 am to the sound of his wretching into the toilet coming through the transmitter of the baby monitor (our bedrooms are not close together anymore). I went down 2 flights of stairs and helped him clean up, gave him a barf bucket and put him on the bottom bunk of his bed. Then I came back up the 2 flights of stairs and tried to sleep.

Repeat the above scenario every half hour until 4 am. Then the barfing stopped and the diarrhea began.

Yuk.

I sure was tired of running steps by about 7am.

Luckily, it didn't last too long, he picked at a dry toast breakfast, skipped lunch and took a long nap in the afternoon. By suppertime, he was perking up, and ate another piece of toast. Saturday morning, he was back to himself. Whew!

Sadly, he missed bowling day at school, but we took our whole family bowling Saturday afternoon and had a good time together. Xander almost won. I think he beat me. That was with the bumpers up. Our family does not excel at bowling.

Sunday, Matt started feeling a bit queasy and by Sunday night was squirming around the bed enough that he had to go sleep on the couch. "Sleep" is not really the word. He groaned and moaned and made several trips to the bathroom. About 4am, he threw up, but got no relief.

I took Xander to school Monday morning (it's about a 20-minute drive kitty-corner across town), and about the time I dropped him off, Matt called and notified me that we really needed to go to the hospital. We strongly suspected his appendix was the cause of all the trouble.

I zoomed back home, where he had gotten Maia out of bed. She had her pajamas on, but her clothes in her hand and said, "Daddy got really hurt!" I sent Matt out to the car, and I got Maia dressed, grabbed some snacks and coloring books, and we went to the hospital.

I took him to the emergency room at Sanford hospital. This was a major step for us, as we don't carry health insurance (I know, I know... gambled and lost). Everywhere we went, I kept marveling at how beautiful and expensive everything looked. "I'm paying for this parquet floor." "I'm paying for this aquarium." "Really? Flatscreen TVs in every room?" "Does it have to be so cold in here? You could save a lot of money if you turned the thermostat up a couple of degrees..." "wonder how much they charge for that toast?" stuff like that.

Matt was disappointed to be so unoriginal as to be the 2nd appendectomy of the day. I felt reassured that a laproscopic appendectomy was all in a standard day's work for the surgeon.

They took him in for surgery at 12:30, and Maia & I waited in the surgical waiting room. It was nicely equipped with a children's area that included an aquarium, Lego table, TV and some other toys. She ran out of steam on coloring and stickers in the ER waiting room, but entertained herself nicely with Mega Blocks for most of the time we had to wait. They had vending machines and complimentary cookies, muffins and coffee, which was pretty much our lunch.

The surgeon showed up around 2:30 and let me know that everything went well, though the appendix did rupture when he went to remove it, but he irrigated the area and cleaned it out thoroughly. Hopefully no complications from that.

Then we moved to the post-op waiting room, which was prettier (more $$$ racking up in my head), but did not have as nice a kids' area, but we did find a TV playing SpongeBob, so Maia was entertained there for a while. There was a fresh supply of treats and the option of decaf coffee this time. They let us in to see Matty around 3:45 or so. He was looking pretty peaked, but had already done some vital things like pee and eat a piece of toast, so they were pleased with his recovery.

The nurses kept asking him how his pain was on a scale of 1-10. When he was in the ER, it crept up to a 10, and after surgery, it was down to a 7, then a 5... But they wouldn't let him leave until it was at a 4. So the next time they asked, I whispered, "You're a 4!"

We were home and had Matt tucked into the couch "watching" a movie (read: zonked out in front of the TV) by 4:30. Amazing.

Many thanks to all our friends and family who were so loving and supportive. My mom came up that evening and helped me get the kids put to bed. (I had a couple of meetings to go to that night, so it was nice to have her help).

Xander went home from school with his friend, Isaac, and their family kept him until almost 8:30.

Kim made dinner for us and Martha brought it over- and she repeatedly offered to take Maia for the day if she got out of hand, but it wasn't necessary. How nice not to have to make dinner!

Many phone calls from prayer supporters and well-wishers. Thanks to all!

So Matty gets the whole week off from work, and we get to go to Lifelight this weekend. It's a Christian Music Festival right here in Sioux Falls that's absolutely free. We've never made it over there, but the weather and the circumstances are right this year, so we'll go check it out. Of course, Matt gets tired pretty easy, so we'll probably only take in a little bit.

Whew! Long post. That's a brief synopsis of what's been going on in our world.

Xander's going camping

This week, Xander's little best bud, Isaac, called and asked if Xander could go with his family up to their cabin for the weekend.

Yes, Isaac is also 7, so the fact that he had such polite phone skills is quite impressive. Xander still chooses to ignore my phone, even when it rings right next to him, and yells, "MOM! PHONE!" instead.

Isaac's family is a wonderful Christian family, and I really like his mom, Mary. They're picking Xander up Friday morning and will keep him until Sunday afternoon. Their cabin is near the ND border, and sounds like he'll experience typical cabin life for a couple of days, complete with fishing, swimming in the lake (river?), hiking, forts, no TV, etc.

He's going to have so much fun! It'll be good to have him do something besides play on the computer all day long.

School starts the next day. Summer's officially over. How sad! I guess life goes on!

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday, Matt & I celebrated 15 years of marital bliss.

15 years.

I know! Am I really that old? That's what you get when you get married so young.

We spent the day shopping for new bedding in our master suite. Our anniversary gift to each other. We finally found one we like. It looks mostly like this. This one came from Bed Bath & Beyond, but they didn't have it in Queen size, so we got a very similar one at Target. I did get that funky brown pillow in the front plus a couple more. Boy, throw pillows are expensive! Also, we got chocolate brown sheets instead of tan.

So now I can finish decorating the master bedroom suite. Meaning I can pick paint colors and get the junk cleaned up from in there. It is currently the repository of all our framed tabletop pictures as well as the bazillion books we don't have bookshelves enough for. Big challenge!

So this morning, Maia threw up on my new comforter. She's fine, but I'm a little grumpy that she chose my new comforter to puke on. Not her disgusting stinky blanket that spends more time in her mouth than anywhere else, not even the eternally stained carpet in front of the TV that needs to be covered with a rug anyway ... nope. My new comforter. Now I have to figure out how to wash it. Luckily, we're taking a little trip to Grandma Marilyn's this weekend, and she has large capacity, front loading washer & dryer that will probably handle it. Look out, Grandma, I'm bringing 3 comforters to wash (old one, new one and down-filled one)

It's good to have these connections.

Speaking of connections...

This morning, I met with several other voice teachers from Sioux Falls, and we had a lovely brunch at one of the teachers' house. There were 8 of us there, including a few new ones. Nice to get networked and share information a bit.

We have a back-to-school ice cream social at All City this evening. Matt has to go to church for a meeting, so we'll divide and conquer.

Oh, the rest of our anniversary was nice. I taught one lesson in the middle of the afternoon, and "let" Matt do the grocery shopping (a gift in and of itself). I also showed him my Rachel Ray cookbook and let him pick the recipe for supper. He chose "Martini Shrimp and Manhattan Steaks" which were delicious! Also, because there was so much alcohol in the recipe (vodka, lemon zest and chopped celery added to the shrimp cocktail sauce- served in martini glasses with the shrimp hanging over the sides; and pan-seared steaks with vermouth and whiskey as a glaze), I got to light the pan on fire to burn off the alcohol, which set off the smoke alarm. Nothing tasted burnt (even though my skillet looked like a Grandma Eitemiller dinner creation), and even though the kitchen filled with smoke, we really enjoyed our dinner.

The kids had hot dogs. They enjoyed those too. Xander said it was the best meal I ever made.

Vacation Pictures

We had our first ever family vacation with just the 4 of us last weekend. It was a great success. We visited some really fun places, everyone enjoyed themselves, had a fun hotel stay, a nice balance of activity and rest, and we (AMAZINGLY) stayed within our budget.

We went to Minneapolis/ St. Paul (or "the Cities" as they're known in this part of the world), and I found a hotel through Expedia that gave us a small suite (with a pull-out sofa, desk, kitchenette & 2 queen beds), with an indoor pool and a free continental breakfast for less than $100/ night. I felt pretty good about that (Spring Hill Suites in Eagan, in case you're wondering).

What we didn't bargain for was that there was some sort of National Pre-teen girls' softball championship going on and we had at least 2, maybe 3 teams staying in our hotel. We were secluded up on a corner of the top floor, but the pool was REALLY crowded and giggly and screamy.

On Friday, we went to the Mall of America. Xander's big thing that he was looking forward to was going to the LegoLand there (actually just a Lego store, but with cool displays). We gave him a spending limit, and he spent it all on Bionicles. No surprise there.

The kids with a Lego man

Have to get a picture with Boba (Jango?) Fett
(they're hard to tell apart for a non-geek)

This was cool, a huge Bionicle, made of -what else? Legos!
(it's a Toa- "old school"- like from 2001- in case you care!)
Matt & the Death Star

Spongebob!

Maia geeked out at the Disney store, where she was treated like a princess, and just loved every part of the store, especially the big screen that showed clips from her favorite movies. She just wandered around and sang along. She was in heaven.

I got a dress. I didn't take any pictures. It's really cute.

Matt forgot to pack a book, so he went to Barnes & Noble and picked up a couple of books to keep him occupied during our down time.

We went to the Underwater Adventures aquarium, which was really cool. There's a slow moving sidewalk that winds through a tunnel and the fish swim all around you. Several sharks and rays, beautiful salt water coral reef fish... it was hard to get pictures because of all the glass.

Here's some Koi in a little pond on the way down to the aquarium:

Some bottom-feeding sharks
Maia was excited to have sharks swim right over her head! (or on her head as she said)
Here's some perspective. Matt kept getting in my pictures.
After the tunnel, there was a room with smaller tanks with things like baby alligators...a tank like the one in "Finding Nemo"
(that's someone else's kid. I thought it was Xander when I was taking the picture!)


Some "jellies"

And I thought this was fascinating, an octopus that they have to keep in a special tank because she's so smart, she keeps trying to escape. They said that Octopi can get as intelligent as a 2-3 year old child. Is that why Mr. Potato head's in the tank with her?
That room opened right into the gift shop, where the kids had to check out some of the booty:

Then we went and played in a kids' area for a while

Awww..... my treasure (nice picture, Xander!)
Got a picture with "Sharkey" then headed back to the hotel

That evening, we chilled at the hotel, Xander built some Bionicles,

Maia played with princesses

and Dad & I read our books (I had packed one).

Saturday, we went to the Children's Museum in downtown St. Paul. It was really fun! We started out in the habitat world, and the kids got to be turtles,
Climb around and get lost in an anthill (Maia was not so wild about the getting lost part. You could probably hear her screams from South Dakota!)
We got to "drive the clouds," which were on huge pulleys and suspended across the ceiling.

When you got all the clouds to one side, they'd break into a "thunderstorm" which was cool!

There was an outdoor terrace on the top floor, with a sand pit,

a fountain, where Maia painted with water

And an area where you could draw to the music that was being played inside. You could also play along on drums, but neither of our kids were interested in that.

The Curious George exhibit was very lively and colorful.

Maia found the (stuffed) animals that belonged in these
pens and put them away, a chicken and a bunny.
In one area, you could learn all about Curious George's
evolution from a French monkey named Fifi. This bike
told about the Reys' flight from the Nazis during WWII.
They fled Paris on a bicycle before flying to S. America
and eventually ending up in New York. See? Everyone
learns something at the Children's Museum!
Xander found a conveyer belt and played with it the
whole time we were in Curious George land.
Another gallery had water fun:

And another one was all set up like a little town. There was a post office, a doctor's office, a recording studio, an art gallery, a grocery store, a restaurant, a home, and a tailor where the kids could all find costumes to wear:

Xander really liked the "centasaurus" outside the museum. This dinosaur had a bunch of pennies glued to his back. Xander was convinced that he could get one off and it would be his lucky day.
We had a lot of fun and were exhausted after only 3 hours there. So we headed back to the hotel for the evening again.

The next morning was Sunday, and since we rarely get a Sunday where we're not obligated to be somewhere, we took an opportunity to check out a church that is really different from ours. We wanted to go to Solomon's Porch, but they were having a service in the park and an outdoor baptism, and we didn't really want to intrude on that, so we opted for Spirit Garage in downtown Minneapolis.

They meet in a small theatre downtown, which is currently playing a show called "Double Espresso." The environment is really great, and we enjoyed visiting a different setting for worship, but we're also really glad to be at Mercy.

Sunday afternoon (hold on, I'm almost done) we went to Cascade Bay in Eagan- just down the road from our hotel. It was a moderately hot day (low 90's)- just perfect for water parking.
Here's some pics.

Some of the slides and the lazy river

The mini-golf course that Matt & Xander checked out while Maia & I had a snack
Maia being "Mulan"Nobody got too sunburnt, just a few little patches.
Monday it was time to leave, but we took our time. The hotel pool was- predictably- empty so we played there for an hour or so, then headed out.
We enjoyed dinner at Emma Krumbee's restaurant (or as Matt insisted on calling it, "Emma's crummy restaurant") outside of Belle Plaine, and the kids zonked out most of the rest of the way home. Me too. Glad Matt can drive without needing company!