The Second Super Rachel Zana's Spot

Neighborhood Picnic on the Street

This evening we had a neighborhood block party on our street.  It is one of our favorite summer events, and I was so happy to have not missed it this year.  We block off the street for a long block or so, and everyone brings food to share.  There is visiting.  There is munching.  There is laughing.  And best of all, there is a gaggle of neighborhood kids riding scooters and bikes on the street.  The kidlets could barely wait all day.  After they wore themselves out riding all around on all sorts of contraptions with wheels, all the neighborhood kids picked up maple seeds from the grass (we like to call them helicopters around here) and then discovered the joy of rolling down the steep front lawns of a few houses about a block down from our house.  They rolled and rolled, laughing and giggling.  They liked to stand at the top of the hill and yell "Attention!  Attention! When all the adults were looking their direction they'd all roll down the hill at once."  

Unfortunately, my camera was out of batteries after I took this ONE picture.  Rats!  I'm  usually really got about checking that, but I was in a rush to leave the house and didn't look today, and I was having too much fun at the party to run back to our house and get a new battery, so you'll just have to take my word for it that we had a really glorious time in the chilly (cold by some people's standards) Northern Minnesota evening.  

I will be away from my computer for the next few days.  We will be traveling to Iowa to visit some Great Grandparents and a few energetic cousins.  

A Few Blocks and a Few Wooden People

The Banana has been having a lot of fun making houses out of these wooden block puzzle pieces and playing with these people this week.  However, Sarah is the one that actually constructed this fun scene at nap yesterday.  The structure farthest to the left is the entrance to a carnival at the fair.  The middle building is the ticket booth for big kids, and at the far right you will find the ticket booth for the "toddlers and preschoolers."  

Seven Friends

On Saturday we drove down to Maple Grove to visit our good friends from medical school.  The visit had been scheduled for several weeks so I could travel down to take some pictures of their four amazing children.  (You can see some of the pictures over on the photography blog ).  

Not only did I have the privilege of snapping pictures all day without anyone grumping at me, we all stayed super busy doing fun things.  We went swimming in a sand bottom swimming pool, played in the sand table with colored sand, climbed on the swingset, rode bikes down the smoothest sidewalk we've seen for years, painted ceramic figurines, and played with toys and toys and more toys.  

We were having so much fun, that although we planned to come back the same day, we ended up spending the night.  When I woke up the next morning, I found all seven kids lined up on the couch watching TV.   

Mr. SP was really exited to paint this ceramic puppy orange.

Meeting Up with Friends

I forgot to mention that we were excited to meet up with our college friend, Brudvig, last Monday. He was visiting the area on vacation with his family, and we had a super time bumming around with them for the afternoon and visiting the aquarium, snacking on some ice cream, and wandering around the up and down bridge.  When I snapped this picture, all the kids were jumping and roaring under the bridge like lions.  I'm not sure what started the roaring, but they sure had a great time making a significant racket.  It was pretty funny to watch passersby.  Some people laughed their heads off at the noise (which lasted quite a while)  some people chuckled, and other people looked for an escape route around us, but finding none, walked quickly past.  

Documenting the Waterfalls at Gooseberry

Somewhere along the course of our hike at Gooseberry, The Banana managed to take over her daddy's two dollar digital camera that I found at a thrift store last spring.  She was adamant about capturing images of the waterfalls from every possible angle.  Her enthusiasm inspired the big brother to take out his camera, and together they clicked away along the trail.

It was a hoot.  I haven't actually had a chance to download their images yet, but I'm sure they will be very interesting.  The Banana would take a picture of the waterfalls, and then start taking pictures of EVERYTHING.  She would take a picture of me and just squeal with excitement, "I got YOU, Mama!" at the top of her lungs.

She was beyond thrilled to be handling a real, big girl camera.  I loved it.  I loved that she was so excited about taking pictures of the waterfalls.  The next best thing to standing next to a waterfall is taking a picture of it.  I think she might be on her way to being a waterfall hunter, like her Mama.  

Boy in Motion

Mr. SP was a busy, busy hiker on our trip to Gooseberry State Park.  We first hiked down to Agate Beach, where he climbed on rocks, and jumped between rocks.  He exchanged his tennis shoes for water shoes, and spent a long time hauling driftwood into the waves up to his knees and watching the water push the "boats" back to shore.  On the hiking trail there was running; there was scrambling, and there was jumping.  

One of his favorite parts of the day, though, was jumping over the little streams of water on the rocks in between the middle and lower falls.  Back and forth and around in circles, he just ran and jumped and ran and jumped.  The moving never stopped except for some brief screaming over a skinned knee at one point, but even that didn't stop him for long.

Tongue watchers:  take note of this last image.  His tongue is sticking out vertically!  I'm amazed that he didn't bite it on the landing.  (Click to see the image larger).  

Self Selected Hiking Attire

The Banana, Mr. SP, Dr. Peds and I just got back from a half-day trip up the North Shore to Gooseberry State Park.  We had a terrific, relaxing afternoon.  Stay tuned for more pictures.  

Conversations with Mr. SP: Logic

Sarah has been camping in the badlands of North Dakota for the last week with her grandmother, Auntie Dot, Uncle Don, some cousins, and a troop of horses.  A few days ago Mr. Sneaky Pants and I were sitting at the table outside on the deck, and he looked at me curiously and said, "They don't send all the bad people to the badlands, do they?  ALL the people there aren't bad, are they?"

I think he thought we sent his big sister there because she was bad.  

Conversations with Mr. SP: Out of the Blue

"You know, Mom, I can really be remarkable."  

Fourth of July Festivities

Our Fourth of July day started off early with a walk halfway down the street to a bike decorating party at a neighbor's house.  If you are a regular reader, you might recall that each year our neighborhood blocks our street off from one end to the other, and all the kid in the neighborhood decorate their bikes, wagons, and other contraptions for a mass exodus down the street. Someone carries a boombox blasting patriotic music ahead of the crowd, and older residents wave excitedly at the kids from their lawn chairs on the side of the street.  Our kidlets wait ALL YEAR for the fourth of July.  They are so excited to be able to ride bikes on the street.

It was really fun to get together with neighbors BEFORE the parade this year.  All the kids were decorating machines.  Mr. SP strung blue ribbon all around his Big Wheel. He loves his big wheel.  The Banana choose pink ribbon to go around her baby doll stroller, along with a few red and white balloons.  

However, when we actually got down to the starting line for the parade, The Banana noticed that pretty much everyone was riding bikes.  She was in despair, always wanting to be like the big kids, so Dr. Peds had to make an emergency run down to the other end of the street to grab her scooter bike from home.  He got back just in time, and she insisted that he push the stroller while she rode the bike.  

Here's Mr. Sneaky Pants.  (Note that his tongue was once again stuck out in concentration).  He was up and down the street full throttle about 237 times, constantly in motion, not wanting to waste one second of riding time on the street while the barricades were still up.  

After the parade there was ice cream and cookies, and lots of visiting among neighbors before people eventually dispersed home.  

We jotted home and then back down the street and up the hill to have lunch with a few of the neighbors we know best.  All the kids involved played and played and played, and all the grown ups ate and talked and talked.  It was a super fun afternoon.  

After a refreshing late afternoon nap for the whole family, we grabbed peanut butter sandwiches and apples, and were off to downtown to view the magnificent, long fireworks display over the harbor.  The weather was amazing.  40,000 people were out next to the harbor in droves, the water filled with boats watching the sun set and getting ready for the explosions of color in the sky.  

Ironically, we ended up staking claim to a patch of grass right next to some MOPS friends, so a whole group of kids had a great time dancing to symphony music from the stage, climbing on rocks, and looking for early fireworks set off in the hillside neighborhoods behind us.  

We never know how our kidlets are going to react to fireworks.  Some years they love them.  Some years they are all crying hysterically.  It is totally unpredictable, and not necessarily related to their age and/or ability to reason that the fireworks are far, far away.  This year Sarah was gone, off to horse camp, Mr. Sneaky Pants was enthralled (although quite whiny and tired while he waited for them to start) and The Banana was calm and peaceful until the first big firework, whereupon she calmly, tightly covered her eyes with her hands and would under no circumstance watch anymore.  She wasn't worried.  She wasn't upset, she was simply in denial that there were any sparkles in the sky.  

It was a long, heavy walk back to our car (I had The Banana on my back) and then a quick trip home and off to bed for the kidlets.