Category Archives: minnesota

A Day at the Swimming Pond

While Enzo may still be uncertain about lakes, we did find the perfect place to try and get him to warm up to a larger body of water than the bathtub.  We’ll check out a swimming pool one of these days, but in the meantime, a shallow man made swimming pond was perfect for his second water experience.

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Since he fell asleep on the way there, he was a bit groggy as we got him in his swimwear and set up our towel and beach stuff.  He was very cautious about getting close to the water, so we stood him in the wet sand and just let him check everything out.  Then we put him a little closer with his feet in the water and he seemed good, so we had him sit down on the sand with his feet in the water. The whole time he was kind of quiet and Josh started building him some sand towers, but as soon as we ventured a little further out and he fell on his butt in the water, he started crying.  We decided to break for lunch, and that made all the difference.

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After lunch he started gaining a lot more confidence, and with a full belly he watched the kids around us and started to have more fun playing with his toys and was even okay with walking out a little further in the water.  We’d sit in the water and he’d dump sand on his legs and it was a lot of fun for him.  There was another little boy with his grandmother who was eyeing Enzo’s dump truck, so we all talked for a bit and coaxed the two kiddos to try and play together.  They took turns pushing the truck for a few minutes, and then Enzo decided he had all the confidence in the world and was ready to run out into the water and all over the beach… talk about a 180.

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I’m definitely looking forward to more water time with the kiddo, and there should be a few good days left in the summer to go back to the pond, but we’ll probably need to check out a pool as well. We’d really like to get him started in swimming lessons at some point – preferably this Fall, but we’ll see how that goes.  Since I can barely swim, it’s a high priority of mine that our kids learn early.

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Baby’s First Aquarium

This past weekend we decided we needed to get out of the house, and because the weather kept changing and said there would be thunderstorms, we called off a zoo visit and took Enzo to the aquarium at The Mall of America.

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I think he was a little overwhelmed at first and just spent most of his time taking it all in – both people and animals. He was also getting used to his new shoes, which thankfully for us meant he didn’t try to run off. One annoying thing about the aquarium is the skinny walkways, however.  I don’t recommend bringing a stroller, and despite how much people paid to get in – everyone seemed to be in a rush to get out, or on the opposite end, you had people going excruciatingly slow.  One of Enzo’s favorite exhibits, though, was the jellyfish.  He smiled a lot and liked watching the lights change colors.

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The Octopus exhibit was also neat, and thankfully for Enzo, one was particularly active and fun to watch.

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While the aquarium isn’t huge, it does have a cool tunnel that you get to walk through, which always seems to be the best part of any aquarium.  Enzo didn’t seem all that interested, however, but did perk up when a mom with a little girl ended up next to us.  Before I knew it, the stinker was blowing kisses and making friends, and could care less about the fish.  He’s a charmer, that one. 😉

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Overall it was a good day, and it’s so much fun to take him to new places and see things through his eyes and introduce him to new experiences. We can also always count on him to try and make new friends.  We stopped at a couple stores after lunch (which he was a champ during even though it took forever for our food to come), and Enzo tried to leave with another family who had a bunch of kids. Ha ha. He wasn’t happy when Daddy grabbed him and told him he had to stay behind.  He’s a social one, our boy.

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A Tale of Two Squirrels

A rather short tale that began when, while camping, I foolishly left a bag of food unattended. I blame my thoughtlessness on lack of coffee. It was early and we wanted to be on the boat no later than 5:30, so we decided to forego coffee and just head out immediately. It was a nice day on the lake, and while we only caught a couple of small perch (pictures on Josh’s camera), we still had fun and returned to camp around 12:30.  I realized something was wrong as soon I walked over to the bag to pull out hamburger buns for our lunch. Our hamburger buns and bread had been fairly chewed on, and I figured that might be the extent of the damage.

Oh no. These squirrels were not satisfied with bread alone. As I pulled the bread items out, I noticed a hole had been chewed through the bag (one of those reuseable ones) and they had found my cookies. The cookies that were in a well-sealed container, and well-sealed it was. The thick plastic lid was still attached to the glass base, however, a nice big hole had been chewed through the lid and the squirrels hit pay-day. I estimate at least a dozen cookies were pulled out before they either ate their fill or saw us driving up.

So, lesson learned, and you can bet we made friends. The smaller squirrel, whom I called Stinker (seen below) returned often, looking for leftovers and wasn’t the slightest bit bothered our presence. Several times I’d look up and he’d be watching me at eye level in the tree next to our table, while I was looking for food or cooking. He also had a (camera shy) friend, whom returned often as well, and whom I expect to have eaten the majority of the cookies. Chunky Biscuit was morbidly obese and not a good climber, so there’s no way he pulled it off on his own.

Lesson learned.

Franconia Sculpture Park

Because we were already in Chisago, we decided to drive a little further up the road to see the Franconia Sculpture Park. In a word it was… interesting. While I enjoy art, neither of us are very knowledgable when it comes to Modern Art, so I’d say Josh’s expression in the following picture sums up his thoughts of the experience:

What?

There were a variety of pieces to look at and the grounds were quite expansive, so you can easily spend an hour or so just walking around to see each piece. We hadn’t realized that they also have a summer concert series, so they were readying a stage  for the evening’s festivities. Due to flooding, we did our best to make our way around the park – various paths lead you to different areas – without getting too wet.

 

 

Curiouser and curiouser…

Minnesota Wine

It turns out that Minnesota wine is quite tasty. We’ve only been to one local winery so far, but plan on hitting up a few more, if not this Fall then next year.  Our first winery tour was at Winehaven where they make some fantastic mead among other wines, such as a very tasty Icewine (made from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine).

 

Overall it was a nice day with an interesting tour. The winery has been in one family, and it turns out, they didn’t always make wine. Their label has a bee because originally the business was all about honey, and would explain why they have such tasty mead, is my guess. We arrived during their Rhubarb festival – the only time of year they make a Rhubarb wine that sells out pretty fast along with their Strawberry Rhubarb wine. We got both bottles and plan on opening them sometime this winter as apparently the Rhubarb, especially, gets an even better flavor around December.