Filed under: Minneapolis
Didn’t have the camera the other night but we went to the Cabooze to the see English Beat. It was fun. The music is always fun – really I think everyone knows every song by the English Beat – and they are all very danceable. They had said that they started 30 years ago!
It was also some of the best crowd-watching I’ve seen for a while.
Filed under: Minnesota
Last weekend I had an unconference in Duluth. I wrote a ton about the unconference itself on the Blandin on Broadband blog (if you’re interested). The super quick take is that a group of folks who use web 2.0 tools (especially in rural Minnesota) all got together to talk about why and how we use those tools. It was fun.
The family came to Duluth with me and we stayed an extra day for a vacation. Here are some of the highlights:
- We stayed at the Inn on Lake Superior. They have s’mores every night at 8:00. Who doesn’t love that?
- We walked up to Fitger’s for dinner on Saturday night. We were led by Mary M and her family from Grand Rapids – so they knew the ropes. The food was good and the beer is locally brewed. The best part was that it was a nice walk up the boardwalk to get there.
- You can see some picture of the girls walking out to some structure in Lake Superior. It was an easy walk out on the ice on Friday night – by Monday I think you’d have to swim out there. So we were there at a perfect time to see how the ice goes out.
- The hotel had two pools. There was an outdoor pool on the roof, which is open in all seasons. It’s nice and warm like a hot tub. We were there on a sunny day so it didn’t feel too cold making the long walk from the door to the pool – even though it was probably about freezing outside.
- The second pool was a more regular pool inside – but there was a Jacuzzi there too. So that was fun for a dip too.
- The girls tracked down the ugliest animal/amphibian I have ever seen in a local book store (Northern Lights Books). It was a zombie frog. It floated at the top of the fish tank like it was dead. And it was so pale and white – and that’s coming from a family that understands pale and white! Apparently it’s nocturnal. We did see it dive to the bottom – where it somehow looked even uglier than before.
- We saw a huge ship leaving the harbor – which is particularly cool to see when there’s still so much ice on the lake.
- We had brunch at a place (Hell’s Kitchen) where the staff wears their pajamas.
- We had two TVs in the hotel room and we all got to watch as much cable as we wanted.
Filed under: St Paul
I didn’t even take her to get it fixed this time. She and I were fighting. I think I told her that I would not talk to her until she returned something she had taken. Then I went back to work and she went into her room.
Yes, it was a little quiet. And yes, I got a lot of work done in that hour. Then she emerged with her new hat and her new haircut. I don’t know which came first. She wears the hat almost all of the time now.
I’m also including a load of pictures that I found on my camera. That’s another thing she does to pass the time – takes load of picture of herself. Kindergarten cannot start soon enough for either of us.
Vodpod videos no longer available.Filed under: St Paul
Our Aunt Mary works for the Sisters of St Joseph. We used to live across the street from their offices. And we had some St Joseph Worked live in our house last year when we were in Ireland. So the girls were interested in learning more about them.
Kate agreed to interview Sr. Irene at the CSJs; Lily was camera girl. We all worked on the questions we wanted to ask.
Filed under: St Paul
Pretty much I should win the cinematographer’s award for this one. I was able to get nice and close – but then Kate’s crew faced the opposite direction. (Operative word there – but.) So if you wanted to see what Kate looks like from behind – this will be a winner for you.
Here’s the funny thing about the concerts at Nativity. They only have two classes as a time. So tonight we saw the first and third graders. It’s also about a hour, which is nice. The funny part is that there aren’t nearly enough chairs for the audience. So here’s my plea that they do one grade at a time. I’m going to take the liberty of speaking for all parents when I say – we wouldn’t feel cheated if the show were only 30 minutes – especially if every minute featured our kid.
In fairness, they do an excellent job and many parents get it together to be there on time to get a chair.
Filed under: Minneapolis
OK , once again I’m playing a little catch up with the blog. With any luck, I’ll get a few posts done today – despite the amazing weather in the St Paul.
A week (or two ago) we went to see the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Jan arranged it and we went with Mary, Emily, and Kristin – who is a new (to me) friend with great taste in music. And we had a last minute substitute of Anita, who is always great about coming to see any band.
We had dinner at the Loring Pasta Bar, which is one of my favorite restaurants and then headed to the Varsity. We were just in time to see the dance contest – which was fun to watch. In my next life I’m going to be able to dance like that – and sing.
Then the band started. They are even quirkier live than you might imagine if you know their music. We watched the trombone player more than usual, now that we’re proud parents of a trombone player. They played all of our favorite songs, there was plenty of room to dance and we parked close to the venue – what more could you ask.
More videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKKz3TEiL3c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmhAEX4X8b0 – focus on troombone player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjtZs3cwQOw – Damnation, but not al lof it
Filed under: St Paul
This weekend we worked on our Peeps Dioramas:
You can vote for us here. You only get one vote per day:
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=62367370757&h=t85yM&u=rT0K5
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- Peeps @ the World – by Kate
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- Peeps at the Giant Slide (at the State Fair) by Lily
Filed under: St Paul
Lily and Kate are on the Nativity swim team. Being on a swim team is a lot of work – I know since I was on one almost nonstop from the time I was about 11-16.
The swim meet was really well run (read: over in 2 hours). The girls really enjoyed it. Each swam 25 yard events of freestyle, breast, and back stroke.
After the meet I felt like I should call up my parents and thank them for the roughly 1 billion hours they spent at the swim meets when I was a kid. I remember spending whole days at those events – and of that 6-8 hours I’d race about 10 minutes, and that’s only because I swam the longest events possible. Those must have been some brutal days!
Filed under: Minnesota
This weekend I got to do some blog training in Morris. The short cut is I train bloggers in rural Minnesota who are involved with the NWAF and U of M Extension Horizons project. It’s a projust to reduce poverty. I absolutely love working with the bloggers.
Anyways, the training was on Saturday morning so we decided it might be fun for the whole family to jin me for te weekend. We stayed in a hotel with a swimming pool. It was also a hotel where we could hear people party at 4 am – but that was OK. Really 5 people in 2 queen beds, it’s not going to be the best night sleep no matter how you slice it.
The pool was nice and warm and they had cable. Hello Iron Chef, Sponge Bob and What Not to Wear!
One fun highlight was going to see the girls basketball game at the U of M Morris. As most of you know, we’re not big athletes but we really enjoyed watching the game.
We also went bowling. The best bowler won. (Yup, that’s me!)
Filed under: Minneapolis
The Art Shanties are ice fishing houses on Medicine Lake. Each shanty chooses a theme and does theitr best to decorate the ice fishing house based on that theme.
So we’re city kids. Walking out on a frozen lake is always a big thrill for us. Seeing houses on the lake is an even bigger thrill. Did you know that there is about 2 feet of ice on the lake , even near the shore? We got to peek into some of the holes cut into the ice for fishing and it was pretty cool. OK, I don’t’ think most people out here were fishing but it was cool to see anyways.
We visited most of the shanties. Here are the themes we remember:
Mapping – we were able to track our house on their map and to check out several maps they had posted and/or created for the event. They gathered different info on visitors each week – based on their home location.
Submarine – looked like a submarine inside – kinda cool
3 Story House – yup you could climb up 3 stories in this house. It looked like a periscope from the outside.
Kites – the girls got to make a kite in one house and then fly it! We went on a beautiful day so it was fun to see the kits in the air. Plus this was a popular shanty and with dumb luck on our side our timing was perfect to go in and create without waiting. The artist’s name was Plunkett – and I don’t think he belived me when I said we had seen Sir Oliver Plunkett’s head in a jar in Drogheda.
Words – this shanty has a bring-and-take library. Also they had a list of words that are in danger of being made extinct and they asked each visitor to adopt a word to try to bring it back to life. I chose latibule. Probably most of you know it – it means a hiding place. As in, get out of that latibule kid, it’s mine. I encourage you to use it often.
Paper shanty – made entirely of paper – well a lot of industrial looking tubes – but it was cool.
Dice – there were a bunch of little shanties that looked like dice and they had games inside that you could play. We played a minute of boggle. It was super warm and cozy in the die!
Admundson – Admundson was an explorer. He and his crew went to the Antartic in about 1911. There was a shipwreck and they got stuck in the ice. So a contingency went to the whaling station to get help while 20 men were left behind. This shanty was a replica of station they left behind.
Confessional – It looked like a church. You could write down your confessional admissions. It reminded me of the exhibit at the Minneapolis Public Library last summer – except that these admission were pretty family-friendly.
Radio – one shanty broadband a radio station. How cool is that?
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- Map Shanty
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- Confessional Shanty
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- Inside Confessional Shanty
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- All Paper Shanty
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- Submarine Shanty
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- Dice Shanties
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- Inside Dice Shanty
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- Eco-Coffee Shanty
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- Flying the kite we made
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