Minneapolis Trip Part 2...

We started day two of our adventure with breakfast at Starbucks. Had to get our energy up for a day of rides AND SHOPPING!!!

The boys and my sister did a morning wake up ride on the Log Ride. At one point, you float by an enormous Paul Bunyan. Yesterday, Jack was looking in the opposite direction and didn't see Paul. Unfortunately, this morning he did see Paul...just as Paul blinked his big "old doll like" eyes and said, "HEY..." It scared Jack to death!!!  While heading up the hill to go down the plunge, jack kept whispering, "oh no oh no oh no."  You can see the terror in his eyes!!

This is right after the plunge...Meg was mouthing, "Jack is scared!!!"  Look at the grip he has on the chair in front of him!

We had to take some family shots!!!

 

After the log ride, Jack was our map person.

Megan couldn't believe, "I RODE THIS YESTERDAY!!"

My mom has always wanted to get charicatures of the boys, so this was the perfect time to get this checked off her list!

 

 

Jack....and Jack!
(Love the thumbs up...SO jack!)

Jack had to study himself.

Sam's turn...

 

 

Sam loved the whole football idea!

 

We did a little shopping and the boys were so excited as you can tell!

 

I wonder what they were watching in this photo!!

It was such a fun trip and I would do it again in an instant...spontaneous can be fun!!

Minneapolis Trip Part One...

The other weekend my sister, mom and i decided to take a spontaneous trip, with the boys, to Minneapolis and go to the Mall of America and ride rides at the amusement park. It made so much sense to drive 4 hours to an indoor amusement park then 20 minutes to Adventureland and deal with the heat!!

Jack and Sam watched a movie on the way up...Jack was really "tucked" into his pillow!!

 

Megan and Jack getting ready to ride our favorite roller coater.

Can you tell how much I love roller coasters?

A new attraction...a four story slide!  You have to walk to the top!! The boys loved the slide, but walking up wasn't the best! ( so like their mother!)

Thank goodness Megan went with us.  She rode all the rides that I don't like to ride, which is basically 90% of them.  Here they are getting ready to ride the log ride...I think Sam is telling Meg that everything will be all right.

Here the boys are getting ready to ride a roller coaster where the seat actually spins in circles while going up and down the hills.  Meg wanted to go with them, but the boys told her they would like to go by themselves this time.  She was so bummed! Dissed by her nephews!

 

Meg and Sam did ride the Rock Bottom Plunge!  This roller coaster goes straight up and straight down, spins in two loops and then a corkscrew.  Megan remembers going up, but once they went down, she blanked out!

Right after riding...Sam whispered to me, "Aunt said a lot of swear words on that ride!"

Another new attraction.  The ninja turtles...it basically is an arm which spins in a circle around the post. It swoops down and then swoop s up (almost to the top of the mall.) You can control the individual rocking of your chair with the wings on either side of you, which takes a little bit of muscle. (Megan didn't ride this one!)

Jack looked so little as he got ready to ride the Ninja..."OH MY BABY!!!"

Sam was all into this ride...See how you can control the wings on each side?

Jack told me he didn't realize the ride went so high. He went on to share how he just kept telling himself, "Only one more time around, only one more time around." 

We ended the evening eating at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Chevy's.  That was the read reason we headed to the Mall of America...it's all about the food!!

End of the Season...

Jack had his last baseball game...
 

 

He was catcher at a previous game, that I wasn't able to attend.  I was so bummed because I didn't have any pictures of him being catcher...it made his scrapbook incomplete!! :)  fortunately, at this last game, he was the catcher!  YEA!!

 

Oops!

Ready...

Set...

Swing!!

It got a little warm through the game, so Jack rolled up his pants. 

Love how is he sporting some ballpris!

 

There was a little reward ceremony at the end of the game.

Each player's name was called...
(check out the fans in the upper right corner liking Jacks ballpris!)

...and the coaches awarded them a medal.

Jack was absolutely thrilled!

He then provided a few minutes for some photo ops with his fans.

 

 

And off we went...until next year!

Happpy Belated 4th!

Hello, again!! I took an unscheduled break from blogging last week....who could do anything in that heat???

We did have a mini fourth celebration...

Jack made decorations for our windows, plus a new t-shirt for himself!!
(can you tell it's summer...his "4" is backwards!  Know what we can work on this week when the boredom sets in!)

This is a young uncle Sam...he has a dark mustache, not a white one as the old uncle Sam, does!

He also made a shooting star. "OHHH, AHHH!!"

That night the boys did sparklers...

 

 

 

 

Creepy pose struck by Jack...

...and then turned around and got this creepy one of Sam!!

Moose didn't mind the sparklers, but she didn't want to be near them...She stayed real close to my sister!!

We then went off to the Saylorville Dam to watch the fireworks of the surrounding communities. The bugs were bad...not the mosquitoes (the only good thing about this heat!) but little moth like things.They kept flying into us...UGH!!  Sam and I (surprise) went back by the car to enjoy the show bugless!
We enjoyed our mini celebration!! Hope you enjoyed your fourth!