Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Happy 4th of July a day late!

Fireworks at Summer Fete
Happy 4th of July!


I hope you enjoyed your festivities as much as we did. Our festivities started the night before on the 3rd at Bloomington's Summer Fete. We had never attended it before (since we aren't crowd-liking folk), but thanks to Karla's planning and preparation we agreed to give it a try. A small group of us from choir met at her house and headed to the bandshell on Normandale Lake. We were there by 5:30, so we had an excellent piece of real estate on which to spread out our blankets and chairs. We ate some fabulous food and enjoyed the music and activities for the rest of the evening until the fireworks started. A special thanks needs to go out to Rob for entertaining all of the kids in our group by playing ball and frisbee with them. Then, he was willing to be the human jumping cushion for the kids. We hope to go to the Festival of Latin Music on the 22nd of this month. Come out and join us!

We continued our festivities on the actual 4th of July by heading over to Fort Snelling. On our way there, we weren't sure which way to go because one sign was partially hidden by another sign. As our luck would have it, we took a wrong turn and ended up in Fort Snelling State Park. What a gorgeous park! There were bikers everywhere and we quickly learned why - it is filled with beautiful bike paths that hook up with other sites and trails in the city. Ethan has already decided that he wants to bike to Minnehaha Falls, so we are hoping to get out there soon to enjoy it. They also have a nice swimming beach on a lake, so my thoughts are to go for a bike ride and remember the swim gear so that we can cool down in the water afterward the ride!

After enjoying the interpretive center at the park, we opted to hike up to the top of the hill to the fort rather than driving up to it. We had only planned on staying at Fort Snelling for only an hour or two, but we ended up enjoying it so much that we were there about 3-4 hours. The things that ended up forcing us to leave were excessively hungry tummies since we had only packed water, grapes, and apples! While we were there, we enjoyed exploring all of the buildings, watching the soldiers march, seeing the cannons fire, and making a flag. Okay, the making a flag event was interesting. We sat near the table where the historical volunteers were sitting and that was our main mistake. The kids were supposed to be making flags from 1827 which meant that they HAD TO have an eagle and 24 stars on the flag. This attitude threw my boys for a bit of a loop since they are used to doing whatever their creative spirit inspires them to create. Being restricted by the number of stars to put on?! Come on. Poor Alexander had two different people come up and literally count the number of stars on his flag! Poor kid. They also chose to provide the kids with PERMANENT markers to color their flags. Yikes again. I don't want to complain too much because the boys did enoy it AND I am not the one dressed up and standing in a non-air conditioned room helping 300+ kids do an art project!!

After heading home and filling our hungry tummies and resting for a bit, we headed off to Valley View Pool aka Bloomington Family Aquatic Center for a dip and some more rest.

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