Books, books, books,

One thing that I really, really wanted to give my kids is the love of reading.  I have always loved getting lost in a good book, and I wanted my kids to love doing the same thing.  I think that we are well on our way to a family who loves books.  Ashton brought home a book order from school the other day and it had  a huge set of Magic Treehouse books in it.  They are slightly above his level right now, but he will be there soon enough so I couldn't refuse getting them they were such a good deal.  He didn't know what I had ordered exactly, but he sure was excited when he brought home his books.  They barely fit in his backpack!  He lined them all up like this so that he could find his favorites.

Now the question, do I start reading them to him, or wait and let him read them when he gets there.  It won't be too much longer, I'm thinking this summer.  

Spring has come...already!

This winter has been nothing like what we expected when moving to Minnesota.  We were warned again and again about how terrible the winters can be and how cold it was going to be.  Well, I guess that we lucked out for the most part.  We had a very mild winter and now we have been blessed with some unseasonably warm weather for March.  We have had a beautiful week of 70 to 80 degree weather.  I am told that most of the time there is still snow on the ground for most of March so this is somewhat of a treat.  We had to take advantage of that and headed to the park on Saturday.    We had a picnic and then played for a while.  It was a fun afternoon.  

eating lunch

my little poser. 

Lexie's balancing act

Ashton got hot and went looking for some shade... We spent about 2 hours at the park and then headed for home as the humidity climbed and it was just too hot.  

Hopefully this nice weather sticks around.  I want to be outside enjoying time with my family. 

Eagle Center

On Saturday we finally made the trip to the National Eagle Center in Wabasha.  We have been trying to get here since last fall when we first found out that they had an eagle center in Wabasha.  They do a presentation all about eagles a few times a day and the one other time that we tried to go we missed the last show by just a few minutes and we decided it wasn't worth paying to go in if we couldn't see the show and I am glad that we waited and tried again.  It was, by far the best part of the the whole thing.  Here we are posing with Was'aka.

(All of the birds that they have there have been injured somehow and can't live in the wild because they can't fly or can't see well enough to hunt for food so they keep them there to help educate people. )

They have lots of kid friendly exhibits in the center and we spent about an hour going through them while we waited for the show to start.  They had a place where you can see the eagles up close 

angel

donald (he's the only golden eagle)

columbia

harriet

and Was'aka

This was really cool, at one point when we were in this room, angel started calling out and that started all the other birds calling out too.  The handlers said that she could see another wild eagle somewhere out the window and that she was warning them to stay away because this was their territory.  

Here are Jake, Abbie and Ashton reading about each different eagle. 

The program was pretty cool, the guy was pretty entertaining and keep everyone laughing, even if sometimes it was grudgingly.  He picked Lexie out of the crowd to help with part of the presentation.  

(as you can see she was a bit reluctant at first)

He was comparing the size of human eyes to the size of eagle eyes compared to the size of our bodies.  

Her sunglasses are the size that an eagle would need.  Then he had her read an "eye chart" with the glasses on.  It read "I can't see a thing" and he made a funny joke about it.  

He passed around a bunch of stuff for us to look at, an eagle skull, some feathers, tons of pictures and a pair of the gloves that they use when holding an eagle.  Then the real fun began, he brought out an eagle and to feed while we got to watch.

He let the audience pick who we wanted to see eat, and we picked Harriet.  Which ended up being a good choice because the birds are really smart, and she knows that on Sundays they get rat for their food, and apparently that tastes really good to eagles because sometimes they won't eat very much on Saturday because they are waiting for the rat the next day.  Well she was pretty picky about what she would eat and didn't eat much (as they expected) so then they brought out Was'aka instead.  He hasn't been there very long and still eats like a wild eagle.  If they give him food he is going to eat every bit because his instinct tells him that he doesn't know when he will get more food.  So we got to watch two birds eat instead of one.  

here she is turning down the food he is trying to give her...

and here she is eating some of it.  

Here is Was'aka with his wings spread.  (The handler didn't do this with Harriet because she had only half of her left wing because she was hit by a car) It was pretty cool. And he gobbled up every piece of food that he was offered.  

and then promptly took a bath when he was finished....

and here the kids are posing with angel right before we left.  

We ended up buying a membership because the kids had such a good time so that we can go back again and again.  Oh, and my point and shoot camera broke right in the middle of the presentation so I had to switch to my cell phone camera.  I was not a happy camper.  At least we have another one, we have lots of camera around this place....