Behind, I am so behind

So many things have happened in the last few weeks, and I haven't made the time to blog about them.  First, the first day of school was last Tuesday.  Lexie started her first day of 6th grade, she is an official middle schooler.  I'm still not sure how I feel about that, back in Utah she would have still been in elementary school for this last year and that seems easier, less scary, safer.  

And because we live too close to the school she has to ride her bike until it gets too cold for that and then, lucky me I will be driving her.  We must live right on the edge of the boundary because it is 1 1/2 miles to the school, too far to walk.  She was excited for school to start, but nervous because she doesn't know anybody.  I was hoping that she could find friends at church, but all the kids that are her age in church are home schooled or live in Wisconsin. I never thought any of my kids would ever have to be "the only member of the church in my grade"  but Lexie is.  I know that she will be fine, but this first little while is going to be hard.

Ashton's school starts later so after Lexie left it was time to get Ashton ready and off on the bus.  I was a little nervous for the little guy, but he seemed to do fine.  He looks nervous in this picture, but he never seemed nervous.  This was my first experience getting a kindergartener off on the bus for their first day of school.  I was in the hospital after just having this little guy on Lexie's first day of kindergarten.  

He climbed right on the bus without looking back and was off for his first day. 

 Abbie wanted her picture taken too, she was pretty sad that she didn't get to go to school.  We had already talked earlier this year that she would be doing a preschool co-op in Herriman with other kids her age so now that we can't do that she is feeling pretty picked on in the school department.  We bought her a lunch box "just like the big kids for school" and she insisted that she needed a lunch also for the first day.  She had so much fun eating her lunch out of her lunch box, that it was totally worth it.

First day's of school are pretty hard on kids and you expect them to come home tired, right?  How 'bout the little sister left behind?  Think she had a rough "first day of school"?

(She rarely takes naps anymore, especially not in the middle of the afternoon)

Next up, Ashton's birthday...

Mall of America

Last Saturday we drove to the Twin Cities and went to the Mall of America.  That place is HUGE!  We explored some and had lunch, at Bubba Gump's Shrimp Company.  It was Ashton's choice he loves shrimp.  The restaurant is all from the movie Forrest Gump, it is kinda cheesy but the food was really good.  

 Waiting for food....

 Jake's food, we got stuff that we could share pretty easy and mostly shrimp.  All of it was really good.

 My food, it was really a appetizer platter, but we got to try more kinds of shrimp that way.

After lunch we went to the Lego store.  Ashton couldn't decide what set he wanted most. 

This set was on display in the window, all the Harry Potter stuff was really cool.

The kids found Woody and wanted a picture (well, maybe it was Mom that wanted the picture.)  Ashton was upset because he lost his boat from Bubba Gumps.  It was what his food had come in.  See Lexie's in her hand in the picture, that one didn't make it out of the mall either.

They had all of these statues made from Lego's on the top of the store, that was amazing.  

Also in the Mall of America is this amusement park.  We didn't go on any rides that day because I was thinking there were only a couple of rides and we could do them in a few minutes and be done, but when we got there it was a big park and you could spend most of day there and have a blast, so we decided to wait and plan a day when we could spend more time.

I am still shocked at how big the mall was, we didn't see even half of the mall and we were there for the better part of a day.  They also have a theater and an aquarium that we want to go back for.  Good thing it's not that far away from where we live.

At the Park

One of the first things we did when we got here was locate a park for the kids to play at.  That was not hard at all.  We are blessed to have LOTS of parks for the kids to play at, this was the first one that we went to.  It was so much fun that we went back a few days later with Jake since he was at work when we went the first time.

Abbie true love is swings. she always wants to ride and never wants to get off.

This four person see-saw was so much fun, Abbie and Ashton loved that Lexie could play with them on it.

And the next day even Jake got in on the fun.

I'm still not exactly sure what one would really do with this thing, but Jake and the kids had a blast trying to stay on it as it went around in circles.   It took some serious upper body strength to pull it off.

Ashton never did manage to make it all the way around, but he had fun trying and never gave up.  I was really proud of him.

He did stay on this one though.  We had a fun couple of evenings at this park, and I have my eye on a few others that I think my kids will like.  

Levee Park

One of the first places Jake took us was Levee Park down by the river.  The kids and I got to see a "real" river.  What we call rivers back in Utah are more like streams here.  This is the Minnesota channel of the Mississippi.  What you can see behind us is a huge island that is technically in Wisconsin, people live on the island and there are even a few businesses.

Then further over is the Wisconsin channel of the river, that bridge isn't as high though, this is the side that is used by the big boats so the bridge is huge.

It was a really sunny day, as you can tell by all the squinting....

Right next to the park is the old train station and some tracks that are really busy, a train came by while we were walking around and sounded it's whistle as it went by.

Ya it was LOUD!

The BIG move

We started on our journey to Minnesota on Sunday the 14th.  We left my parents house at 10:00 am, I had the car packed and ready to go early so that we could take our time saying goodbye.  We headed up I80 towards Park City and of course hit road construction halfway up Parley's canyon.  I thought this in not a good start, but it was really the only construction we hit the whole way, lucky us.  What can you say about driving through Wyoming, but it was flat and dry.  I have to say right now that my kids were SO good.  They are the best travelers, no one complained in the car and I think I heard "are we there yet?" only a handful of times in the three whole days.
We stopped for a visit at Martin's Cove on our way to Casper, which was where we stayed the first night.

 It was okay, it would have been better if we had been able to stop on a day other than Sunday because most of the stuff is closed and they don't let you take the handcarts out on the trails.  Normally all of these little shops are open for you to explore how pioneer life might have been, but because it was Sunday no such luck.

 But we did get to tour the visitors center and hear the story from one of the senior couples that is on a mission there.  It was really cool to hear stories I hadn't heard before while on the tour.

Our hotel in Casper didn't have a pool, bummer, but we got in fairly late anyway so it was okay. But here is a cute shot of the girls in our room.  And I have to say that this hotel was wonderful compared to the one we stayed in the next night, and they were both Quality Inn's...

Those two are so dang cute!

The next day we made our way to Mt Rushmore, along the way we stopped at a rest area that had a playground and the kids got a much needed break.

Mt. Rushmore was pretty neat. There wasn't a whole lot to do there, but we were wanting to get on the road soon anyway so it worked perfect for us.  

Before heading the the monument we stopped for lunch in Custer.  We ate at The Purple Pie Plate, the food was good and the pies even better, but our server was bit of a ditz.  

Then we made our way across the state of South Dakota, again, not much to say there, flat and boring at least it wasn't dry, green very green and lots of corn fields.  It became the running joke in the car to say look another corn field because that was all there was too see.  Kinda like the moose in brother bear playing I spy when all they can see is trees.
We spent the night is a small town in South Dakota, I mean really small, we had to take a dirt road to get to our hotel, which as I mentioned earlier left a lot to be desired.  This place did have a pool which we take advantage of, but the water was ice cold so we didn't swim long.  We were up and at it early the next morning because we new that the sooner we left the sooner we would be home, our new home!
After most of a day of driving, FINALLY we made it to Minnesota and I all I can say it man is it GREEN here.  Pictures really don't do it justice but so very different from Utah.  Our new home is nice and big, bigger than the house we left, but it will definitely take some getting used to.  This is view out my back windows upstairs....

The trees and underbrush literally come right up to the grass.  We have a few squirrels and birds that like to hang out in our backyard.

More pictures to come, but my internet is so ssssllllooooooowwww I can hardly stand it.

Red Wing

Since we are now living in a town named after a boot company, we thought we would do the touristy thing and visit the giant boot.

Size: 638 1/2

We are slowly growing accustom to our new city and surroundings.  I think this place is wonderfully green and beautiful.  I have lots more pics to post, once I find my way out from the huge pile of stuff to be put away.
Here's one more to show you what we have been up to:

at the Mississippi River.

Copperton Park

Yesterday, we were running some errands and Lexie asked me about Bingham High School and why is was named that, and I started explaining what I knew.  Then I decided to drive them out and show them Copperton.  I knew there was a park there and the kids wanted to stop and play for a while, so we did because we really didn't have anything we needed to get done.  The kids had a good time, but once again I didn't take my camera I had to use my phone.  Here are a few pictures of what we did.

The kids had fun playing on playground equipment that isn't your typical playset.  

Baseball Game

Ashton had been asking on and off all summer if we could go to a Bee's baseball game.  Well we finally made it on Monday night.  Good thing we did because they only had one other home game between now and when we are scheduled to move.  It had to have been the longest game in history, at least it felt that way. We were at the ball park for 4 hours...  It was a good game, and the Bee's won so that made it even more fun even if it was sooooo long.  We left the game at 10:30 after the bottom of the 10th inning.  We missed the fun ending in the bottom of the 11th, but all of us were too tired to stay any longer.  Abbie was a lucky, lucky girl at the game.  And she proved that being cute definitely helps... we were sitting on the front row on the first base side (which is the Bee's side) pretty much right behind the bullpen.  We got to watch the starting pitcher warm up and all of the other relief pitchers were sitting around talking.  One particular pitcher walked over while Abbie was kinda leaning over the railing and smiled at her and said "hi"  when she smiled back he grinned at her again and said "you are a cutie."  After most of the pre-game stuff was over he came back and handed her a baseball.  She took it while being really shy, but then she thought that she was way cool with her baseball.

During the 2nd or 3rd inning a foul ball was hit as a grounder down the first base line.  A different relief pitcher went and retrieved the ball after it went back into the field.  As he came back towards the bull pen everyone was cheering for him to throw the ball into the stands for someone, Ashton really wanted the ball and I said "ask him for it" loud enough that he heard me and looked at us.  Then he handed the ball to Abbie, again.  Abbie ended up with two baseballs from the game.  I know that I have never been lucky enough to get a ball from a game and Abbie ended up with two.

As you can see, she really thought she was hot stuff with two baseballs.  We did have a few fights over the balls during the game, but she was pretty good at sharing.  Ashton felt pretty bad after not getting a ball, but at least Abbie shared with him, at least a little.  Abbie's friend ended up being Michael Kohn and he pitched the 9th and 10th innings for the Bee's and did a really good job.  I just wish that I had taken my camera but all I had was my phone.