all dressed up, nowhere to go

Well, of course we weren't dressed up. Saturday, late afternoon, we planned to run to La Crosse and get the bike thing figured out. Of course, as we are all in the van, we check to see how late the bike shop was open. 4:00pm. It was like 4:11pm. (We just assumed something like 6:00pm. Guess not.) Since we were all in the van, we went on a tour of Winona instead. Just for fun. After we got a quick trim for Emily at Fantastic Sams and a Chinese supper, we went up to the Garvin Heights lookout, drove through all the neighborhoods, came back down on Gilmore Valley Road, drove through all those neighborhoods along the way, and ended the evening at Deer Park.

10-4

Here's the kids the other night tinkering in Daddy's work truck. Speaking of work.... we are now soon to be members of the Kwik Trip family. Dave got a job driving truck for their tri-state region starting in a few weeks. He'll have to commute 30 min there and back, but hopefully the pay increase will more than make up for it. We'll probably give it a year or so to make sure it's a good fit and then maybe move closer.....La Crescent (still in MN)? La Crosse/Onalaska area? Holmen? Somewhere in between Winona and La Crosse? Who knows. We went to La Crosse again yesterday, finally purchased some bikes at Smith's Cycle! We should be able to pick them up in a week or so. Between us and just Dave, we've been in bike stores multiple times this summer trying to make the big decision, Daddy doesn't take a purchase like that lightly! He was able to snatch a Burley Piccolo trailer bike for Luke off Craigslist. Nana and Papa got a Tag-a-long bike when Emily was in that stage, but Dave's been after one of these for a long time, something about them attaching to it's own bar which attaches to our bike. So it doesn't have as much "play" in it, more stability. They don't make them anymore and when people do sell them, they resell for quite a bit, but he got a pretty good deal so he's happy. Emily got her new Craigslist Trek this Spring and we'll get either the Topeak baby seat or the Chariot attached to my bike for the babe and hit the pavement soon! I'm really itching to check out the Root River trail in Lanesboro.

Loggers Game

We went to our annual Lacrosse Loggers baseball game Friday night. Lots of fun like always. I got tickets in the same section (BB...back row!). Good for kids -they can stand against the fence. And it was a Kwik Trip sponsored fireworks night, a great show!

Luke, once again, very into the chants. Even sings them at home now. Great.

camp

Both the kids had their Park & Rec camps this week. I usually sign them up for 2 weeks each, but only did 1 this summer. The preschool camp was moved from Holzinger Lodge (think cute log cabin in a woodsy setting with trails up the bluff) to the East End Rec Center. Granted, this week that the kids went was one of the hottest in history so the AC was nice, but I still think having it out at Holzinger is fun. A little sweat and dirt never hurt a kid. Either way, Luke seemed to have fun, they just did a lot of indoor stuff because of the heat. He did get to play basketball in the gym every day, so that he really enjoyed. And he had a lot of friend time with Colleen this week! Emily and Bridget spend their mornings this week at camp at Lake Lodge. I guess they walked up to the Historical Museum to see the library performance and another day, took the city bus to and from the East End Rec. She thinks that the Noon-4 groups get to go to the Aquatic Center at times, so maybe we'll sign her up for a morning and an afternoon time slot next summer. These are some pictures of the last day at Luke's camp, they had a little concert with local singer/songwriter Amanda Grace (Hardy).

Swim Lessons

The kids just finished this summers session of outdoor lessons at the Aquatic Center. They did great...what a difference for Luke this year in the water! Last year, he'd barely put his nose in the water and now he's going under all the time.




(oops, it didn't flip!) Emily doing the back crawl.

And....*drum roll* Emily passed into Level 5! I wasn't expecting that since this was her first session in 4 and some of the kids in Level 4 are upper elementary and even some who look to be middle school age. I don't get a chance to watch her much since they are always all over the back of the pool, but she must have done pretty well. I do see an improvement in the nose plugging saga :) Great job Sis!
Heading to the diving board, exciting!
Chop, Chop, Timber.... They ask what kind of tree you are and Luke said "a magic tree."

At the end of each lesson, the preschoolers go to the mushroom fountain and pound on it to "wake up the gnome!" so it will start flowing. Then one of the instructors goes into the pool control room and turns it on. Luke was trying to get Alex to tell him the secret.