Desperate Housewives On the Town

Here is Laura and her book club friends at Chino Latino in Uptown Minneapolis last weekend. Her friend Becky turned 40, and they all went out in a limo for a night on the town. There were tequila shots, glow sticks and all manner of things their faithful husbands will probably never hear about. Most of us suspect that the "book club" is just a front for this kind of debauchery. Oh well, they've earned it! Chino Latino, by the way, is an incredible culinary experience, no matter what you order from the huge menu!

History Fair Features John Deere!

Here is Libby at the Liberty Ridge Elementary History Fair. We now know more about John Deere than we ever cared to know, really. Actually, he didn't actually do much, other than invent the steel plow (I guess they were cast iron before that). A certain farmer Laingen would probably think it was pretty significant for our ancestors - easier to pull through the soil, or something like that. Anyway, Libby did a nice job with her speech (John Deere, in the first person...) and display board.

We're impressed that this generation is asked to do so much public speaking. It's a great skill to have, and we were never challenged with it until much later in life!

One More Key West Photo!

OK, I couldn't resist posting this picture of Libby and her Minneapolis Grandparents... that's a good lookin' trio! We did something really interesting every day in Key West, and usually ended up somewhere on Duval Street to see what the latest freak show was. This was taken on our last night in Key West, on a pier next to Mallory Square. I had ahi tuna (yum!) and the obligatory margarita... and Grandma spilled her beer.

Crazy Hair Day!

Here are the kids going off to school at Liberty Ridge Elementary, just after spring break. It was "Crazy Hair Day" at school. Laura and I agreed that with all the special days, teacher conference days off, Mandarin Chinese lessons, carnivals and the like, it seems like there isn't much teaching of the basics going on anymore. Oh well, they are all good readers, and are getting great grades in school.

Key West Vacation!

OK, so I'm new to the blogging thing, and I just realized that the latest entries appear at the top... so as I'm continuing the Key West story, the first-time reader will see this last entry about our vacation first. Here are the kids at the miniature golf course in Marathon Key (they are holding the pin that represents their age). We rushed through 18 holes and had lunch - right next to another family from Duluth of all places.

The sailboat photo is our Hobie-18 rental on Smathers Beach... it was incredibly windy that day, with squalls just offshore and the waves were pretty high - so we couldn't come about through the wind, but had to 'jibe" every time.

Coming home to cold weather was tough... so what would a blog be without some political blogging anyway (espcially considering the author)? My first thought when stepping off the plane into 30-degree weather in April was, where's Al Gore now?

Duval Street in Key West was, to put it mildly, a freak show most of the time. It was "borderline" for the kids, occasionally, but we weren't really there much past 9:00 pm when things get a little crazy. There were a lot of tourist things to do, so we all got "passports" on base and saw quite a few of them: the Truman White House, a shipwreck museum, the aquarium, a butterfly house, the southernmost point in the U.S., and the Hemingway House - where Libby was very happy to see the famous six-toed cats!


Luke's favorite outing was to the WWII era Coast Guard ship museum, where he saw some big guns! He was always eager to point them out with that evil grin on his face...

All in all, it was a very relaxing vacation. We thought we would come back to the beginnings of a warm spring in the Twin Cities... but in fact it snowed, and was in the 30s. We've been spoiled for several years, so I guess it's time to get back to average temperatures.

Spring in Minnesota - 2008!

We decided to create this online journal so friends and family can check in with us and see what we are up to!

We look warm in this first photo - and we are - because the picture was taken in Key West during spring break. The winter of 2008 has been especially long and cold this year, so we decided to spend the first week of April in Fort Lauderdale and in the Keys. We stayed on the Navy base at Key West, and used some of the facilities there. Laura's parents came along too, and we had a great time in Florida's sunshine!

The kids took to the water, naturally, and worked on their tans to impress their Minneosta friends back in school... of course most of Woodbury seems to find itself in Florida or Mexico this time of year, anyway... in fact, one of Libby's friends pulled into Key West for the day on a large catamaran. We took Michael and his family to the pool on base for a couple of hours.

Luke generally manages to be the one who can't provide a normal pose for the family photo... This is the southern beach on Key West, Smathers Beach. It was allegedly created by bringing in sand from the Bahamas, since there aren't natural sand beaches on this key. We sailed a catamaran along the beach here - a Hobie 18. Jack was pretty proud of 'skippering' for a while, even in the really high winds we had that day, since he now knows what he is doing after sailing camp on Lake Calhoun last year.