A little trip

This week Ken had an insurance board meeting and conference down in the Twin Cities, so as usual our whole family decided to tag along. Here is what I have been up to for the last few days.

On Tuesday we left a little before noon in the hopes that we could get Ken where he needed to be by 4:30 for Board member pictures. Then I would take the kids to my sisters and drop them off and I would go back to eat at a banquet that they were having for board members and spouses. Unfortunately just as we were getting into the cities at around 3:30 our van decided to die when we were in the far left lane of traffic. Ken had hoped to be able to coast over to the right shoulder but the traffic was far to heavy and we weren't able to so we had to go to the left shoulder. A policeman came soon and kindly called a tow truck for us. He also hung around. We realized that our whole family wasn't going to be able to ride in the tow truck nor be able to stay in the van so the policeman called another one and they offered us rides.

Above is Jonathan and Megan and the policeman that they and I rode with.
Here is the policeman that Mara and Aaron rode with. Aaron wasn't so sure about the ride. I tried to encourage him by telling him that since he wanted to be a policeman someday now he would be able to know what it was like to be in a police car. That didn't help because as he said "I don't want to be the one that rides in the back!". By the end of our ride he seemed to be enjoying it a little more.
We went to a Ford dealership to get the van fixed. It was a very nice place with a beautiful customer lounge which included a separate room (with glass walls) for the children to play in. It had a lot of toys and a kids movie ("Cars") going. They also had Starbucks coffee, bottled water, cappuccino and hot chocolate all for free.
There was also this little popcorn cart with popcorn for free. They also offered to drive us to a nearby mall while they fixed the van.
We had a fun time looking around at the mall. It was very nice with plants and trees all over. There were tons of orchid plants that were all blooming. They were gorgeous. There was an elevator with a glass wall and a waterfall going down the whole side. You also had to walk across a little bridge to get on as there was a "moat" around it.

There were escalators which the kids had a blast getting to go on. (Can you tell we are from the country?) Megan wasn't so sure about them though. Ken had to carry her and then when we got to the bottom she had to carefully check it out. After looking around a bit we had supper at an Applebees that was in the mall. Our evening didn't turn out as we planned but we had a lot of fun anyway.

When we did get to Anna and Travis' around 7:30 we decided to have our little birthday celebration for Megan then. (Her birthday was the next day but Ken was going to have a super long day and we didn't think it would be nice to wake the kids up at 6 am in order to open presents.)

For breakfast on Wed. morning I made coffeecake with Juneberries in it to use as Megan's birthday cake (I decided I would do a regular cake on Sunday when Ken will be around as well as all of my family). Megan had no idea what to do with the candles on the cake. Gregory (her cousin on the right of the picture who is almost 3) quickly helped her out by blowing them out. We decided to give her another chance to try but she still didn't get it so Harrison did the job.

On Wed. morning we went to visit the flower wholesaler where I get flowers for my business (they deliver them to me). I wanted to look for some supplies and I thought the kids might find it interesting. Above is my sister Anna and several of the kids in the plant area.

After that we went to the Bakken, a museum that teaches about electricity. It is in a super cool old mansion in Minneapolis. There were a lot of neat things to see and do to help us to learn more about electricity. Anna had been able to get quite a few free passes from their library so it was a very economical outing.

This is the whole group of us except for me. We loved admiring all the neat architecture and I took tons of pictures but I decided not to bore you with all of them.

Here is Megan playing with some magnets and a tv screen that would turn all different colors when you put the magnets on it.
The day was pretty fun (except for driving through the city traffic, it made me very thankful for living in Bemidji.) It wore us all out. Above is a picture of a worn out Gregory and Megan.
That evening we went to church at Woodbury. We went early and ate at the Wednesday night cafe. (Ladies in the church take turns making a meal to serve before church, everybody pays a fairly minimal amount to pay for the food.) At church I enjoyed the beautiful singing and a class on John chapter 3.

On Thursday we all went on a 5 mile bike ride around a lake not to far from the Edward's house. In the middle of our ride we stopped and let the kids play at a park. Here are Margaret and Mara doing the "spider".

Here is Aaron swinging. I had hoped to take a lot of pictures but my batteries went dead. We saw some beautiful scenery, there were neat bridges going over streams and then we saw a lot of ducks, geese and loons. At one spot I counted 15 loons. It was so fun to hear their cry. I guess they are on their way north. Once they get to their home for the summer they will no longer be in the same lake, each couple has their own lake.

For our biking the 4 big kids each rode a bike (thankfully the Edwards have a lot of bikes) and then Aaron got to ride on a tag-along (a one wheeled bike that attaches to the back of another bike) behind Anna. He was able to pedal and told Ken that he had pushed Aunt Anna all the way to the park (but that he rested on the way home) I don't quite think he was supplying all the man power going there but they did check it out and if she quit pedaling he was able to keep them going. It is quite the cool contraption. Travis pulled a trailer behind his recumbent bike with Bea and Gregory in it and I pulled Megan in another trailer.

On Thursday afternoon my friend Christy(and kids) was able to come over for a little while so that was fun! I always enjoy getting to visit with her. We ended up leaving for home a little after 6 pm.

This weekend is also going to be busy. Ken is headed over to Moorhead for the district Republican convention tomorrow, Anna and kids are on their way up here to stay at our house and my older brother Peter and his family from California are flying in tonight. We are looking forward to lots of good family time as all 6 of us kids will be home!