Kindergarten Round-Up

Tonight right after work we went to the elementary school that Wynn will most likely be attending this fall. It was an open-house night for all the new kindergartners.

The teachers had all sorts of activities ready for the kids to do. Ann and I checked out all the materials up on the walls; the Smartboard setups; the books and games in the cubbies. We're both in the education business - this is what we do when we walk into a school...

Wow, she has really become skilled at coloring in the past several months!

Playground equipment of awesomeness!

Big grassy lawn and ball field out back, too.

The sun finally came out when we got home, so I took Wynn and Shadow for a walk around the block and down to the neighbors' dock.

Easter Haul

The Easter Bunny needed a pallet jack to move Wynn's goodies Sunday. I could see the divots on the lawn.

Obligatory fresh haircut and springtime outfit.

Best. Excited. Shot. Ever.

Amazingly, she has excellent self-control around all these sweets. She only wants one piece of candy after dinner. If she was the only one eating the stuff, it would easily last until Halloween... but that's not the case. I think Ann and I will be spreading the loot around before we go into sugar shock.

Our little explorer

Five months of winter. We're all a bit stir-crazy, wanting to get outside. As long as it's not snowing at this moment, we'll call it spring. And we need to get back into shape, because we have another big adventure coming up... but more about that in another post.

For now, any chance we get we're outside getting our legs in shape. Wynn can't ride on my back anymore because she's getting so big! So it's "walking practice" for her, too.

At the nature center...

At the University of Minnesota...

And we even hauled her bike over to (the mostly dried up) White Bear Lake for a little ride this weekend.

Future Gopher

We took advantage of our first warm, sunny Saturday of spring by going walking on the U of MN campus. Wynn was thrilled to be hanging out in Gopher Country and announced that she's going to go there. "But I'll be off to kindergarten in the fall," she reminded us.

By the look of her, she's ready for life on campus already. She'll be getting into her first pick-up game of frisbee on the quad before we know it.

Walking over the Mississippi on the Washington Ave. Bridge

Relaxing behind Coffman Union

A Smoothie Would Really Hit the Spot Right About Now

Relax, Mom, there are no classes when the sun is shining ....

Good with Words

So, Wynn strolls into the living room, looks at us and says, "Is anyone available to read me a book?"

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Ah! Caught up!

Ann checking out her new BlackBerry and Wynn in a sunbeam - before Winter came back...

We're members of the Minnesota Zoo, so we thought this Saturday, "hey, why not check out the Zoo before we get cooped up by the storm tomorrow?" Yes, we and every other family with young kids were thinking exactly the same thing, and we all showed up at 10 am. (Why do you people have to have strollers the size of SUVs? Why can't your kids keep their grapes and trail mix to themselves? Why are your children climbing on ME?)

Too cold, too loud, too windy, too tired, too hungry. We need to re-think our Zoo-going strategy, and we're not going to tell any other parents our new method, because the minute we do, it's all over the Internets and then it's no fun anymore.

Wynn did like the bit about posing with Snoopy, but if you think we're going to Valleyfair anytime soon, guess again.