St Augustine Tour

Today we went down into historic downtown and did a trolley tour (turn off volume or it might scare you) and visited the old jail house. I found an ad last night that said all residents of St Johns county received free three day pass for the trolley and entrance to the old jail during the month of November. So being the last day of November, today was the day. The girls loved it. Savannah wasn't sure about the sherriff in one part (the actual picture on the website) as it was a fake guy that moved and talked.... She though he was real enough and actually going to lock her up I think. We were the only people on our particular tour too. Then we hopped on the trolley. We only stopped once along the way at an old historic church that Henry Flagler built (Flagler Memorial Pryesbeterian Church), other than that we just rode. Zoe actually fell asleep riding the last leg of the trip.... I still can't figure out how. A horse and buggy on a road full of potholes would still be a smother ride than those trolleys!

It did give me a few more ideas on how to explore St Augustine with the kids, some of the attractions that are free to get in like some of the old churches and old drug stores, that kind of stuff. Also learned some fun facts I didn't know before. When you live in a city, sometimes it is hard to remember the cool stuff about it. Other times you just stop taking advantage of it cause the kids are too hard to travel with.... but now that Zoe is old enough we really got to get out more!

Como Zoo

One of the days we were in Minneapolis we went to the Como Park Zoo and Gardens. It is a donations only zoo in the heart of St Paul. Since it was wintertime -no snow just cold temps- most of the animals were in the inside habitats, and some were simply off viewing. (The birds exhibit was off viewing for example, and I am not even sure that the birds were in town and hadn't flown off to FL....) Some might think since they weren't outside that it wasn't as much fun to see the animals. Truth was though that it was actually nicer, cause most of the animals were up closer to us, though some of the exhibits were also a lot stinkier. The monkeys were really cool..... we had nicknamed this baby monkey..... just take a guess what we named her.

This is one of the exhibits that was stinky inside. Zebras though are one of the girls favorites, so it worked.
I think this is the kudus. They were in with the zebras and that giraffes.... so they most be semi close to the zebra family.

The big cats were still outside, as their fur coats still allowed them to deal with the weather.

Sometimes the big cats were a little hard to see as they would be on the other side of the big cages, but Savannah still enjoyed them.

A random Ram.... looks bored. or maybe it is wise.....

We went into a indoor aquarium building, and there were lots of fish, seals, ducks, etc.

The girls love this part at our zoo too, and often reach out to try and touch the animals on the other side of the glass.

The seals were really active, and the girls thought it was great that they were playing with a plastic duck.

The seal even kept giving the girls kisses through the glass.

Towards the end of our visit to the zoo, we found this brass turtle in the plaza that the girls wanted to get a picture on. It was really cute, except that Savannah's hair kept falling in her face..... so we had to take lots of pictures to actually get a good one.

It was surrounded on all sides with bricks inscribed with the donors that help support the zoo and make it so inexpensive to the families that come to visit.

They had a kids discovery room too, over by the gardens, where the girls were suppose to decide what the different animals eat....

Zoe kept trying to make the zebra a Carnivore -meat eater........

Savannah found these books with different animals in it, for you to find them in the mural up on the wall.... I don't think she ever found them though....

This was by far the favorite part of the discovery center for the girls. By turning a wheel, it caused the "rain" to come, which then flowed through the rivers and streams to the lakes, before evaporating and causing rainclouds.....

Zoe just liked playing in the water with the toys.....

We had a great time at the zoo and gardens. We did go through the gardens too, but most of the pictures didn't turn out too well.....

SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!!!!!

We picked the one year in one hundred years that it did not snow in March in Minnesota. All that was left was snow drifts here and there.... Zoe's first experience with snow.....

but momma rules the roost!

The lindberg girls

See, Savannah threw the first snowball!

But ......

others...

must....

defend

themselves.....

uh oh.....

I am not sure I like snowball fights....

but aunt maggie to the rescue!

restocking....

truce.

Maple Syrup Making

When we were in Minnesota the end of March, we were able to catch the annual Maple Tree tapping day at on of the parks around the St Paul area. We went trapezing through the woods, searching for the maple trees that had not been tapped yet, which were pretty few and far between. It turned out that we were in the wrong area of the woods, and that the guide we had wasn't real sure what she was doing..... but we still were able to tap the tree (above)

and everyone was rather content to watch the whole process.....

except for Savannah..... she just wanted to pick up sticks and carry them around..... play in the leaves, and just collect random stuff...... and just in general not pay attention one bit.... or so I thought.

Then we poured the sap we found (we tapped two trees, and then collected sap from the other established taps) and took it to the syrup shack. They used large trashcans and a window screen to filter the sap.


From the trashcan, the workers would then pour the sap into a large bathtub sized pan on top of the wood stove.... Where it would boil the sap down for 24 hours, and reduce it by at least half.... then it would go to an indoor kitchen for more refining...

I didn't think the majority of the time that Savannah was paying attention at all. If you ask her though maple syrup is collected from the trees, and you fire it..... (you know cause it was misbehaving on the job.... hehehe.)

Later that day, at Uncle Mike's house, we found a maple tree in his backyard that had been trimmed the previous fall. The tree trimmer had not sealed the cut, it the tree was POURing sap out if it. Uncle Mike collected a couple of gallons and did the refining process. It actually worked.... till they spilled it.