Welcome to our Blog!

We hope you enjoy our blog. We look forward to sharing some of our family (and Duluth) experiences with you from near or far!
Lilypie Fifth Birthday tickers
Lilypie Second Birthday tickers

Thursday, September 27, 2012

CSS Homecoming

St. Scholastica is celebrating its centennial this year. There's lots going on throughout the year and Isaac and I couldn't stay away from the fun at homecoming. We started with the parade. As you'd expect, many of the "floats" were tossing out candy. The semi truck was carrying the football team. It seemed like they each had a bag of candy. Isaac was pretty much the only kid on the corner. The entire team decided it would be fun to shower this one kid of tons of candy. It was literally raining Tootsie Rolls :) My pockets were more than full after that surprise.


There were a number of indoor events for families. Some of Isaac's favorites were big wheel races on the running track and spending some time in the batting cages!




I did notice there were some folks from CSS with cameras taking in the event. I guess we were in their line of fire a few times. The college compiled this video of some events. See how many times you can spot us between 1:30 and 3:30 (I counted 3 times).

Duluth Airshow

We've been having some good times in Duluth lately. Isaac and I went to the airshow last Saturday (9/22). It was fun but too cold to really enjoy. We enjoyed watching a few of the acts perform and getting up close to some fighter planes, helicopters, and FedEx cargo plane:









There was even a Menards racing truck there...maybe those planes were too loud :)


I hope he's not lost!

After dropping Isaac off at Awana last night Heather, David, and I headed out to our local grocery store to pick up a few things. As we were driving along I noticed a car on the shoulder that looked like it had some kind of monster bike rack on top. As we got closer I could start to see it wasn't a bike, but a high-tech camera...yep, it was a Google Streetview car. I did a quick u-turn to snap some pics. The driver was looking down at something and I joked to Heather when I got back in the car..."I hope he's not lost." That's what you'd call ironic folks :)



I guess we'll look forward to having some new streets on Google Maps. They picked a great time of year to drive around, capturing our fall colors!

Monday, September 3, 2012

Weekend Enjoyment

Slow start mornings, Farmers Market, parks, picnics, throwing rocks in the water, grill-outs, ice cream were just a few of the many things that added to our enjoyment of the last weekend of summer. Here are a few highlights of the weekend.

First, a Saturday morning project for Joel and Isaac fixing our bird feeder. They made the original bird feeder (the green wooden box below) during a Home Depot Kids Workshop morning a few months ago. Since then, it is gotten its use, unfortunately by unwanted critters too (like gophers and squirrels). Joel (being experienced at getting rid of unwanted creatures...see blog post from August) decided it was time to redesign the bird feeder to help prevent these unwanted friends from eating all of the bird food. So...they came up with this new version (with an upside down pail underneath, making it trickier to climb up).

Next, a 90-minute boat ride on the "Vista Star" Saturday afternoon, touring the harbor and canal of Lake Superior in and around Canal Park.
Today: Park Point Beach: Weather: Perfect for Beach Day and creating "construction sites" in the sand:
Big brother showing D how it's done:
 Papa showing Isaac how it's done:
And much to our surprise, a furry friend on the new and improved bird feeder when we returned home:
Stay tuned for more Johnson adventures (but hopefully none with unwanted creatures)!

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

No more honey for you

For the past couple of weeks we've noticed some unwelcome guests in our home. These new friends we mostly staying downstairs but they quickly outstayed their welcome. Needless to say, when one of them ended up in David's crib, and another bit Heather, I knew it was time to bid them farewell. We had already done some work outside the house patching a hole where we were convinced they were coming in. But that apparently hadn't stop them completely. 

So, today, I took on the bees. I wasn't exactly sure where they were hiding but I knew they were camping out close to our office. After some patient observations, I soon found out they had nestled in a the ledge directly above the desk in our office (a mere few feet from where Heather and I had spent many hours). I got a wooden stick, about 3 feet long, and started prying back the insulation which was shielding them from the world. Slowly, they began to come out. First it was just a couple, then about 6, and soon I knew I hit the jackpot. I took the stick and quickly propped up the insulation so I could give them a solid chemical bath. 


They quickly began falling, and in some cases still flying, out toward me.


So, with stick in one hand, and vacuum hose in the other, I began working my way into their hive. I was surprised how large their hive was - somewhere between the size of a football and a basketball. Needless to say, it was a pretty tense battle.  


By the time it was all said and done, I had spent about 90 minutes sparring with the bees. The vacuum canister was pretty much full of bees and hive at the end. I only got stung once by a tricky critter who flew in under my glove. It was all worth it when Isaac congratulated me by saying I was his hero tonight. 

Joel 1, Bees 0

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Day Out with Thomas

This weekend we participated in our 2nd annual "Day Out with Thomas" here in Duluth. 

 In addition to a 25-minute ride on a 15-ton replica of Thomas, there were a variety of other interactive experiences including a bounce house and inflatable slide, face-painting, magic show, hands-on arts and crafts, and a Thomas storytelling and video viewing area. To see more information about these types of railway tours, click here: http://events.hitentertainment.com/us/day-out-with-thomas/index.asp

Here's a picture of our enthusiastic Isaac in front of "Thomas" on Friday. We got quite a few smiles at his choice of wardrobe for the day. :-)
Here's a link to some other photo highlights of the day:
https://picasaweb.google.com/118301653485391374513/August2012

For our blog followers, you may recall we participated in this event last year (with our newborn David at the time). You can compare pictures by visiting our blog archive from August 2011.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Sand and Water!

Sand and water seem to be filling our summer days with the boys, both at home and away. Last week we enjoyed several days down in the Twin Cities with family. A couple of highlights were visiting the Elm Creek Park and Pond/Beach. Now here is a common activity that will keep both the boys happy and entertained at the same time...

 David got to discover sand in a new way...
Over the weekend we attended the "Slice of Shoreview" Festival/Carnival and Isaac got to discover water in a new way...
I don't know that we'll experience water in the same way again anytime soon, but our little firefighter is off to a good start!