This blog will be a repository for pictures. I'm sure it will become completely and utterly overloaded with pictures of children. I apologize in advance for that.
Well, our trip to South Dakota was so much fun that we had to end it early. Something about it being so hot that everybody was miserable, nobody was sleeping, and life sucked. As a matter of fact, the way Michelle and I most frequently described it was "Hellish." Thus, here is how our trip compared to Hell.
First of all, in Hell the damned are subject to eternal torture. Here you can see Michelle being tortured by three evil beasts.
In Hell there are terrifying monsters which consume the wicked. Eli has obviously been wicked, since he is being devoured by some ancient crocodile dinosaur beast.
Hell is populated by Satan's minions, whose job it is to dole out punishment to sinners. We had four of Satan's minions along on our trip with us.
Hell is supposed to be hot. South Dakota was hot. The reading of 110 degrees isn't the temperature after the van had been sitting in the sun for a while - it was the temperature while we were driving. And if the 110 degrees wasn't bad enough, there was also a nice 25 mile per hour southerly wind to melt the flesh from your face.
As a matter of fact, the only difference between the two places is that Hell isn't real, while South Dakota was truly, frighteningly, horribly real.
A random sampling of photos. Here is Milena proudly showing off the picture that Koleman drew her for her birthday.
Milena got a school set for her birthday, and here she is teaching all of her students.
This is just scary.
And here is a drowned rat.
We're leaving for South Dakota on Saturday, so there might be a lack of posts for a while. Of course, we will be bringing the laptop along, so maybe I'll be able to post something there.
Gosh, that sounds a bit too productive. Don't hold your breath.
Yesterday Michelle and I brought the whole family to Faribault for a little adventure. We each got a turn to go gliding. A friend of ours is an aviation instructor at the university in Mankato (and worked for NASA for seven years, and used to be a commercial pilot, and flew helicopters, and ... in other words, we trusted him), and goes gliding every weekend in the summer, weather permitting. Since it's a two seat glider, he can bring victims with him, and invited us to go along.
Here is the glider. It's only about 1,200 pounds, but very expensive, apparently.
To get into the sky we get pulled into the air by a tow plane. There's a long yellow cable that is supposedly very strong. It had better be strong, since it's the only thing between me and a terrible, fiery death.
Correction: Since the plane is a glider, it doesn't have fuel, so I probably wouldn't suffer a fiery death. The correct word is more likely "mangled", or "severely mangled", or "horrifically disfigured."
Here is the very important yellow cord in the glider, which, when pulled, disconnects the glider from the plane. It is very important to only pull the cord when the pilot says, "Pull the cord, now!", not when he says, "Cool, a bored cow!"
That's a mistake you only make once.
Here is how I looked for most of the glide.
Here is the instrument panel. The altimiter shows that we are almost 6,000 feet above sea level, which means about 5,000 feet above the ground. We let go of the plane at 4,000 feet above sea level, and gained 2,000 feet by circling up in thermals. I'm sure there are laws of physics which explain why that works.
This picture is an attempt to show that we were darn close to the clouds.
Nihad (the pilot) asked if I wanted to experience zero gravity. Stupidly, I said "Yes." It's a simple procedure in a glider. Pull the stick back (make the houses get smaller), and then push it forward (make the houses get bigger). It's kind of like the feeling you get on a roller coaster, except that you're 5,000 feet above the ground.
Anyway, after that I opened up a sick bag, just to be safe.
Here's a bird's eye view of the Faribault airport. We had a beautiful time there. The kids played outside a lot, they had an air conditioned "terminal" with bathrooms, Nihad's wife brought some yummy food, great weather. A nice place, and a great day.
OK, back to the flight. Here's Interstate 35.
The landing was nice and smooth. Really, it was. If you don't believe me, just check out the video I took of it:
Eli wanted to fly, too.
Michelle got to fly also. Here she is getting instructions. They mostly consist of things like, "Don't touch this lever, because the canopy costs $5,000 to replace."
Here is video of Michelle getting pulled into the sky:
And there is Michelle, in the air!
And coming in for a landing.
The kids were much more worried about Mommy in the glider than Daddy. Here you can see them all running to Mommy to make sure she survived.
Right after I finished my flight, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it again, but that was mostly because my stomach got turned into knots on the zero gravity bit. The final analysis is that I would do it again in a second, if given the chance. Michelle loved it immediately, but Nihad didn't mess with her like he did with me. That will be for her second time out.
I wouldn't even know about the Three R's, but thanks to Jack Johnson, I know that I should reduce, reuse and recycle. So that gave me a brilliant idea. We already have our basement set up to hang exercise equipment from the ceiling, so maybe I should reuse that work to provide a way to bring the unhousetrained puppies downstairs.
Ideally, this will allow me to bring the puppies downstairs, while reducing the amount of poop to clean up around the basement.
Of course, even if they did poop downstairs, I could put the poop in our garden to recycle it. That would be good.
I'm glad that there is no way my new system could result in any unwanted consequences.
Milena got to have a birthday, too. She's six now. I don't know why these kids keep growing. You'd think eventually they'd stop. Anyway, she seems to be happy about it.
Since it is the birthday party for a little girl, the theme was, naturally. Star Wars. Here is Darth Kelson with Darth Grandma.
Milena blows out the candles on her Star Wars cake!
You know the old saying: "Eight Sith Lords is a party, Nine Sith Lords is just annoying."
Let's see... here's Milena working a pump at the Landscape Arboretum. Use those muscles!
And here is Milena cruising down the Slip-N-Slide. It's not that she's stopped moving, it's that the shutter speed on the camera is so fast that it gives the appearance that she is not moving.
A couple of weeks ago we went to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, which is always a good trip. This year we went to see their new Art to A-Maze exhibition. This consists of a guided walk with many funky art/nature displays, leading to a large outdoor maze. One of our favorite art displays was this large ogre-like head peaking out of the ground. For some reason, the kids kept calling it "Daddy".
The maze was a lot of fun. Koleman kept having trouble getting out of it though.
At one point he met up with Eli. They weren't too happy to find a dead end.
We can only hope that he has since made it out of the maze.
