Happy Easter!

What a great weekend! Evan spend Saturday afternoon with my parents at the zoo while we joined Jeremy's parents for a day at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater to see Jesus Christ Superstar.  When we got home we dyed Easter Eggs.

This morning's egg hunt.

A present from the Easter Bunny - an explorer vest complete with compass, excavation tools (my favorite), a magnifying glass, bug net, lantern, and telescope!  Evan was mesmerized by the tweezers.  His friend Mary Ellen has a pair in her doctor play set and Evan is thrilled to now have his own!  He likes to take out pretend slivers with them.

My budding archaeologist!  Dr. Evan-stone I presume?

Of course, we gad to excavate some "dinosaur bones" from this strata called "Play-dough."

...and then make some spaghetti and meat balls (on blue plate, lower right) for lunch.

This afternoon we headed over to Jeremy's parents' house for Easter Dinner and another egg hunt.  Evan was frustrated that this one was out of his reach (inside the chicken wire) and had to ask for help.

Evan and Bear playing tag.

Fun with the cousins.

Playing Peek-A-Boo!  Evan loves to make babies laugh!

Shooting some Nerf rockets with Dad.

Mom makes me do the weirdest things for pictures...

Our "Family Tree" (hardy-har-har!)

Tonight we ended a great weekend with a walk on Memorial (Sorin) Bluff.  Below:  "A Boy and His Dog."

You can actually see our street from this overlook.  There are so many mature trees in our neighborhood that we aren't able to see our house, but that is way worth having tall, beautiful trees in our backyard!

Bug hunting with his new gear.  Jeremy and Evan caught a caterpillar (apparently named "Terrance") on Friday and Evan felt he needed a friend.  

What a beautiful weekend - Happy Easter Everyone!

First bluff-trek of the year

On Sunday we packed a picnic lunch and set off to climb the bluff.  Evan was a trooper and made it all the way up to the top and halfway down again before he got tired.  

Evan using his "nock-you-lars"

Taking a break to eat lunch (in fact, Jonas is staring at the sandwich in Jeremy's hand in this photo.)

View of Barn Bluff from the road.

View from on top, looking toward Colvill Park (see below)

Last Wednesday, we walked down to Colvill Park to see how flooded it was.  For those of you who don't know what Colvill Park normally looks like, you can't normally see the river at all in the below frame.  In fact, for those of you who were there, you can see Colvill Courtyard on the left side where Jeremy and I got married in 2006.

We needed a few more inches of clearance on the rain boots...good thing we live close by!

Lastly, a photo from Healthy Kids Day at the YMCA on Saturday - Evan flipping a Sturdiwheat pancake to win a prize!  With a little help, he made it on the fifth try!

Our famous Evan

Once again, our little star made the paper!  This time it was an article about Earth Day that mentioned my second job at ArtReach.  I was short a model that day, so I decided to have Evan be a part of the photo shoot.  Isn't he just adorable?  Disclaimer - these fabulous photos are NOT mine!  They were all taken by the Republican Eagle's fabulous new photographer, Stacy Bengs!

Hail!

We hit 70 degrees outside today for the first time this year!  We also had our first real hail storm of the year...hopefully we don't get too many more.

Spring Break part duex

I let Evan pick what he wanted to do the week of his first Spring Break, and he chose the zoo.  Evan got a kick out of the brown bears.  They were playing and wrestling "and kissing!" as he told passers-by in the second photograph.

April 1 also happened to be the first day that the Wells Fargo Family Farm exhibit was open.  Evan was able to pet the baby goats and piglets.   

AND, Evan was able to pet his very FAVORITE animal - a snake!  This python was about 8 ft tall.  He really did enjoy it, despite how apprehensive he looks in this photo.

Turtles!

This was the coolest thing ever!  Someone was feeding this stingray chum from up above and we were able to watch it eat!  The nice zoo volunteer-lady said that she has worked at the zoo for five years and never before witnessed a ray eat in front of everyone like that.  So cool.

We also managed to fit in a family trip to "the tracks."  When its nice outside we like to walk the train tracks (don't worry Grandma, its perfectly safe and you have lots of time to move once you hear a train coming.)  We take our time and enjoy the nature along the way.  This time we found two different animal skeletons, a nest of hatched turtle eggs, and lots and lots of pretty rocks.   

"Cheese!"