unpacking

We decided to unpack our pictures and hang them on the wall. There was a lot of packing paper so we decided to play in it.

Ben escalated the play to a new level and built a box in the basement to contain all the paper. Sophia couldn't get enough.

We only have 4 pictures hung on the wall, but they're all unboxed at least :D

Minneapolis

We went to Minneapolis this weekend which is about 45 min from our house. The leaves are changing which made the drive pretty.

Here's the Animaniacs watertower that I mentioned before... and the trucks tint strip :) There's not any place to stop and take pictures on the side of the road.

I saw the rooftop of this building first and then discovered its City Hall. We told Sophia to look at the castle.

The beginnings of the Mississippi river run right through Minneapolis and I really wish I could have gotten a good picture of it because it was GORGEOUS with all the leaves changing colors. I found this picture on msn.

The girls fell asleep so we didn't get out and walk around. I'm looking forward to doing some artistic photography of the architecture and there are several museums that we plan to go to during the winter (Science Museum, Mill Museum, Childrens Museum).

Sunday I went to Ikea with Andrea (a wife of Ben's co worker) and saw the outside of Mall of America. It's insanely HOOJ... so was IKEA. Ben, his coworker, their 3 kids and our girls stayed at home playing.

The Arboretum

There has been a lot of rain and when we had a nice day I went to the Arboretum.

The leaves are changing colors and there were still quite a few flowers in bloom. There were the standard garden type flowers but they also had a huge herb garden that was soooo wonderful to smell. Basil filled my nose and made me smile! I can't remember the names of the plants, but here's a black big leaf plant.

This is swiss chard and I LOVED the colors. I had no idea it was this pretty. Ben tells me it doesn't taste that special though.

They had some scarecrows that lined the path as you enter the garden. This one was about 12 ft tall.

I saw this fish on the fountain andI'm not sure why but thought of Cathy. Maybe it will inspire you Cathy.

Mother and Child sculpture.

New house

We had all of our stuff delivered last Thursday and we still have a ton of boxes to unpack. Even though this place is a lot bigger its hard to figure out where to put everything.

This is the view as we walk out of the front door. There aren't any mountains in Minnesota but there are a lot of hills.

Also each town has a watertower and thats how you know where you are. Sophia pointed out the Animaniacs live there :)

Here is a good view of our yard. Its 1/2 an acre and Ben has gotten through mowing most of it. Another odd thing about houses here is that most don't have a fence. Not that I want to be unsocial but being able to let the kids out to play or the dog out without supervision is nice. Luckily our house is a little secluded because of the hill you can see on the left.

We've met quite a few neighbors thanks to Buddy. And they all seem nice. The front of our house and to the right is all the recent subdivision started in 1998. Directly behind us are older big houses. Lots of character but lots of work too. I'm really happy with our new house and we're looking forward to infusing it with our personality... Ben wants to add a theater room and guest room in the unfinished basement and I want to paint the walls and rip down wallpaper! There's a 50% chance of snow this Saturday so it sounds like we'll have plenty of winter to start and finish projects.

Our journey to Minnesota...

We made it with most of our belongings and all of our sanity. WE forgot a few things in Boise but the movers got everything... including dirty dishes. We left Boise about 7:30pm on the 24th and arrived in Yellowstone about 1am. We didn't have time to see Yellowstone so we headed to our next destination Mt Rushmore. We made time to visit and it was very inspiring. I've seen the image on TV but seeing it in person is really cool.

As you walk closer there is a path lined with all of the states flags. I really love the patriotic feel as it leads you.

You can get pretty close too. We stayed up on the lookout and I tried to get Abbey in the picture with the Presidents.