The Minnesota Five (continued)

Hooray! Mike got off early today and showed me how to get things done on his computer. I'm a much happier blogger than I was in my last post and Mike kept his mockery down to a minimum, thus I didn't have to kill or maim him. A win-win situation. It was very hard for me to narrow down the number of photos included in this post from the 10,000 or so that I've taken on this trip (three days), thus far, but I think I've managed quite well. As I said, Mike got off early today, so Erin and I picked him up at the hospital and we took the boys to the Children's museum (Abbie was at school) and then went to a great Italian restaurant/deli for a late lunch. A great day.

Landon, with a kind of Octupus hot wheels car wash thingy that I got for him. The car changes colors with different temperatures of water. Mike and Erin were very thrilled with this purchase, as you can well imagine. Water everywhere. Landon played with this thing for two days straight, only taking time to be forced to eat and sleep. Erin finally said, time to put it away for awhile.

The brothers, Hale.

Abbie, with her new 5.1 pixel Vivitar camera. She's already figured out how to zoom, set the flash, and delete. She's also careful not to shoot a subject with light behind it. A budding young photographer.

Landon with his pal, Ronald McDonald at the children's museum. We had to chase some people off this bench to get the photo. Hey . . . they were loitering. The sign behind Landon clearly states that the bench is for photo-ops only. Landon, about to become a snack for a T-rex!

Noah, playing in the water trough at the children's museum. He just had a ball but was soaked right to the skin. His smart mother brought a change of clothes.

Landon with the USA soccer team logo painted on his face. . . by his soccer rabid dad, of course.

The Hale family riding on the bus at the children's museum. Landon was driving. He had to fend off about four kids who were each two people bigger than he was to keep the driver's seat for a few minutes. It was hilarious. When he realized his spot was being encroached upon he just started shouldering them out and saying "hey hey hey, it's MY turn"!

Noah, doing the marketing. He pushed his cart out of the supermarket taking out all unwary pedestrians as he went.

This is how one maintains popularity (if not nutritional responsibility) as a grandmother. Actually, Abbie discovered fairly quickly that she couldn't bite into this sucker with her sensitive loose tooth and most of this sucker ended up in the rubbish bin.

Abbie has discovered the joys of jumprope and she's really good at it. Fast, slow, forward, backward, she can do it. When she's not jumping, she grabs one of the handles, using it for a microphone, and belts out Miley Cyrus songs. Her Nana Holbrook and I discovered, at the moment of her birth (we were standing just outside the delivery room door with our ears pressed against it) that this girl had a great set of pipes! She's already better than most of what I've heard on American Idol.

Mike and Noah watching the Netherlands/USA soccer game this afternoon. Team USA would do a lot better if the coach would just listen to Mike's advice, I'm sure of it!

Those big blue eyes and that great big smile just melt this grandma's heart.

As I said in yesterday's post, Abbie's school was doing a Dr. Seuss week, this week, and yesterday was "come dressed as a favorite storybook character" day. Abbie chose to be Pinkalicious and she WAS, indeed, pinkalicious!

Here she is posing with the book from which she drew her inspiration. I think that the resemblance is stunning, don't you?

One more thing . . . I don't have photographic evidence i.e. the scorepad BUT I would like to announce that I just waxed Mike in a game of Scrabble, 391 to 164! It's never before happened. I've never won a game of Scrabble with Mike, EVER, before tonight. I'm sure that I won tonight because Mike jinxed himself, earlier, by eating the ENTIRE container of Tiramisu that we purchased today at a great Italian restaurant and deli. Erin and I went with Abbie to her gymnastics class and while we were gone he ate the WHOLE thing. Not a bite left. Not so much as a morsel, a crumb, a wee dram. I was really looking forward to coming home and having MY PORTION of the Tiramisu. Nope. Gone. Nada. The scrabble game is really kind of cold comfort because I'm still craving that delectable looking Tiramisu. Mike claims he was watching sports while eating the Tiramisu and simply lost track of his consumption. Whatever. Signing off from Minneapolis, Minnesota.