Lego Castle

 I've earned some praise from my boys for being the Mastermind behind this creation.  :)

Above, in the process of building...

(it didn't even take us 2 full days to build this)

 Inside...

 Inside the front door. 

Just above the blue pillar, there is a black spiral staircase going up.  Sweet!

 Finished product, front view.

 Inside the castle.  The boys moved the table to the second storey.

 Caleb was in charge of "the weapons/dressing room".

 Rear view. 

One of the boys made the coolest thing for above the back door. 

You can't see it very clearly in this picture.

 Side view.  You can kind of see one of the balconies between the 2 white window panels.

There are also 2 balconies on the front, which are too hard to see.

Caleb made the white tower in the center, for the cannon.  :)

"No thanks" for the Birthday Stings

 The night before Joshua's REAL birthday party (ie. cake!), he had a very unfortunate incident.

We were all outside in our backyard, and the oldest 2 boys were playing football.  I guess the football or a boy hit a wasp nest and suddenly, Joshua's laughing/screaming...no, hysterical, on the ground.  I didn't know what was going on at first! 

And then I saw the wasps swarming him.  It was a frightening scene, and since I've been a victim to two wasp swarms/attacks myself, I knew exactly how he was feeling.  Within 30 seconds, we had him in the house (while trying to round up the younger children who were in the tent, totally unaware of any potential danger of the now very angry wasps) and I had given him an antihistamine.  I called Health Links and they told me to put on a meat tenderizer paste for 20 minutes, which didn't help, and that I could also give him Tylenol, which I also did.  And ice.  We iced that eye a LOT that evening, but it didn't really help.  It was practically swollen shut within an hour of being stung.  (Aside from his eye, I was able to find 3 other "sting sites" on his head).

"Giant donut".   Mmmmmmedicine?  :)

 Friday evening (the evening of THE wasp attack), Mike went to the store to buy some poison and sprayed the nest.  The next morning, he was able to safely cut the vines (hanging on our fence) and remove the wasp nest, put it in a garbage bag, filled it with water and tied it shut.  Several hours later, we took a look at it.  The white things are wasp larvae.  Yuck.

I think we were very fortunate that only one of us got stung and that it didn't happen when any little one's were outside in the back without an adult supervising them.  Yikes!

 Caaaaaaake!

Rootbeer Float cake!

It was delicious, very chocolatey and just a bit root beer-y. 

If you're considering making this cake, I would recommend using less cocoa and

more rootbeer in the icing.  Some how.  Or, perhaps choose a higher quality Root Beer. 

Someone suggested Virgil's.  Am not familiar with it.

The birthday boy thoroughly enjoyed his cake!

 Sunday - killed about 47 wasps using 2 of these traps.  :)

Joshua's Birthday in Fargo

 And Joshua Ryan Isaac Bergmann turns 9.

In the afternoon, we hit a pool with waterslide in Fargo, but after the heat we had been in, even

27-28 degrees Celcius was not hot enough for us to spend any length of time in the water. 

We were shivering!

 Burger King, as per the birthday boy's request.

 Joshua and his older twin brother.

Ice cream "cake" from McDonald's.  The real cake is yet to come.  :)

My 300th Post :)

 Beautiful children.

 On Thursday, we found a mall to hang out in and escape the heat.

A firetruck exhibit.

 Joshua the fireman.

 Wyatt liked these Veggie Tale kiosks where you could watch Veggie Tale episodes, for a price.

 Natalee and Sponge Bob.

 I was fascinated by the trees in Missouri.

 I think this might be a Black Locust tree, but I'm not 100% certain.

The other thing that I found fascinating was the corn fields in Iowa.  Not only was the corn 2-3 feet taller than the corn up here (we saw a farmer measuring his corn, and it was a good foot above his head!), but it was everywhere!  The other interesting thing about their corn fields is that they plant them in terraces.

 Relaxing in our hotel in Fargo (on the way home).

 "Mater."

Five Spark Plugs.

Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead

On Wednesday there was a bit of a breeze, with a forecast high of 100 F (I think it actually exceeded that).  It was hot in the shade!  We had planned to hit an outdoor attraction, so with waterbottles in hand and a picnic lunch packed, we found our way to the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead.  There were so many cool things here, I can not post all the pictures I took, and I really didn't take enough pictures as it is!  We'd all like to go back some day.  But preferably on a much cooler day.  :)

 The school house.

 Natalee hard at work with her chalk and slate.

"Dunce."

 The school marm in the background.

 Andrew working the land.

 Princess on a cow.

 Kids on the cow-ch.

 Wyatt's favourite part of the Farmstead - peddle tractors!

 Feeding pygmy goats.  The older goats were very aggressive and kept on trying to take the bottle away from the younger goats.

 Pony rides.

 Fishing with cane rods!

 Each boy caught a fish.

Our friend Taylor caught 4 fish!

 On the hayride. (smiling)

 Relaxing in the shade.

 Eagle.  There were also some bobcats but they were sleeping.

There were mainly farm animals there (cows, pigs, goats to name a few) and Wyatt was not too happy about that.  Everything was "hurt me?"  Mike took him into the goat enclosure to feed a baby goat from a bottle and for the rest of the trip we heard, "Goat hurt me?"

 The butterfly gardens.

 A massive set of about 6 windchimes along the nature path.

 Butterfly house.

 Three beautiful flowers.

 The boys loved the mining! 

They each got a bag of rough and ended up with a small bag of pretty stones.

There were several playstructures there.  We found one animal Wyatt is not scared of.

After we said good-bye to Brandi and her children, we headed back to our apartment and went for a swim.