NW Company Fur Post

We visited the North West Company Fur Post on Sunday.  We had a tour with a costumed guide--she was an Ojibwe woman.  It was a fantastic tour and Henry asked a ton of questions.



Time was spent in a wigwam, the fort, and in the museum looking at the different artifacts.  The kids made miniature birchbark canoes, too.

We came home with a ragdoll kit for Holly to sew, and a Ninepins game for Henry (and Holly) to play with.  I'll have to post pictures of the dolls when they're done, as well as the game!











Sorry the pictures are so small this time--I only had my camera phone with me.  Next time we go, I plan on taking some more.  It's a beautiful area, and it's a really amazing history trip.  I love that my kids' classrooms look like this!

Tall Ships and Duluth--Part Two

After checking out the ships, we headed up the shore a tiny bit, to just outside of town.  The kids wanted to play in the lake some more, and Brad and I wanted to relax by the lake for a bit.

After that, it was time to (reluctantly) go home.  We always love going to Lake Superior.

Tall Ships and Duluth 2011--Part One

Sorry for missing the post on Monday.  I was a little under the weather.  But I've got some good pictures to share today that I hope will make up for it!

Sunday, we headed to Duluth.  We haven't gotten out much this summer, and the Tall Ships were in the harbor for the weekend, so we took a nice day trip.  One benefit was the 20 degree cooler weather by the lake.  It has been obscenely hot this last week here.  It was a comfortable, foggy day in Duluth on Sunday. 

We ate at Pizza Luce (one of our favorite places to eat that has great food and has trained their staff with gluten-free guidelines) practically for free because of the gift cards we got at the Celiac Walk this spring!


Then we took a walk down to Canal Park to get a look at the ships.

Canal Park, with the Lift Bridge in the background.

Fountain in Canal Park

Holly crossing the fountain.

One of the Ships in the Harbor

We played in the water, watched the lift bridge and the boats (and ships), and then saw one of the Tall Ships come sailing in from the lake.  It slowly appeared through the fog, with its rigging disappearing into the clouds above it.  As it approached the harbor, I noticed smoke, as though it had fired its cannon.  Suddenly, there was a loud explosion, a whistling sound that went over our heads and made us duck, and the noise echoed off of the hill the city is situated on!  It was incredible.  The cannon shot sounded real, and it was completely amazing to experience!

Firing the cannon in the fog out on the lake.

That's one happy man right there.  Henry's not as sure about the whole thing.

A few more pictures tomorrow!

A peek into Henry's math class

Henry playing "Timez Attack" on the computer.

The way things are done here

Ackar sits down to enjoy a lovely meal prepared by Sleeping Beauty.  Gresh is about to stop by and join them.

 

 

Radishes

Our first harvest from the smaller garden was on June 21st. They were beautiful radishes; too bad we don't really enjoy them that much. At least we tried!

Age of the Robots

A couple of months ago, Henry joined the 4-H Lego Robotics club in our county. Now, before you think this is just little Lego things you build and play with, think again. He's currently borrowing one of the robots so he can work on programming them. He does the programming on our computer, then plugs the robot into the computer and gets the info. From there, he tests out the robot's programming. Since the robots' configurations can be changed, programming mostly needs to be specific for each robot.. Here is a little taste of what the Lego Mindstorms NXT robots are like.

The robot.

His programming, so far, has included sensors and memorizing movements. For example, he'll make the robot move forward or stop when it senses something in front of it. Or the sensor will tell him the measurement between the robot and the obstacle. As for the memorizing, he's programmed it so that you can move it around on the ground with your hands, let go, push a button, and the robot will replicate your movements. He's really enjoying it and we think that by next year, he'll be ready for the competitions. He'd love to do competitions like the ones you'll see here.