Monday, April 9, 2007

Ho Ho Ho

This weekend we visited South Dakota to attend a friend's retirement party. On the way we stopped in Blue Earth, Mn. While pulling into the gas station, Ethan noticed a big, green, scantily clad guy. No, not the Hulk.
"Look! The Green Giant!" , he said.
So we had to make a detour to visit the Giant and little Sprout.
We could only stay for a minute, because the temperature was 20 degrees with a wind chill of 'igloo'. I think I saw some goose bumps on the Giant's legs. The kids were excited when they saw the statue, until they got out of the van. They literally ran to him, stood for a picture, and ran back to heat. Now we can cross one more 'wonder of the world' off our list. We've already seen the world's largest twine ball in
Darwin, Mn.



Our trip also involved a lot of swimming at the hotel. After the retirement party, we got some pizza. The kids ate one piece each while getting their swimming suits on. Their cousins, Ella and Hope, from Mitchell, SD also came to swim. We swam from 5:30 to 8:00pm and were exhausted. I think we learned a lesson about pool-side rooms. It is fun to be next to the pool, but when the pool closes at 11:00pm, sleep usually starts at 11:00pm too. I can't believe that parents let their kids stay up that late. The next morning Ethan woke up as usual at 6:45am and asked if he could go swimming. Emery heard the word 'swim' and popped out of a deep sleep, like toast from the toaster and jumped into her suit. They had to wait until 8am, when the pool opened, so they swam from 8:00.01 until 10:30am. The 4 hour drive home was pretty quiet, even though Ethan slept for only 1/2 hour and Emery didn't sleep at all. We had a lot of fun on this short trip in spite of the cold weather. It was great to see my sister and her family too.


Emery and Ella.......... Ella and Hope....... Ethan on the log

4 comments:

Denver Dad said...

You know... I think I've actually seen that Green Giant statue! I completely forgot about it, but when I saw that picture, the memory of it came flooding back in! Weird!

My favorite, semi-weird statue in Minnesota has to be the Leif Erickson statue in Duluth, looking out at Lake Superior. There should be more statues of Leif Erickson, in my opinion.

Dad Stuff said...

Believe it or not, but I have been to Duluth many times and have yet to see Leif. I'll look for it next time.
It's too bad people just don't build many giant statues anymore.

Rand said...

Your use of "ho" was much more entertaining than Don Imus' use of the term.

Creative-Type Dad said...

Jolly Green Giant- that's too cool

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I'm a 40 year old dad of two. My wonderful wife, Lady Di, and I try to keep the kids from blowing things up here in central Minnesota.