Field Trip Day With Grandma - Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park

The power of water

Last Thursday my mom and I took my nephew and my 2 boys to the Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park. We had a wonderful time! We explored the great visitors center where we saw some local snakes, frogs, toads and turtles. We then played on the rock beach and searched for agates (even found a couple little ones), had a picnic and ended our time there with a walk across the dam. What an impressive site! All that power from our great Mississippi that we cross over every day. The boys even got a lesson from a Pollution Control Agency employee who was collecting samples from each side of the dam to see if the dam made a difference in e-coli growth. They were very interested in how he collected the water and how it was tested. It was a wonderful, impromptu science lesson.

Grandma and the boys

A local resident

Trying to wrap themselves around a 350 yr old Burr Oak tree

Rock hounds with the dam in the background

Eidem Farm Field Trip

On Wednesday the boys and I went with my mom to visit Eidem Farm. It is a historical site just a few suburbs over that we have driven by countless times but never visited. I am so glad we finally did! It is a farm established by a Norwegian immigrant and has been set up to represent what it looked like in 1900. What is so fun for us is that my great-great-great grandfather farmed about a mile from there at the same time. The farm has a free open house every Wednesday from 1P-3P and I highly recommend it if you live in the Twin Cities. There are costumed interpreters who help you pump water, wash and hang clothes, feed the calf, roll a hoop with a stick and poke around the house. No where was there a sign that said don't touch - the kids were able to play the piano, lay in the hammock, swing on the old tree swing (my mom even gave that a try), sit on the old farm implements, poke around the icebox and really get a feel for the place. We will be making a number of visits there this summer I think - maybe even try out one of their teas or summer concerts.

Grandma on the tree swing and the big rolling a hoop which he mastered quite quickly.

The boys petting the goats and the little giving his all at pumping water.