Day 7 - Mall of America!

We are onto Day 7!  Unfortunately there are no pictures to go with this days blog because I forgot my camera in the car...like the dumb dumb I am.  BUT there was a lot of fun happening that I can describe.

Today we traveled from Duluth to Minneapolis to go see the Mall of America!  The students were really excited about all they were going to do today.  We got on the road, eventually, and we got to the Mall of America around 10:00.  It took a little bit to find parking, get everyone organized, find a bathroom! and figure out a plan.  Basically we decided to wander around the mall until noon for lunch.  We split up into three groups and went on our way.  I had three girls and three boys with me, luckily my mom came with so I had a little help wrangling them in.  My mom describes them in the mall and trying to watch them as trying to wrangle cats...a tad difficult.  They got to see a lot of different stores, the candy store being their favorite!  They got "blood" packs, they thought that this candy was genius!  They also looked at a store that had nothing but hats, that was pretty cool to them too.

We started heading towards the food court and our girls got highjacked by a beautician so they all got mini make overs, complete with make up and colored streaks in their hair...they looked adorable!  While the girls were being made over the boys were being introduced to the bands that help you balance.  They had a lot of fun testing them out.  I finally had to drag them away so we could stay on schedule.  We found the food court and enjoyed a delicious Arby's lunch...YUM!  We had a few issues trying to find the other groups but eventually we regrouped. 

At 1 we went to the Sea Life Aquarium in the Mall of America.  If you haven't gone you should GO!  It was so much fun.  We first got a back stage pass and they took us around the aquarium.  We got to see them feed the sharks, learn how they take care of sick animals, and how they feed all the animals in the aquarium.  It was super interesting.  The students also learned about the intelligence of octopuses, the life spans of sea horses, and a bunch more...just in the back stage tour.  Our tour guide was very friendly and also very helpful and informative.  After the tour we got to go through the aquarium.  It's so neat!  They have an exhibit that shows what tide pools look like, they have a whole section with A LOT of jellyfish, and big tanks that you walk through in see through tunnels.  The first tunnel we went through had a shark sitting on top of it!  Sheila let out an interesting squeal when we pointed that out to her :D  They also had a broken statue of Poseidon in the larger tank and all the students were excited to ID him, gotta love that Greek Mythology unit!   Of course we ended in the gift shop but it was a lot of fun.  Mom bought all of the students a mini ID flip book that they could use to figure out what fish they saw and as a keep sake from the aquarium.  We all love her! 

Next was Nickelodeon Land!!  Let me tell you....TALK ABOUT FUN!   Most of our students, like 99% of them, have NEVER been on any type of roller coaster....ever!  When we first got there we all went on the log shoot.  For those of you that know the old Camp Snoopy it's the Paul Bunyan log shoot.  They all loved it and bought some pretty hilarious pictures of us going down the shoot.  Then it was roller coaster after roller coaster.  There was A LOT of screaming.  At one point I was crying so hard from all the high pitched screaming that was going on.  I had to be a couple of student's "roller coaster buddy" but a lot of them put on their brave faces and went for it.  A couple of the students weren't into high motion rides so they got a couple of snacks and one student got a characture (sp??) of herself and a lot of them thought this was so cool!  They all stood around while the picture was finished.  They also were introduced to Dip N Dots!  No one believed me that it was ice cream!  It took a lot of convincing and taste testing to prove that it was indeed ice cream.  Next I took them to bumper cars.  I figured for the students that aren't big into the fast rides this might be a better pace.  They loved them!  I swear everyone went on the bumper cars at least 4 times a piece! 

We only had two hours on our passes, which worked out wonderfully because we had dinner reservations at 5 and the tickets started at 3.  We were getting close to five so we split up and hit the final rides that we wanted to hit.  All in all this was a big hit with the students.  No one walked away complaining.

Our next stop was Rainforest Cafe.  This is one of my favorite restaurants in the Mall of America.  It's set up like a rainforest and they have thunderstorms every 45 minutes...so cool!  We were a tad late...one student "wandered off" for a bit, but luckily the people working rocked and they found us a place.  We were seated by a giant statue of Atlas, again with the Greek Mythology, and we had a mini review session about the Olympians and Titans...wow we're nerds!  The first thunder storm happened about 10 minutes after we were there, there was a lot of "ooohhhh" and "Ahhhhhhhh"s.  There were also a lot of fish tanks, so they were entertained.  Dinner was on a select menu and of course...they all chose hamburgers!  You'd think that they would be sick of them but nope...they stick with what they know.

After dinner we went shopping again.  Let me tell you...I'm pretty sure I'm going to get A LOT of angry emails from moms in Kong because I introduced the girls to Claires....their new favorite store!  We also hit the Disney store and Hot Topic....all popular.  The boys checked out game world or whatever the store is that has tons of electronics and games.  Yeah...getting them out of there was a challenge!  Luckily we had the walkie talkies to keep in communication with Oscar and his group because they wandered away from the rest of us and the mall is a tad large...so finding them would have been tricky.  Eventually we all regrouped and headed back to the hotel.

One interesting fact about this day of the trip is that it was 103 degrees outside!  Minneapolis was the hottest city in the entire US that day!  The humidity was ridiculous as well.  Sheila and I were so thankful that we chose to stay inside that day of the trip.  I'm pretty sure the students would have died otherwise.  Just walking to the car was pretty difficult for them.  It was hot in the mall as well but not nearly as bad as it would have been outside!

That night we settled down in our AWESOME hotel.  We stayed at Cambria Hotel and it's a NICE hotel!  The students walked into their rooms and couldn't believe it.  They kept saying we were VIP!  We relaxed the rest of the night and journaled about our day.  They were all pretty exhausted so it didn't take a lot of convincing that we should go to bed.  :D

Day 6 - Nature

* P.S  It has taken over 3 days for be to be able to publish this post!!  Blogger apparently hates me at the moment.  Sorry for the delay.*

We have come to day 6 of our trip, only 4 more days to go!

Today we were a bit nervous because the weather man told us that it was going to rain. We have been blessed with awesome weather so far on our trip and we were really bummed that it was going to rain. Today we went to Gooseberry Falls and the Split Rock Lighthouse, both of which are OUTSIDE.  We had the students pack warm clothes and jackets just in case it did rain.  Our luck held out though, it was a BEAUTIFUL day!  HA Mr. Weather man!

We got everyone up, had another awesome breakfast, and started out for Gooseberry Falls.  Gooseberry Falls is a National Park, north of Duluth.  When we got there all the students were whining and asking what we were going to do there. For those of you that don't know me, when people whine at me and ask me the same questions over 50 times, my sarcasm tends to come out...heavily.  So I was answering with, "We're going to climb a mountain for an hour!" or "We going to wander in the woods because Sheila and I think it would be fun!"  Neither of these suggestions were popular with the students.  We started out in the park and walked for about 10 minutes before we saw the first waterfalls.  We started at the lower falls and then worked our way down.  As soon as they saw the first waterfalls all the whining vanished and they were mesmerized.  They loved the fact that they could climb on the rocks around the water and touch the waterfalls.  I practiced skipping rocks with some of the students, found out I was a tad rusty.

Touching a waterfall for the 1st time

Group shot by the falls

Mom and Sheila taking in the sights

Climbing a tree because she can

While wandering to the upper falls we met a naturalist who had a little table set up and he taught the students about how Minnesota and Gooseberry Falls were made millions of years ago, with the glacier and all that jazz. We spent nearly two hours wandering the park and just hanging outside.  It was a lot of fun to watch them explore.  We had a due date with Split Rock lighthouse and still needed to get lunch so we had to leave, all too soon.

Listening to the naturalist

For lunch we went to Betty's Pies.  If you have never been to Betty's Pies then YOU are missing out! I love this place and the students are now park of the "I love Betty's Pies" fan club. We all had lunch and my mom, the generous woman that she is, bought each student a piece of pie :D It was a great lunch!

Next we set out for Split Rock Lighthouse, or where I THOUGHT it was. I lived in Duluth for 5 years and I could have sworn that Split Rock was outside of the town of Two Harbors.  Well I was right and I was wrong.  Split Rock is outside of Two Harbors, just in the opposite direction of where I thought it was!  Apparently there is ANOTHER lighthouse called the Two Harbors Lighthouse.  Color me surprised!  I had no idea that there were two lighthouses so close to Duluth.  My ignorance was hilarious to the students.  Honestly, I had never heard of the Two Harbors Lighthouse, which is sad because had I known I would have brought the students to that one as well.  Well, I learned something!

Eventually we made it to Split Rock Lighthouse, my ignorance and road construction made us a tad late, shocking.  The people at Split Rock were super nice about it and we started our tour in no time. Split Rock is a beautiful spot!  They pulled up all the materials for the lighthouse and the three houses with it up a cliff! It's insane!  The houses are so nice and even way back in the early 1900's they had running water! Sheila made a joke about this because a governor of Alaska was once quoted in saying that he wanted the honey bucket in the museum by 2000, it's 2011 and the village STILL have honey buckets galore.  So needless to say, Sheila was a tad peeved that they had running water way back then, on a remote cliff, and they still don't have it at home.

Learning how Split Rock was built

Lighthouse Keeper teaching them how the lighthouse works

Looking at the weight

The tour guide took us through one house that was set for the time.  We also went through another building and learned about what made Split Rock Lighthouse unique from the other lighthouses around Lake Superior and how it came into    existence. They also got to hear the sound of the horn that the lighthouse used but at only a tenth of the sound. The students got the tour guide to blow it twice, pretty hilarious.  Next we got to tour the actual lighthouse and a guy in there told the students what was required of a lighthouse keeper and the jobs that they had to do. They also learned what kept the light up and how it rotated. This section of the tour was really interesting. Sadly, it was cut a little short because we had to make the movie, which was a bummer because the movie was not very good.  Everyone, including Sheila, fell asleep. I think I was one of five people in that whole theater that didn't fall asleep...that's how interesting it was.

After the movie we took everyone outside to take a group shot in front of the lighthouse and to take pictures with the cut outs, you know, the board that stands up and you can put your face into the scene. The students LOVE taking pictures with these. After going through the gift shop we headed back to Duluth. I wanted to take Sheila through the scenic drive back to Duluth but it's under construction! Talk about a let down.  So we took the quicker way home.

We only had about an hour before we had to be to dinner so I took everyone to Park Point so that they could swim in Lake Superior. For our entire stay in Duluth the students have learned about Lake Superior and ridden on top of it but they hadn't touched it yet. We had to fix that. This was my favorite part of the day. They had so much fun and were so excited that they could now say they have swam in the largest fresh water lake in surface area and one of the great lakes :D  It was cold and there was a lot of squealing going on but they all said it was worth it. I had a lot of students running back and forth between the beach and the cars to quickly change into swimsuits and some that just ran in fully clothed. All in all, perfect ending to the day.

Going in fully clothed!

It was COLD!

Burying themselves in the sand

Playing in Superior

We finally got everyone out of the lake about an hour later and went to the Duluth Grill.  This restaurant is amazing!!  They promote organic food and try to buy as locally as possible.  They are as green as a restaurant can be.  They also promote local art and have a garden on their lot to bring more green into the city.  Truly brilliant!  They even took all the students on a tour through the kitchens to show them what they are about and what they are trying to promote.  The students loved it and they loved the food too.  It was all so good and again, the food really helped to expand their palates and to not focus on the same familiar food.  The Duluth Grill even worked out a budget so that all the students could get a dessert.  They were really wonderful and we were so glad that we got to enjoy dinner there.

That night was full of swimming, as usual.  The water park closed at 9 so they didn't get to go to the water park but they did get to swim in the outside pool, which was OK with all of them. I did get my camera out there this time and shot a few pictures.  Oscar was seal hopping into the pool and shooting the students up out of the water.  They were having so much fun!  Sheila and I watched from the hot tub, the perfect place in my opinion.   We got kicked out of the pool at 10 and all the students reluctantly went back to their rooms.  We had everyone journal in their rooms and we handed out post cards of Gooseberry Falls and Split Rock Lighthouse.

Oscar seal hopping into the pool

One thing that we have been making the students do each night, well some of them do it without being told, is we have them journal about everything they learned that day and what they saw and heard.  We're trying to improve their writing and also help them remember everything that they see that day.  So far it's been a lot to take in and we know that they'll forget a lot of it unless we get them to write it all down.  Also, we have to give a presentation about the trip when we get back to Kong in the fall for the entire village and the LKSD school board, if they ask for it.  It's a way to show the village and the school board that this trip was not just a pleasure cruise but that the students did learn something.  Hopefully these journals will also be something they can read later on and remember all the cool things they got to do on this once in a lifetime trip :D

A lot of people think I'm being "dramatic" by this statement but unfortunately it's true.  Most of our students will never come back to the lower 48 or leave Alaska.  A large portion may never leave the village.  This isn't a sad statement but a true one.  Sheila and I did not take these kids on this trip to try to persuade them that village life is bad and this life is good.  We did this to just help open their eyes and allow them to connect to all the information that they've been taught in school.  Now when someone asks them about the great lakes they have information to pull from. If a standardized test asks them a question that involves a road trip, they have background information to pull from that wasn't there before.  Most of the simple experiences that we've had they've never encountered.  Their life is rich in many, MANY ways but when it comes to the average life experiences that are included in state standardized tests and books, they are lacking.   We're hoping this trip will give them a leg up and also one heck of a good time :D

Another aspect that we started is Sheila or I, and sometimes my mom, will buy each student a postcard of the places we've been so they can have a picture of the places they've visited.   Each student needs to get their journal OK'd by either me or Sheila before they can go do other things.   Usually before they can go swimming they need to journal and get it OK'd

That was it for Day 6.  We had the students go to bed pretty early, I think around midnight, because the next day was going to be a LONG day.  We are headed for Minneapolis and the Mall of America!!  Stay tuned!

Day 5 - Craziness!!

So again, for those of you that are just starting to read this, I apologize for being so behind on updating this blog.  It was a crazy last couple of days and there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done.

Day 5 - Our first full day in Duluth

We started out the day by waking up and having breakfast at the hotel.  The Edge Resort has a fabulous breakfast!!  We had eggs and sausage, fruit, bagels, the works!  It was the best breakfast we had had so far.  Then to make it even better, my good friend Issac Miner brought us donuts from Super One!!  They were delicious :D He also brought us a bunch of water which was totally needed.  Our kids aren't used to the heat at all.  The tundra, where we are at, has a temperate climate so the hottest it gets is maybe 72 and that's a freak accident.  Usually it's in the mid 60's for most of the summer.  So Issac rocks and we all loved him for the donuts/water.

Next we headed out to downtown Duluth to take a ride on the Vista Star, a part of the Vista Fleet.  For those of you who have never gone on one of these cruises I encourage you to go!  Vista Fleet is an attraction where they take you out onto Lake Superior and the harbor.  You learn so much!  It's a completely different perspective of Duluth.  The students had a pretty good time.  They liked being out on the water and really got to see how BIG Superior is, again a whole different perspective.  They learned how deep Lake Superior is, deepest point being 1,333 feet deep give or take a mile.  That's crazy to them.  The furthest out in the ocean they've been is 60-90 feet deep.  They also got to learn about the lift bridge and see it go up and down, that was entertaining to watch.  We all learned a lot about the big boats that were floating around as well.  I'm glad that was covered on the cruise because they kept asking questions and I don't know a whole lot about the shipping business on Lake Superior.

Getting ready to take off

They blew the horn....it was LOUD!

  

Mom tagged along for this part of the trip and joined us throughout the day.  The best quote of the day came when the ship's crew led a pop quiz, the question being "What are the names of the 5 great lakes?"  Last year our students learned about the great lakes and the acronym HOMES.  We were reminding them of this, so they could win the prize, when one of my students asked me, "Which lake does the S stand for?"  I looked at her and said, "You mean the one we're floating on right now and you've been learning about for the past hour?"  Yeah, she got it then.  My mom and Sheila were just cracking up, definitely a blonde moment.  One of our students did win that pop quiz, and later on, at the end of the cruise, another one of our students won the last pop quiz for guessing the average temperature of Lake Superior. 

Charlotte with her prize after guessing the average temp of Lake Superior

Marcus with his candy for naming the 5 great lakes

In the harbor they have a mini island that's a bird sanctuary and all the boys could think about was "lunch!"  They kept making bird calls and repeating how they wish they had their guns.  They are all craving bird soup from home and seeing all those birds didn't help :D

Looking at the water

Group shot on the boat

All in all it was a great experience and the students liked being on the water for the morning.  It ended up being a 2 hour cruise, so by the end they were ready to do something else.

We had lunch at Grandma's, my personal favorite restaurant in Canal Park.  The waiter was SO nice!  We had already pre-ordered our food so it didn't take long for us to eat.  Everyone either had a steak, which was delicious!, or shrimp.  I was so happy that they didn't have hamburgers on the menu.  Sheila and I really wanted them to experience more foods as well as activities and Grandma's gave us a great menu to choose from that helped expand their palates a bit.

Group shot with our awesome waiter

Kyle trying a lemon....obviously he loved it!

Our next stop was the Great Lakes Aquarium.  I love this aquarium!  I volunteered there for around 2 years, teaching an outreach program, and then worked there for another 2-3 years.  The greatest people work there and it truly is a fabulous place to visit.  My mom has to visit every time she's in Duluth.  So of course, I had to make sure our students got to visit.  They don't know that much about fresh water and the plants and animals involved so they really learned a lot.  It was a huge hit!  They really enjoyed the giant fish tanks and how they got to look up in certain ones.  They also enjoyed dancing with the birds and touching the fresh water sting rays.

Touching the fresh water sting rays

Touching the lake sturgeon

Another crazy thing that happened was that three news stations and the Duluth News Tribune showed up to interview me, Sheila and the students about our trip.  For our shy students this was NUTS!!  Afterward they couldn't stop talking about how they got to be interviewed and what they said, it was a totally new experience.  I was interviewed a couple of times about the trip, as was Sheila.  Fox 21 news asked me if I could pick out a student that they could follow around during their visit and I chose our most outgoing student, Charlotte.  It was great!  Later on that night we saw the news report and Charlotte was so fun to watch!  I have all the links at the bottom of the page, I hope you'll check them out!

A moose!  Something we're familiar with

playing with the green screen

  



I can't believe how interested everyone was, it was a complete shock to see all these people wanting to talk to all of us.  Lindsay Brandt. a friend and employee at the aquarium, tipped me off that the press was interested but I was truly surprised by it all, as was the rest of our crew.  I do want to send a huge thank you to the GLA staff for putting up with us and setting up the press, you guys all truly rock :D

After the students toured the aquarium and the cameras had left they got to participate in a "Lake Lab" class with Lindsay.  It was so fun!  The students first acted like they were bored but they quickly changed their minds.  They learned about the composition of a lake, the food chain, and about the plankton and other tiny animals that live in the lakes.  Lindsay had them dress up like the different elements of the food chain:  Sun, zoo plankton, phyto plankton, some sort of bug, a fish, a fisherman, and a decomposer.  The outfits were hilarious and the students really got into it.

The food chain!  Look at those costumes

Getting water samples

Checking out their samples

Pouring their samples into their bottles

After that section they learned about invasive species, namely the zebra mussel, and went out to the lake to take samples of the water.  The students really loved the hands on part of this experiment, getting to use actual scientific tools to collect water samples from the lake made them feel important.  Not a lot of our students feel confident when it comes to science and this lab helped them feel confident about what they were learning about.  As soon as the students got the water samples they brought them back into the classroom and took samples to look under a microscope.  This part was very enlightening for them.  They had to identify what type of plankton they had in their samples and it was a shock to a lot of them when they actually found one and could ID it!!  There was a lot of yelling, "Mayo!  Come!  Look at this!"  Sheila, Oscar, Mom and I were running from student to student, looking at different plankton and encouraging them to keep looking for more.  We could have done this all day but unfortunately it was getting late so all to soon we had to say good bye to the lab.

Getting samples to look at

Using the microscopes to ID the plankton

I love that all of them have their hands on their heads...

The last treat for the day was we got to have a backstage tour of the aquarium.  The students got to learn how they filter all the tanks.  We also got to see the kitchen and what they feed the animals.  Let me tell you, the bag of frozen mice did NOT go unnoticed.  We also got to see the animals that were not on display for whatever reasons.  There were a couple of birds and fish, but the biggest attraction was Bob the Ball Python!  Most of them had NEVER seen a snake up close before.  Bob was a shock to a lot of them and not only did they get to see him but they got to TOUCH him!!  It was a crazy experience for a lot of them but they were grinning ear to ear when we left the aquarium.

Touching Bob the Ball Python!!

Otters!!

Group Shot!

After we thanked everyone at the aquarium, we headed back to the hotel.  It had been a long day and they were tired.  We were doubly blessed today because the director of the aquarium, Jack LaVoy, contacted Todd Torvinen, who is connected with the Edge Resort, and he brought us dinner!  We got chicken and ribs!  Talk about amazing!  Again Jack and everyone else from the Great Lakes Aquarium were so great to us and we were all so thankful!

After dinner....it was WATER PARK TIME!!!  The best part about the Edge's water park is that it is shallow.  A lot of our students cannot swim or if they do swim, not very well.  The water park was nice and shallow so the students felt comfortable swimming and going down the water slides.  Sheila and I joined them and it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!  You have never seen 14 more happier kids in your life.  They were having a blast.  Later on Sheila and I took them to the hot tub, a first for most of them!  They kept telling me it was a maqii (steam bath) only with way more water!  Later on we went to the outside pool and that was great too!  They got to swim outside...at night...OOOOHHHH.  Sheila and I also taught some of them how to float on their back and helped them learn how to swim.  One of our girls did not know how to swim but by the end of that night she graduated from holding on to the side of the pool to paddling around instead.  We were very proud of her!  Needless to say it took a crowbar to get them out of the pool.  I wish we had more pictures of them swimming but we were too busy joining in that neither Sheila nor I thought to bring the camera.

That night I spent a lot of time fixing "ouchies" from the pool.  The floor was a bit rough and their feet and toes got beat up a bit.  I used up a lot of band aides but they all said it was worth it.  I got a picture of some of the students, and Sheila, showing off their battle scars of the trip so far.   Once everyone got showered, dried off, and ready for bed, they fell asleep pretty quickly.  It was a very long day!

Showing off their battle scars

Here are the links to the news stories and for the Duluth News Tribune story on us:

http://www.fox21online.com/news/field-trip-lifetime
http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/local/Alaska-Students-Visit-Duluth-123205878.html
http://www.wdio.com/article/stories/S2142607.shtml?cat=10335
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/200992/

I highly recommend the Fox 21 story!  Charlotte is very entertaining to see :D

Day 4 - Bonanzaville and St. Cloud

On the Road Again....

Day 4 we got up early and headed toward Fargo, ND.  Our destination was Bonanzaville.  Now, our students are not used to getting up early so we had some very cranky 8th graders on our hands for most of the morning.   Before we left Wahpeton we took a picture with the Circle of Nations sign and the newspaper from Bethel.  The newspaper doesn't really show but our students crankiness does :D

Anywho....we got to Bonanzaville and they were just opening.  We were given a mini introduction and a hand out/scavenger hunt.  Judy, a family friend, told me that she used to bring her students to Bonanzaville and that they enjoyed the scavenger hunt, so Sheila and I decided to let our students give it a try.  It was a lot of fun!!  They had to basically go into most of the houses on the property and answer a question on the scavenger hunt, plus a interesting fact that they learned.  Our students were not excited about reading anything but the scavenger hunt helped to motivate them to actually learn something about ND in the early 1900's.  Sheila and I had a little pack that followed us around and the rest scattered like the wind.

The favorite of the boys was the collection of old boat motors, they loved looking at them and wanted to take them back home for their kayaks.  We looked at planes too, another favorite of theirs.  They had buildings with tractors, phones through the ages, an old drug store, etc. etc.  If anyone is interested, just visit http://www.bonanzaville.com/  It was a lot of fun to visit and the students learned a lot.

Visualizing riding on the Kuskokwim

OOHH...guns :D

Mimicking the officers

Group Shot!

We stopped at Speedway Restaurant for lunch.  The restaurant was nice and all the students who completed their scavenger hunt got a pop, so ALL of them completed it.  While we were waiting, one of our students found a sign that said "Thirsty?  Just whistle"  I've connected a video of it, it was hilarious because we got the waitress to bring his drink to him...after he whistled.

Our next stop was my mom's house in Sauk Rapids, basically St. Cloud, MN.  It's around a 3 hour drive from Fargo to St. Cloud so a lot of our students fell asleep while driving there.  Though the first hour of the trip I listened to A LOT of music that I wasn't really fond of.  Sheila and I both bought a cord to be able to connect our iPods with the van.  So, I got to listen to our students music and I have to say I'm really behind on the music scene because listening to their music was painful!  We also played I Spy with the walkie Talkies between the vans...that is entertaining.  Luckily, after about an hour, they all fell asleep so I could listen to my music and chill out for a bit. 

 

When we got to mom's house, all the students immediately went into the water.  My mom's house is on the Mississippi River and we have a dock in the backyard, with a boat and jet skis.  We were literally there for 2 minutes and everyone was in the water.  I quickly got my swimsuit on and my sister Caitlin and I took students out on the jet skis.  It was so much fun and they loved the jet skis!  Caitlin and I like to do tricks on the jet skis and luckily the students didn't mind.  Well...Sheila called me a few interesting names when I took her out but it was worth it, and I knocked Oscar off (our male chaperon) but he didn't mind.  This was the first time for all the students to be on a jet ski.  Most of our students cannot swim or they can swim but not well.  The only opportunity for swimming is at fish camp in the summer and they don't have a lot of time to swim or anyone to teach them, usually. 

Sheila and Charlene on the trampoline

It was a great afternoon.  They swam, went on the jet ski, jumped on the trampoline, and played badminton.  Again, these activities were a lot of first for the students.  Sheila got an amazing bruise on her shoulder from a trampoline incident with a student, both of them were crying they were laughing so hard.  My mom set up dinner for us and the students got to enjoy supper in between swimming and playing games.  They also got to try Shapska salad, a Serbian salad that my step dad makes all the time.  New food on top of the regular hamburger and brats. 

Relaxing in the sun

Unfortunately we had to leave to drive to Duluth, MN, another 2.5 hour drive from St. Cloud.  The students were sad to leave but they heard that the hotel we were staying at had a pool so they eventually got over it and got in the cars.  We had our "Minnesota Good bye" and thanked my mom and family for putting up with us.  It was another long car ride and not a lot of sleeping this time, they were too excited over swimming. 

My favorite part of the drive to Duluth is driving down the hill right when you enter Duluth.  Luckily we had the walkie talkies so I had everyone watch entering Duluth, they all loved the view!  There were a lot of, "Oh!  So Cool!"  bouncing around the van. 

Group Shot!

When we got to Duluth we went to the Edgewater Resort to check in.  We got some great rooms!  The boys were set up in a room that had two sets of bunk beds, a pull out bed and a king size bed!  They were totally comfortable.  Us girls got a room with two queen beds and a pull out.  Luckily, we got rooms that were connected so Sheila and I each took a room with 4 girls each.  I took the pull out just so I could get a little room at night to sleep.  We didn't get to Duluth until around 12:30 am so it was too late for the students to go to the water park...BUT...we had an excellent view of it and the students were So excited to swim the next day.

Luckily, the students were pretty tired after their big day of walking all morning and swimming all afternoon, that they all went to bed pretty early, around 1:30 am.  We got a couple of hours of sleep.