Yesterday The Wife started populating the calendar for the upcoming months with a variety of things for the family to do with the kids. She’s incredibly good at finding kid-friendly and fun events for us to do together which aren’t just fun for kids but both of us too. While I remember doing some things as a kid, I mostly just have clips here and there and hazy recollections of things my parents would talk about. These recollections were probably their memories of the good times they had taking me around to do things and I have to admit I am excited to have those same memories.
Upcoming events:
1. Minnesota Children’s Museum.
- We’ve never been here but with the rave reviews of so many others, we just had to give it a try.
- We’ve taken two rides on the Harriet-Como Streetcar now, once this summer and once this fall for the Pumpkin Patch event. The Rooster loves it and it’s really inexpensive. He can remember things about his first trip several months when you bring it up that makes me wonder if he’ll remember it for years. The Holly Trolley gives a ride on the streetcar, Santa is on the trolley and there is a bonfire with hot dogs and cider. For a few dollars and a lot of smiles this is a good one.
3. Okee Dokee Brothers at the Cedar Cultural Center
- The Rooster loves this band who normally perform free at local library events during the year. He routinely asks for them to be played in the car (we don’t have any of their music on CD or MP3) so we looked it up and saw they had a show right next to one of our all time favorite cheap-eats restaurant, The Wienery. What better way to spend a Saturday morning than eating hot dogs and watching the kid clap along to kid-friendly bluegrass?
- I saw this advertised a few times and a more in-depth article on it yesterday. It says:
“The castle will be made of icicles grown from 4 million gallons of water and then fused together. It will join 50 large ice towers together to create a series of archways, tunnels, walls and caverns. An ice tower in the center courtyard will rise more than 40-feet high, the mall said. There also will be several “throne rooms” with ice chairs large enough to seat several people at once. At night, thousands of LED multi-colored lights will illuminate the castle.
Tickets will cost $5 for children ages 3-12 and $10 for adults.”
While that’s quite a bit of money to see a bunch of lit up ice, something you can see in almost any Minnesota parking lot at that time of year, The Rooster loves his castles and it sounds like something nice to do instead of sitting at home whining about the cold.
5. The Canadian Pacific Holiday Train
- We did this one last year and I was incredibly surprised at just how much fun it was standing in the middle of a frontage road in Cottage Grove waiting in the dark for a train to arrive that was all lit up with holiday lights. Once the trail stopped and the car opened showing off a rockabilly band, all my confusion melted away as we danced with The Rooster on our shoulders eating cookies and hot chocolate. We can’t wait to do it all over again.
So what are your favorite fall/winter activities that you do as a family or personally to beat the cold weather blues? Have you done any of these? Any to add? Plans to add these to your own lists? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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October 26th, 2012 at 7:46 am
Drinking too much to escape interacting with my disfunctional extendend famliy. Been a tradition since 1985.
October 26th, 2012 at 8:14 am
The Canadian Pacific Holiday Train is awesome and I would echo Bills comments on this one. Didn’t make it to Cottage Grove last year but went previous years when it was stopping in St. Paul….it doesn’t stop in St. Paul anymore and I’m assuming that is due to the Lafayette Bridge construction.
Oh and they ask for a donation for local food shelves so in addition to seeing a cool train and listening to music you can also help the needy :)
October 26th, 2012 at 8:19 am
Another inexpensive holiday event is the Grand Meander. Free fire truck rides, trolley rides (for the kids, I mean) and cheap soup tasting from the litany of restaurants on the street. It is always a good kid friendly kind of Saturday Morning/afternoon. Here is a link.
https://www.grandave.com/events/grand-meander
October 26th, 2012 at 9:14 am
The wife has brought the kids to the Children’s Museum several times and loves it. She recommends going during the week if possible specifically on a “field trip free” day. I think it used to be Tuesdays but I am not sure.
Also, the library has free museum passes that can be checked out for the Children’s Museum and several others. They don’t seem hard to get.
October 26th, 2012 at 9:36 am
Thanks for sharing this list Bill, I’m going to those to our to-do list. We also enjoy our Science Museum Membership in the winter, lots of hands on activities and we’ll usually walk to Cossetta’s (sp?) for lunch.
October 26th, 2012 at 9:39 am
Ryan, go to DiGidios down the street instead; at least it’s edible: http://www.lazylightning.org/degidios-restaurant-and-bar-st-paul-mn
October 26th, 2012 at 5:12 pm
Free Halloween event in Rosemount is the Haunted Trail the kids seem to always have a good time there and this year is the 30th year it has been going on last year there were 3,000 kids that showed up. Fun seeing all the different costumes and the free coffee and cocoa are perfect to keep warm as you meander along the trail and the kids get their candy.
It is tomorrow night (10/27) for those interested.
October 27th, 2012 at 4:05 am
DiGidios (sp?) has a really great hot dago. Carbones, Angelos — they don’t compare.
October 27th, 2012 at 7:52 am
Congrats to cripes on their 100th comment!
October 27th, 2012 at 2:35 pm
Winter is mostly about obligation these days. I just started hockey season today (coaching Mites) and I really enjoy that. We ice skate as a family several times. Lebanon Hills has winter mountain biking and I plan on getting over there as much as possible. They also have snowshoes and XC skis for families that want to try that. Given more time and the right weather I’d probably have my cross-country skis out more. Ice fishing too.
October 28th, 2012 at 1:55 am
My daughter has lots of good memories from the Children’s Museum, Science Museum and MN History Center. We made an annual ritual of going to the Gibbs Farm All Souls evening event, but that sadly ended after more than a decade two years ago. We still miss it.
Later this winter you might want to check out the Art Shanty Project at Medicine Lake. It gets better every year. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/29/146042470/minnesota-festival-on-ice-melts-arts-boundaries
October 28th, 2012 at 7:26 am
I am really looking forward to Kevin Kling’s storytelling. This year it’s at the Fitzgerald Theater Fri/Sat/Sun of Thanksgiving weekend. For me, his shows are the best thing about the holidays, HANDS DOWN! He doesn’t do a show every year, but most of the time he does something. Here’s an old video from 20 years ago of one of my favorite stories:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8vpV_qZ6HQ
November 1st, 2012 at 8:52 pm
Children’s museum is a must-do. Still have fond memories of being an ant, shopping for food, riding the pretend bus and making it thunder in the various exhibits that were there at the time.
Going to try curling this year and get into cross country skiing. Both in an attempt to be more active and “embrace the season”. We’ll see how it goes.