Wisconsin Wanderlust

 

Helmets Required took a field trip to ------- Wisconsin!!  That was uber exciting for Spark who had never been there.  I asked if he thought we needed a passport and that got him even more excited (yes, he knows Wisconsin is in the U.S.)  Before heading over the boarder we stopped for snacks which were enjoyed in this huge Adirondack chair. 

 

 

In Wisconsin we hiked and geocached in a state park. 

 

 

Their tummies called them to lunch at this great ice cream and pizza shop - which had their heads spinning?!



When we planned this field trip it included a boat ride on the river, however,

 

 

the government shut down put the kibosh our excursion.

 

 

We did enjoy hiking and climbing up, down, through, in and over basalt rocks.

 

 

 

Crazy Cat Lady

 

Dancer is ready for Halloween - she's not normally a crazy cat lady :)

Caramel Dipping Sauce

 

This is the simplest way to make caramel sauce ever.

 

1 can sweetened condensed milk.

 

Heat oven to 425 degrees.  Pour the milk into a pie pan and cover with foil.  Put the pie pan in a shallow pan, we used the broiler pan, and fill with about 1/2 inch water. 

 

 

Bake 1 3/4 to 2 hours until thick and caramel-colored. Whisk until smooth.  It will take a few minutes to get it to a creamy consistency, at first you will think you over baked it but it will smooth out.

Turtles On A Log

 

 

Spread Port Wine cheese on celery and top with pepitas. 

My Sweet Kiddos

Had my slipper socks warming for me when I got out of the shower this morning.

Pinterest Busters - Rolo Cookies

Rolo cookies, what could we possibly be trying to bust with a cookie?  Well, how about are they really as good as everyone says, does the Rolo melt into ooey, gooey goodness and are they as easy as a four ingredient cookie can be?  The Helmet Required boys decided to find out.

 

 

Into the bowl they put:

1 box Devils Food Cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 c. oil

and stirred it well.

 

 

They unwrapped the final, and most important ingredient, Rolo candies.  Have plenty of extras of these because a lot of them didn't make it into the bowl.  I think it was something like making sure they were safe to eat so they sampled them.

 

 

Mold a bit of the dough over the Rolo completely covering it.  We aren't looking for golf ball size here, more like a large, red grape.  Place on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 7-8 minutes. Yields about 3 dozen.

 

 

Did we bust the pin?  They were better than everyone says they are, the Rolo was a bite of heaven of ooey, gooey goodness, and they were super simple.  The only thing we found that didn't work out was that they weren't done after 7-8 minutes, we needed to leave them in for 12-15 minutes.

Dam Fishing

 

We met our friends to spend the afternoon fishing and just hanging out by the river.   Our hope was to catch lots of fish.  Technically we did catch lots of fish, we just should have put a qualifier on there that we want to catch lots of "big" fish.  The size of the fish though did not detract from the amount of fun we had.

 

 

Lunch in the sand.

 

 

For the rest of us, we pulled up a rock to perch on.  When the lunch bags were opened, we discovered that we had all packed pb&j.  Does that make pb&j the official sandwich of fishermen?

 

 

The boys didn't do a whole lot of fishing but, they did do a whole lot of exploring.

 

 

 

The skies grew dark and our friends had to leave at 3:00 p.m.  In an odd coincidence, the first lightening cracked at the same time and the rain started to fall.

Llama Carting And Driving

 

We went to this clinic last weekend, not because we plan on getting rid our car and getting a return on all the hay our llamas eat but, because it is another aspect of llama ownership we could explore.  I also like to watch how other owners try to handle their animals.  I say try because, while llamas are quite smart and learn things easily, they know that because of their size we can't make them do anything they don't want to do.

Renaissance Festival

The Renaissance Festival in our state has school day with reduced prices so our homeschool co-op went for the day.  Even all the dads took off of work and went with.

 

 

First thing we get there and right inside the door to the castle the kids get recruited to help in a fight.  This little knight isn't with our group but isn't he a cutie?!

 

The duel was this guy who wanted to stab -

 

this guy.  They were a pretty funny act and were able to get about 25 kids involved in the story.  In the end they feel merciful and let the guy go.

 

 

 

I don't remember mermaid at any of the job fairs I went to in high school or college.  How would one ever get such a job?

 

Dancer looks at this sign and says, "My name isn't Ye, I can go in there."

 

 

No top bar on the stocks so he got away.

 

Look at the size of that wind chime!  I would love to own one of those, they sounded so beautiful.

 

 

I thought he should totally get this hat, we would never have trouble finding him in a store.

 

"Uh, 'frah-gee-lay.' It must be Italian!"

 

 

It was $5.00 to ride the elephant around this ring one time.  Seeing as they ate non-stop, even when they were walking, and I know what the price of hay is, it didn't seem like a bad deal.

 

 

 

We finally found a place to sit down and have something to drink. 

 

This was the coolest thing we saw, a sheep dog herding sheep.  Those dogs are amazing.  I had only seen it done on things like the movie "Babe." which does not capture how well trained those dogs are.

 

Both the kids went on this when they were tiny.  When did they get so big?

 

The legend of Paul Bunyan must be true because who else would have this big of a skull.

 

So excited that our favorite restaurant is back in our state.  Oh, Fuddruckers how we love you.  It has been a couple years since we had a burger and shake from there.  They were as good as we remembered! 

Renaissance Sheilds and Catapults

 

Our co-op was planning a trip to the Renaissance festival and to get the kids excited they made shields.  These were pizza signs, nice and sturdy, the kids painted.  They spent a ton of time on these, some probably three hours.

 

 

They also made catapults.  No directions were given and they came up with some very successful designs. 

 

 

Shooting them off, they all worked!

 

All the shields, these were great.  The little girl in the white dress - the kids made that out of tissue paper.  It is amazing what they can do when left with craft materials and unlimited time.

A Lovely Way To Spend The Afternoon

Get together with some great friends and find a few geocaches.  Enjoy lunch at a pizza place.  Then head over to a fishing museum.

 

 

Work on a scavenger hunt that helps you learn about the pieces in the museum.

 

Have fish envy - she caught that big guy, really she did.

 

Read a good book or two.

 

 

Visit a zoo with friendly donkeys.

 

Feed an adorable calf - Dancer had calf envy too, she wants a little brown Swiss to call her own.

 

Help a bear in a tree.

 

Feed and watch absolutely adorable prairie dogs. 

 

 

See a turtle lay on his tummy after he ran the length of his home.  Yes, we are sure he was running.

 

And there you have it, a lovely afternoon.