Our heroes - Ironman and Spiderman!

October was a month of fun for Zach and Alex. As I mentioned in the last post, it started out with a couple of visits to the Scarecrow Festival. The end of the month was packed with a trip to the circus, seeing one of their favorite cartoons, Phineas and Ferb from the Disney Channel, in a live show, and their first Cub Scout activities – their first Den meeting and their first Pack meeting where they got to race their own rockets in the Pack’s Space Derby.

And then there was that little kid-favorite holiday, Halloween. The boys decided to go as superheroes this year; Alex was Spiderman and Zach was Ironman. They had a costume parade at school, went trick-or-treating at the local businesses downtown and later hit a few homes near a friends’ house. We even had a special dinner that night, something we were calling Stuffed Jack ‘O Peppers, which were quite tasty!

The boys show their ferocious faces (?) at the zoo

Check out the Sept-Oct 2011 photo album for pics from these events – there are some really good ones in there! You can also check out a visit to the MN Zoo to see the new penguin exhibit after a recent remodel at the zoo in the Nov-Dec 2011 album.

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Tags: Alex, family outing, Halloween, Scouts, Zach, zoo

On the train and ready for a ride

Continuing on from the last post… The following day, we spent a day at Circus World Museum in Baraboo, which was the winter headquarters of the Ringling Bros. circus for many years. Zach and Alex even got to be *in* one of the circus shows, staring as an elephant and a tiger!

That evening, Joe and I escaped..er… went out for date night, enjoying a wonderful dinner at a cafe in downtown Dells and then playing some mini golf.

The next day was “Train Day” with lunch at Buffalo Phil’s, which brings out drinks and food to guests via model trains. When they’re not carrying food, they deliver smiles with favorite character toys and gadgets like bubble makers. There’s also an arcade there, so we had some fun playing games after lunch. From there, we visited our favorite train museum – the Riverside & Great Northern Railway, where Papa and Joe are members.

The final day of the trip, we had fun playing around our resort – go-carts, mini golf (indoor and outdoor) and the outdoor waterpark. We did it all!

Check out all the rest of the pictures in the Dells 2011 photo album .

Tags: circus, Dells, family outing, train, vacation

The Vandermarks with Paul Bunyan

The 5 of us took a fantastic family trip to the Wisconsin Dells in August with Grandma Pat and Papa Bob. We stayed in the Glacier Canyon Lodge at the Wilderness Resort, where we were able to enjoy all sorts of fun things – indoor and outdoor waterparks and mini golf, go-carts, arcade games and more. We also visited some of our favorite Dells attractions: the Ducks, the R&GN Railway trains, Mt. Olympus amusement park and Circus Museum.

We took a ton of pictures so I split them into batches. The first couple of days, including some swim time and arcade games at the resort, a WI Duck tour, rides at Mt. Olympus and dinner at Paul Bunyan’s Shanty, have been posted to the Dells 2011 photo album. Enjoy!

Tags: Dells, family outing, Grandma Pat, Papa Bob, vacation