Make your own Bubble Tea!

After a trek to two different Asian grocery stores, we came home to make our very own bubble tea! Mane was pining after some good bubble tea after standing out in the hot sun this morning. She's a particular fan of mango smoothies with lychees jellies and tapioca pearls. I'm not a fan of spending $4 for a beverage at the bubble tea place. So, we set out to have a cultural cooking experience and make our own!

Our first stop was Shuang Hur Oriental Market on Nicollet Avenue. (This is where we bought banana leaves to wrap the lembas for Mane's Lord of the Rings birthday party.) We found lychee jellies at Shuang Hur. Here's Mane dropping them in mango orange juice (not quite a mango smoothie, but still very yummy):

Clearly, we have enough lychee jellies to last us for quite some time! We could not find tapioca pearls at Shuang Hur, though. So, we headed over to United Noodles, right off Franklin and Cedar. There we found, not only tapioca pearls, but also a giant assortment of tea, Chinese herbs, sauce, rice noodles, incense, curry, etc, etc, etc... We came home with rice wine for marinading chicken, bok choy, ginger, and snap peas. Mango is planning to do some cooking tomorrow!

Multi-Colored Tapioca Pearls!

We are looking forward to visiting United Noodles again very soon! Shuang Hur was smaller and had a meat market that didn't smell so great. They are still totally the place to go if you need banana leaves or if you want to see a live lobster. But for a bigger, cleaner store, we recommend United Noodles, which smelled a lot like black licorice...

Niagara Cave and the Alohomora podcasts...

Over Memorial weekend we found ourselves in serious need of a daytrip. So, we took Mango to see Niagara Cave in Harmony, MN. Mane and I went on the cave tour last summer and thought it was great. We knew Mango would love it, and the drive was a good excuse to spend some time together without so many distractions.

We listened to Alohomora podcasts for part of the drive. We've gotten hooked on them over the past several months...while cleaning the house and doing puzzles and driving in the car. If you're a Harry Potter fan, you're sure to enjoy these podcasts. The hosts are conducting a "global re-read" of the series with weekly analysis of each individual chapter! They're currently reading Half-Blood Prince, but all the podcasts are available for download.

In any case, the rain stopped long enough for us to get a photo outside the cave:

It's awfully difficult to get photos inside:

It's like an underground canyon. Sometimes you can see the walls go up 150 feet overhead! The underground waterfall is amazing! The cave stays a steady 48 degrees Fahrenheit and damp all year. We especially enjoyed seeing the chapel, the echo chamber, and the mineral deposits that glow in the dark after you shine a black light on them. The tour is a mile long walk, covering 250 stairs. So, it's not for the faint of heart...or the claustrophobic. For those of us who had been sitting in the car for several hours, it was welcome exercise!

Tour De Nature Centers - Westwood Hills

Westwood Hills is a little nature center tucked in next to a residential area in St. Louis Park, MN. We were tired of the indoors and decided to go have a picnic with friends the other day.  We spread out our picnic blanket under the trees near the fort-building area and not far from the playground:

We walked the Children's Nest Egg path to discover the nest lined with shiny metallic "feathers" reflecting the trees and the sky:

Finally, we went for a walk in the woods, where a daddy goose was standing guard on the path. We stayed out of his way after he started hissing and walking straight toward the 3yr old!

St. Paul Winter Skate

Wells Fargo WinterSkate rink in St. Paul is a beautiful place to skate!

We went for the ambiance and loved the holiday lights, the horse-drawn carriage clip-clopping down the street nearby, and the cozy warming house!

Inside the warming house, looking out on the rink!

Museum of Russian Art

One of Mane's Christmas gifts this year was getting to pick out her own matryoshka doll from Russia! We ordered from: Matryoshka Dolls. And then we took a trip to The Museum of Russian Art.

The museum is practically right in our back yard (though not quite so close as the Minneapolis Institute of Art), right off 35W and Diamond Lake Road, and we couldn't believe we'd never been there!

Current displays include "Winter Holidays in the Soviet Era," with "New Year" ornaments, memorabilia, and propaganda from the time when the Soviet Union forbid the celebration of Christmas and tried to replace it with the New Year. Another exhibit called "Life on the Edge of the Forest" celebrated the woodwork and forests of Russia, primarily with displays of window frames and distaffs:

A third display had watercolor paintings of mushrooms by current artist, Alexander Viazmensky. His paintings are used in botanical texts because of their accuracy and detail. 

The permanent collection included beautiful works depicting the Russian countryside and some small churches:

Wordless Wednesday - This MN Girl is Finally Learning to Ice Skate

Minneapolis Institute of Art - Impressionists

After spending some time studying impressionism this fall, we took a trip to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to see some famous paintings in real life!

Autumn in the courtyard is stunning!

Admiring Van Gogh's Olive Trees

Sketching in front of one of Monet's paintings

Working on water lilies

Inspired to paint at home!

Corn Maze Field Trip

Earlier this week we took a field trip to the Waldoch Farm corn maze. Mane had five straight hours to run with her friend. They raced pedal cars, ran obstacle courses, got lost in the maze, jumped hay bales, and swam in the corn pit! Nothing beats homeschooling in the autumn in MN. This is the time of year when everyone should be outside!

 

Corn Pits are for big kids, too!

Pedal Cars at the finish line!

Um...big blue feet?

Eisenhower Observatory - Hopkins, MN

We recently visited the Eisenhower Observatory in Hopkins, MN with members of Mane' Percy Jackson book club.

Unfortunately for us, it was a cloudy night, and there wasn't much to see. Being in the dome and seeing the telescope was an experience unto itself, though, and we were inspired to look up the Observatory at the University of MN, which we hope to visit soon.

Lawrence Sauter Telescope

Tour De Nature Centers - Houston, MN

While on a camping trip in southern Minnesota, we took the opportunity to stop at Houston Nature Center, home of the International Owl Festival and the World Owl Hall of Fame! Houston Nature Center is also the trail head for the Root River Trail, a 60-mile paved trail connecting the MN cities of Houston, Rushford, Peterson, Whalen, Lanesboro, Fountain, Preston and Harmony.

The nature center features a Natural Playground:

 

Bicycle Sculptures:

And an indoor space with educational exhibits on OWLS...and caterpillars and turtles:

Tour De Nature Centers - Richardson

On our way home from the Cleary Lake camping trip we stopped by Richardson Nature Center. The exterior building design AND the indoor interpretive center space blew us away! If you live in the city with children and you want a nature-filled place to go without driving far, this is your place!

 

From the indoor viewing windows, we checked out the four resident beehives, hummingbirds, bluejays, chickadees, and a wild turkey!

Outside we encountered a goose and her babies, a painted turtle, and a fort-building space!

Again, we are worried about the summer mosquito population, but we just might brave it anyway to bring Mane and a group of her homeschool buddies out for a day of fort-building.