This was the first outing as a family of four.  It was a great local activity.  I don’t think non-Blaine residents would feel out of place either.  It was rescheduled, which actually allowed us to come, but also caused some scheduling problems with some of their vendors.

You picked up a program, on the inside there was a bunch of checkboxes.  Each one was good for a game or an inflatable obstacle run. You could go to any of the activities as many times as you wanted as long as you had open checkboxes.   At first I was worried we would run out of boxes, but with a toddler, we had plenty.  They had elementary school carnival games like fish pond, lollypop pull, ball tossing games.  Everyone got a prize – older kids may or may not like that, but our little one that doesn’t fully understand games yet would have been sad to not get a prize.

They had a ton of inflatables, some for older kids, some for toddlers and some that anyone seemed to be able to go on.  It was a great event and well put together.

Youth Day at Pan-O-Prog was a great find.  It happens on a Friday which might make it hard for some to attend, but it was a very well put together free kids activity.  I drove 45 minutes to get there, and would do it again.

They had the Teddy Bear Band playing for an hour along with a couple kids activities at library booths. They moved into the “Ball Drop”, I have never been to a ball drop, but Lakeville moms were talking about doing this activity since they were little kids.  They broke the groups up by age, then there was designated areas and folks in baskets of trucks tossed ping-pong balls over the crowd.  Kids would collect as many balls as they could and the balls were turned in for nickels or quarters – real money given at a free event.  They did break the 2 – 4 age group into two, but instead of doing it further by age (big difference in the ball catching skills of a 2 and 4 year old) they did it by last name.

They also provided a free hot dog lunch with granola bars, juice and freeze pops. After the ball drop and lunch, they had a puppet show, but instead we played at the park. They also had a police car and kids could “drive” it and turn on the siren.

I would go back – and I would recommend it to folks with small kids.  I think the ball drop ages were from 2 to 13, but the rest of the activities were, in my opinion, tailored to children under 8.

On Sunday, we headed over to Hudson for the Free Minnesota Orchestra concert.  It is one of my husband’s favorite free summer events and he goes each year.  It draws a large crowd, and it is in a nice area to grab a bite to eat or walk around before the evening concert.  If you like orchestra music, it is worth the stop. Bring your own chairs or blankets and bug spray.

Traffic getting to the National Sports Center was pretty bad when we got to the area a half hour before the event, and many of the parking lots looked full, or close to full.  We took a risk and pulled into to the shops just off Davenport St NE and 109^th Ave NE, just turning off 109th took a while, but we hoped we could find a shop parking spot.  The main parking lots (like Target and Tutor Time) were full, but there is a open grass area that people were parking in that was not.  From there it was just a short talk around Tutor Time and we were able to sit on the grass on the non-sports center side of Davenport.  They may have sprayed for bugs, we brought bug spray but didn’t need any.

It worked well, we could see the fireworks just fine and getting out was not too difficult either – I know if was faster than being in the back of one of the National Sports Center parking lots.

The fireworks went about a half hour.  They went pretty steady and had a large amount going off at once about seven minutes in (we actually questioned if it was the grand finale). It was a good place to watch fireworks, and we heard from others that drove into Minneapolis last year that these were just as good with less hassle.