Yep, we’re live-blogging from Katie’s Sweet 16 birthday party, featuring 16 screaming teenage girls and two harried parents. We had the pizza and ice-cream cake and now the girls are downstairs watching chick flicks. Later, there’ll be popcorn and candy and boy talk and all-night giggling. Oh boy!

Unfortunately, we’re also under a tornado watch at the moment — the sirens are going off even as I type. We had bad thunderstorms yesterday, which knocked down a big maple in our neighbors’ yard (and into ours). Chris might be out there even now cutting up the trunk with a hand saw (he’s part Amish, I think). I’d help him, but I have to stay inside and watch for flying monkeys, little dogs and wicked witches….

We spent the day yesterday with the rest of the Twin Cities’ geeks at the Star Wars exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota (which coincidentally is run by Art’s cousin). The girls built robots (Katie has one in the picture above) and panned for gems in another of the Museum’s exhibits (Jesse is doing that in the other photo). We all toured the Star Wars exhibit, which included props and costumes from the movies (and R2-D2 and C-3PO, too). Afterward, we ate lunch and visited the shops on St. Paul’s Grand Avenue. All in all, a fun (nerdy) day.

We took Katie, Jesse and two of their friends to our local amusement park the day after the Fourth. Unbelievably, the park was empty for most of the day (remember that scene, when the Griswolds drive into the parking lot of a closed Wally World at the end of Family Vacation? It was like that, without the tears). We walked on to just about every ride. The longest we waited in line was about 5 minutes. That’s the way to enjoy these parks…. A visit to ValleyFair was the main family outing Jesse wanted to make this summer. We’re staying close to home this summer and trying to visit some of the local sights during the kids’ vacation. Up next: Duluth and Bayport, Wis.

Laurie, Art and Jesse visited the Minneapolis Farmers Market last weekend. It is huge, taking up several square city blocks downtown. This early in the season, there wasn’t much variety in the produce. But we walked away with some buffalo steaks (not for Jesse), some fresh green onions, summer squash and potatoes — and a cup of coffee, shown in the picture above, staining Art’s shirt. The hit of the visit, for the girls anyway, were some really cool (cheap) Slinky bracelets and a pair of dangly earrings for Jesse.