At nearly 40 years old I just got into the hobby myself and with two boys (8 & 10), I understand how it goes! I did a lot of research and wished I was as close as you were to BHB as I watch Snakebytes.tv on YouTube every chance I get and they have always had great information. The main thing is that they truly care for these animals and this industry. Huge fan...
As far as humidity, I also live in the Northern Midwest (MN just recently moved to SD for a career move) and I have the same humidity issues. With two balls (1-normal 1-spider) and two separate enclosures, it is a challenge keeping humidity up. I also use the plexi trick. Both my enclosures have a day and a night overhead lamp; day over the warm area and night lamp over the cool area. Lamps are notorious for zapping humidity, but they really help keeping the enclosures to temperature.
What I did was cut a piece of plexi and that covers half the screen top. During the day, the night lamp sits on top of the plexi (turned off) and my day lamp sits right on the screen (turned on). At night, I turn off the day lamp and move the plexi to the other half, set my day lamp on top of the plexi (turned off), turn on my night lamp and let the night lamp sit directly on the screen. The night lamp helps to evaporate the water in the dish to boost humidity (still enough in there for the snake though). With just this set up I can achieve around 40%-50% humidity this winter but sometimes dipping to 20%-30%. When it gets that low, I mist the substrate with bottled (filtered) water and it will rise to around 60%-70% for a few hours. I usually mist morning before I go to work, dinner time when I get home, and before I go to bed. Careful to not keep things so saturated everything is dripping as that can lead to scale rot on your snake. I do have moss in both enclosures and usually lightly mist my substrate then mist the moss a little heavier as the moss retains the moisture for a little longer period of time. Summers are normally much more humid and misting is on an as-needed basis only. (I use cypress substrate as it seems to retain moisture better and evaporates slower and have added an under the tank heater on each warm side).
With this setup I can maintain a warm side of 80-85 with a basking spot of 90, my cool side maintains 75-78. Night temps are around 75-79. Humidity averages 50%-60% and have two perfectly happy, healthy ball pythons.
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