Our trip home

I have decided on our road trips that I do better leaving mid way through the day then getting up and leaving early in the morning. So, we pulled out on Wed 3rd. My sister and our visiting cousin Laura took the kids that morning and wore them out while I packed and took a nap. Just before we loaded up in the car, we had one last blast of fun...a silly string fight!

Here are all the cousins, minus Kristine who was at work. I mentioned our cousin Laura came to visit...she flew up with her daughter Izzy from Houston.

We did not get as far as we had hoped, so stopped close to the Illinios/Iowa border. Turned out the little town we stopped in was having their fireworks show that night and we were just in time. They started as we pulled up and we had a unhindered view! There were even some other kids in the parking lot who shared their sparklers with the boys.

The next day seems like we spent most of the day in Iowa. Never take a lesser known road through Iowa. I missed a turn coming out of Cedar Rapids (not sure if I was distracted with construction or the chaos in the car) but I think it cost us over an hour. It was a beautiful drive. With recent flooding, the locals could not even tell me for sure how to get across to I-35. So we meandered and eventually found our way. (I for some reason did not have a map in the car and have not yet gotten into the smart phone stuff). We stopped at a park outside of Sioux Falls, SD to meet with some friends for an hour and then continued further west - destination unknown.

As I started getting tired, we stopped in the middle of nowhere South Dakota. I had to laugh...
Outside the door was a folding chair and a plastic coffee container, holding ashes. Then inside, there is a note on the mirror that says: "Attention hunters. No mud, paw or footprints on carpet. No dogs on the bed! Do not leave dogs alone in rooms unless in a kennel. No cleaning birds in tubs, sinks or anywhere in the rooms." Then on the room fridge it says "Please don't put pheasants in the fridge or freezer." Guess this place is a hunters paradise. The lady who owns this place cooks a hot breakfast every morning and then has it out in crock pots. She even asked me what I thought my boys would like. We ended up with english muffin sandwiches and cinnamon rolls.

Next stop on the 5th was Mount Rushmore. Man, have things grown up around there. Granted, I have only been there one other time and it was probably 20 years ago. I was not prepared for all the growth, commercialism, tourist type feel of the place. (I was even surprised how huge Mitchell, SD was - the home to the Corn Palace. There is now a Cabela's there and that town is thriving.)

The boys were really impressed with Mount Rushmore. I was not feeling good so we did not walk around and explore too much, but we did see the museum, watched the 14 minute film and the boys loved running around the amphitheatre. They wanted to go on a couple of the trails, but I told them we would come back another time (it is only about 6 hours).

Here is the first picture we took - I was overwhelmed with the people and busyness.  I was not sure  what kind of pictures we would get later, so took this one.

We walked down and found the amphitheatre.  The boys loved running up and down the steps.  I kind of wished there had been a choir group of some sort that would have started singing. Would love to hear the acoustics.

I quizzed B before we got there as to who was on the mountain.  He got them right - I always forget Thomas Jefferson.

I had to basically lay on the ground to get this shot...but love that they are just below the faces.

We saw this goat on our way out and was laughing at all the comments about how mangy he looked.  He was not afraid of people!

I would love to see it at night time. Am considering a trip in the fall when the crowds die down. There are so many other things to do. They have a high ropes course, zip line and alpine slide that the boys really wanted to do. However, they were not being very obedient at the time, so we passed. Plus it would have made it hard because they were not all big enough and me being the only adult I could not be in 2 places at once.

I wanted the stop to be educational too, so we looked up some facts about Mount Rushmore.
The heads are 60 feet tall, nose is 20 feet long, eyes are 11 feet across and mouth is 18 feet wide. It cost just under $990,000 to build and took 17 years - start to finish. Washington was chosen because he represents the struggle for independence, Jefferson because he represents the idea of government by the people, Lincoln because he represents equality and permanent union of the states and Roosevelt for the role of US in world affairs. It took 400 workers and no one died during the building of it. Borglum had become so good using dynamite, that most (90%) of the rock was precisely blasted and only inches had to be chiseled by hand. Jefferson was originally on Washington's right but after 18 months, it was not working so they blasted him off and put him on Washington's left. One last thing that I did not know was....

"Some people, including the U.S. Supreme Court, think the U.S. stole the Black Hills.

In 1868, long before the carving began, the U.S. government promised in a treaty to let the native Sioux Nation tribes keep the Black Hills, including the Rushmore area. But in 1874, gold was found in those hills (and confirmed by Lt. Col. George Custer). After that the U.S. government and prospectors grabbed the land back and forced the Lakota elsewhere.

On July 23, 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court found that land grab was unconstitutional and ordered federal compensation of more than $105 million to the Sioux to settle the case -- but Indian leaders said no, they'd rather have the Black Hills. Writing in 2007, Oglala Lakota Sioux journalist Tim Giago estimated that the unclaimed federal payment, counting interest, had grown to more than $757 million." (taken from LA Times article)

Definitely a trip we will be making again!

We arrived home that night around 9pm.

July 4th

Happy July 4th. So thankful to live in a country where we still experience lots of freedoms!
When this posts, we will be somewhere in the plains of the Dakotas - heading back home.
A few last pictures from our trip.  (Look how tired JB is...here is hoping that they sleep half the first day away in the car!)

We made a trip to Lake Erie. We actually went the day before and road bikes. But when we got there, the wind and rain started, so I rode home and got the van. It has been a long time since I have gone on a bike ride in the rain. The first picture was them playing in the water, waiting for waves.  The next few are the boys wanting to be buried in the sand.

Dirty, dirty boys!

This just looks creepy....nothing but a head.

Our last hurrah, we went to a minor league baseball game and the boys got their picture taken with the mascot.  The boys were more interested in running around and getting concessions - no surprise.  They did enjoy hanging.  There were some near misses on the ball field and we saw a lady get hit by a missed throw from short stop to first base.  We think she was hit in the shoulder but she did not stay at the game for long.  The home team ended up winning 11-0!

Lord willing, the next post will come from our home state!

Swimming

Here are a few pictures from a recent pool outing.

I have been having JB swim just a foot or so to the side of the pool.  He is starting to get how kicking your feet can keep your face about the water.

Jbird loves to jump from the side and try to catch something.  I liked both of these...not sure where the water frisbee is in the first picture, but you can see it in the second picture.

B has been spending a lot of time going off the diving boards.  He actually tried a flip and over rotated and did a belly flop.  The dive is more difficult.  He strikes the pose and then at the last second instead of falling hands first, he jumps off.  I guess it is totally unnatural to fall head first.

I actually went off the diving board a few times.  It obviously has been a while since I went off a board, cause when I hit the water I took on lots of water.  My sister reminded me after the fact that I use to hold my nose when I went off the board - a fact that you should not forget!  I came up sputtering.  I also went down the speed slide.  I came up from under the water to my kids booing me!  Seems like it take some finesse to hold your feet up just high enough when you hit the water to hydroplane and then splash everyone on the other side of the pool.

Our trip is quickly winding down.  Will be hitting the road on Wednesday!

TODAY WAS THIS KIDDOS 9TH BIRTHDAY!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY B!

Because one of his cousins was going to be gone on Friday (his actual birthday), we celebrated on Thursday.  B does not like surprises, but he told us he wanted a surprise this birthday.  So, the cousins did it up good.  B woke up earlier than expected - they hoped to pull off their silly string surprise by waking him up.  However, that did not happen.  So, I found an excuse to send him downstairs.  As he came back up, he was ambushed by his cousins.  There was a couch close by, so he fell face first on the couch so his back got the most of the silly string.  Here is his backside after the ambush.

Here is the front side.  The younger two were still asleep and they were very upset they missed it (we had about a 10 minute window in which we could do the silly string given the crazy schedule of all the cousins coming and going.)  B loved it so much though, that we might have to make it a tradition - that the birthday person gets silly stringed sometime on their birthday.

For his birthday, we could not decide what to do, so kept it simple.  We called up one of his cousin's friends, who was the same age and invited him along (the kid in the middle).  We had lunch at DQ and then went bowling.  (JB went bowling, but when the picture was taken, he was throwing a fit.  Also missing from the picture was oldest cousin Kelsey.  She and I were talking trash about who would win.  We were neck and neck the whole game - actually she had a slight lead.  She threw one bad ball and it happened to be the last one, so I ended up on top by 4 pins.  We also had to play our game with bumpers, so the score probably would have tipped in her favor because I would have had a few last second gutter balls but the bumpers saved me.)

JB did many "yay" dances.

Jbird got to use the prized Sponge Bob Ball

Despite what it looks like, the birthday boy did not drop the ball on his foot.

I managed to get a group shot, without rabbit ears and antlers and with decent smiles!

We did an ice cream cake from DQ.  He got some books and drawing stuff, as well as Game Stop gift card and cash for his birthday.

Hard to believe he is half way through 'his time at home!' Who would have known 9 years ago that this kid would rock our world. He was speaking in full sentences at 2 and has not stopped since then. He has an amazing memory, whether he reads it, hears it or sees it. His laugh is hilarious (he recently went to see Monster University with 2 of his cousins and they got the biggest kick out of hearing him throughout the movie - get to laughing so hard that he can't stop). He gravitates towards the tech-y things and loves to read. He has a strong will about him that often can get him what he wants. (I think my all time favorite story of him - that I shared at some point on the blog - was when he had just recently turned three. He had asked me for something and I told him no. Well, he was not satisfied with that answer. So he decided to wait until his dad came up. I was upstairs working on the computer and I could hear the conversation down stairs. B wanted something and had asked his dad about it. After a few words, his dad said that I would need to be consulted. As B trailed JR up the stairs, I could hear B saying "okay, Dad, you need to go in there and say 'Hun, B wants....". He was totally coaching his dad on how to approach me about this issue.) He has a soft, compassionate side to him - helping with his brothers or friends. I love that he still wants me to lay down with him and that he still calls me 'Mommy'!

Praying for many more years...how exciting to see how God's plan for him will begin unfolding as he continues on this journey called life.

On Sunday evening we went to a concert in the park.  A local blue-grass musician.  A first for the boys.  Here are some pictures.
(The musician was Austin 'Walking Cane'...he played in the gazebo structure)

The kids all enjoyed a picnic

This is the house where they have had wedding receptions that I have helped with while in Ohio.

Fortunately, someone had the insight to have sidewalk chalk and bubbles for the kids.  As the night wore on, kids on scooters showed up, as well as some huge Frisbee looking toys.  They had so much fun playing and the adults enjoyed the music.

A random picture...we saw the weinermobile and had to stop and take a picture.

We recently hooked up with some friends. We met them at a local park that has some great biking/hiking. My boys were amazed at the turtles. I guess we have never really looked at turtles. (In this picture, my friend was holding a turtle and Jbird was marveling at it from underneath. Jbird is becoming the nature watcher. (It cracked me up all the wildlife around us where we live and yet they still marvel at a deer in the bushes.)

Their cousin Kenna holding the turtle.

One of the things I always enjoy about our road trips is getting away from the grind of being at home.  Even if there is not a lot going on at home, you still have all the upkeep and it seems that there is always something to do at home, a project to complete.  So it is nice to just be able to sit back and take in - to slow down long enough to enjoy some of those small moments with the boys.  To rediscover the wonder of things.

At the swimming pool, the excitement of JB when he finally jumped from the side of the pool into water that was 2 feet deep.  The loud 'yay' he exclaimed.  Or with Jbird, when he finally got brave and decided he could go under water in water that was over his head.  (He can swim but has always been scared to venture into water over his head without a life jacket on).  He would jump into 5 foot water and as his feet touched the bottom of the pool, he would thrust his hands up out of the water with a huge thumbs up.

The look of amazement when I showed JB how to suck honeysuckle.
The wonder of seeing the small lights below the airplane once it got dark.
Teaching B how to read road signs.  Teaching him that the odd Interstates run north and south and the even roads run east and west.  The lower odd numbers start in the south and the lower even numbers start in the west.  Seeing his interest in looking at maps now and trying to find us on the map.

We were recently able to make a quick trip to Texas.  The boys have been wanting to fly, so they were excited to get on an airplane.  To kill some time, we took a ride on the skylink 19 minute 'train' tour of the airport.

The boys did really well on the flight.  (It seems that I have the camera out so much, I have a hard time getting a serious picture.)  Few more pictures from the plane.

This is JB's favorite pose right now...reminds me of Popeye...

I love to watch him with gadgets...even though he can't read, he can navigate them so well.

A few more pictures....

This little guy is learning to swim without a life jacket (he is also learning to ride a bike without training wheels).  All indications are that he will succeed with both before he turns 4!

Jbird helping and keeping a close eye on JB.

B up on the knee board

Messy little s'more eater!

We have hit the pool a few times already. My goals for the boys....for B to learn how to do a proper dive and dive off the board, for Jbird to go off the board (which will require passing the deep water swim test because he is not tall enough) and for JB to learn how to swim.

JB and Jbird have a great time in the smaller kid area. I was afraid it might be too deep for JB, but it only comes up to about mid torso.

Here is JB as he comes out of the slide area.  For some reason my boys have taken to wearing swim shirts.  Look at that long hair.


JB, still sporting his ear band because his ear drum is not fully healed.


B doing a crazy jump off the board (his cousin Kenna is behind him). 


Another jump....


B has gone off the high dive twice, but would not for the camera.  The first time he jumped, he said he saw his life flash before his eyes.  I took this of cousin Kenna.


He also went down the speed slide, but would only go down the twisty slide when I had the camera out.