A month in photos!

What a busy month we've had! Still living in the hotel, but we are supposed to move back into the house this weekend. It has been difficult living in these two rooms for so long, and we've managed to accumulate a lot of stuff, so moving back to the house is going to be somewhat of an ordeal! It will be nice to be home though, and our house has gotten quite a face lift! We have brand new hard wood floors, the carpets have been re stretched and cleaned, and all of the wallpaper in Anna's bathroom, the downstairs living room, downstairs hallway, Kindra's bedroom and Kindra's bathroom has been removed and the walls have been painted. Anna's bathroom is a burgundy color, Kindra's bedroom and bathroom are a cotton candy pink, and the downstairs hallway and living room are a color called "latte"...a light brown, sandy color. It all looks great. For now Anna's bathroom doesn't have any flooring and the downstairs toyroom is missing about half of it's carpet, which was sacrificed to replace ruined carpet in other places downstairs. Anna's flooring should be in within the next week, and we have ordered carpet that will just about match the rest of the downstairs carpet for the toy room.

Anna has had a busy and very exciting last month. She has competed in two gymnastics meets, and did awesome at both. At the meet in Marshfield (November 18th) she walked away with 2nd place on bars, 2nd place on beam, and 3rd place on all around (which is when they add together all four of their scores...bars, beam, floor, vault). In Antigo (December 2nd) she blew us away with 2nd place on vault, 1st place on bars, 3rd place on beam, 3rd place on floor, and 1st place on all around!! And to top it all off, she has been advanced to level 5!! It's all very exciting, but we are at the point where we have to decide how far we are willing to go with this. Rhinelander only trains for 4 sessions a year, plus the competition session. That leaves huge gaps in training. For example, tonight is her last practice for the winter session. They will not start up again until April, a four month gap in training. So, we are looking at other places Anna can train while Rhinelander is not holding sessions. The two choices are Antigo and Weston, Antigo is about an hour away, Weston is a little farther than that.

We've also celebrated a few birthdays this last month. Kindra turned 13 on November 14th, Noah turned 5 on November 22nd, and I turned 29 (again!! haha) on December 2nd.

Gotta run, will take me awhile to get these pictures uploaded.

More later,

Rebecca

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween, and happy All Saints Day to all! We attended an all school mass at Noah's school today, it was packed! All of the children from both schools were at Mass, plus a lot of other people...it was standing room only! Noah's teacher took pity on me and Amaya so we sat with the 4K kids, which was a lot of fun. Those teachers have their hands full, just the two of them keeping around 25 four year olds still for Mass!

We had beautiful weather here earlier in the week, it was sunny and in the lower 70s on Tuesday. But yesterday it was miserable! The wind was blowing SO hard, it was raining, and the temperatures fell throughout the day so that it was only around 40 when we left to go trick or treating! BRRRR!! We were only out for about 20 minutes and then headed back to the hotel. Everyone looked through their candy and then changed into their swimsuits. Kindra had youth group, so I took her at 6PM and then came back and went swimming with the others for about an hour. That heated pool felt SO good after the cold weather.

We went out to the house yesterday and it's quite a mess! They have even more holes drilled in the wall of the laundry room, trying to dry out the inside of that wall. They have also ripped out part of the ceiling to Kindra's bathroom, and found it was still wet up there. So, they are bringing in more blowers (again) and still trying to get everything dry. The carpet people were supposed to be in today to stretch and clean the carpets upstairs, but they aren't able to come until at least next weekend. Besides, how are they supposed to do their job when the other guy is still ripping out the wood floors in the kitchen? Like I said, what a mess! Went through some more of Kindra's things yesterday, found another box full of wet clothes. Very frustrating to keep finding these things. Especially since we still don't have our clothes back!

Better get going. It's only about 35 degrees, but the sun is shining brightly and we are going for a walk!

OH by the way...just one comment on the pictures. Normally I wouldn't let Anna wear such a tiny bikini...but her swimsuits were all taken by the cleaning company, and the bikini was the only one I found in all of Rhinelander in her size. Swimsuits are hard to come by this time of year in northern WI!

More later,

Rebecca

Anna's Christmas Program

I just wanted to let everyone know that Anna's Christmas program is December 18th. There are two shows, one at 1230 and one at 630.

Rebecca

Monday

We had a nice weekend with a lot of fun Halloween activities. On Friday the YMCA had their annual Not So Scary Halloween Trail. Anna had a slumber party starting at 5PM, so we dropped her off and then went to the trail. It was just getting dark when we got there, so it was a little bit spooky but the kids had a great time. It wasn't too cold, so the place was packed! After the trail, we went inside the YMCA for snacks and goodie bags. I think everyone was surprised by the number of children in attendance, because many of the groups were scrambling for more candy! While we were at the YMCA, we ran into all of the girls from Anna's slumber party. (The party was at Anna's friend Lauren's house...Lauren's mom is one of Noah's preschool teachers, Mrs.Fabich. She was helped out by Mrs.Stafford, Noah's teacher from last year. That's the joy of small town living!) The girls all surrounded Amaya, saying how cute she was in her little witch costume. So, Amaya started twirling around in circles and putting on a show for them. It was so cute!

On Saturday, the downtown businesses all had trick or treating for a few hours in the afternoon. Once again, it was a beautiful day (sunny and around 50 degrees, nice weather for October in Northern WI) so the event was packed! Anna had yet another Halloween party on Saturday, from 3 until 5, so I dropped her off at the party while Kindra helped Noah and Am change into their costumes. Then we walked downtown (only a block from the hotel) and went trick or treating. It was a lot of fun, it's always neat to see all the little kids in their costumes! It also got us inside some of the downtown businesses we'd never been to before, which I'm sure is a big reason why they do this every year! I have to admit, it was a little strange taking my kids into a bar or a liquor store to go trick or treating...but it's truly a cultural thing up here. There aren't many restaurants, but there are pubs everywhere....and they have the best food!

On Sunday we had planned to take the kids to the haunted house in town, until we heard how scary it was! Even with the lights turned on for the special children's time, I thought it would be too scary for the little ones, so we just skipped it for this year. Instead Pavan took the kids swimming. I was invited to a stamping party at 3, so I walked over to the Hope Center for that. It was a lot of fun, and I made three cards. Those of you who know how un-creative I am will understand what a big deal that was for me! After the stamping party, we all went to Mike and Meg Beske's house for supper. We've known Mike and Meg since we moved to Rhinelander. Mike works in pathology at the hospital, I knew Meg through a Bible study and she is also on the board of directors with me at the pregnancy center. They are an older couple, with kids the same age as me and Pavan. For dinner they invited us, their oldest son and his wife and three kids, and another couple from their church and their 2 kids. It was a great time! Mike grilled salmon and venison steaks, it was all great! Kindra even ate 2 pieces of the venison!! The guys invited Pavan over to watch the football game tonight, and they invited us all back for supper again next Sunday.

One more thing before I go...apparently the house is mostly dried out because all but one of the blowers are turned off. The cats seem much happier without all that noise, so that's a good thing. Unfortunately, my fish died, which was really sad for me. We had a little funeral for him on Saturday, buried him outside. Angel fish are very sensitive, and I just don't think she tolerated the time without filtration or heat very well.

There is still one blower going in the laundry room. It has about 6 long hoses attached to it, which are inserted in 6 holes in the laundry room wall. Big holes...big hoses. What a mess! Still no clothes for the kids, Pavan called the guy last night and he said they should be back this week. Seems like we've heard that before! We did find several of Kindra's hoodies stuffed in a bag of trash, she was in tears once she discovered what had happened. Her DeSmet, SD and Mt.Rushmore hoodies were in the bag, and they were so nasty by the time we found them. We headed to the laundry mat yesterday and were able to save the DeSmet one, but the Mt.Ru one was very mildewed so I think we'll just have to throw it away. Pavan told the guy about it, and he was very apologetic. Hopefully they'll go through all the other trash bags and make sure there's nothing important inside! Also ruined was Kindra's very expensive PB Teen messenger bag that I had embroidered with her name, it also has MP3 speakers built into the bag. Very sad! Kindra's stuff took most of the water, and a lot of her things were completely ruined...like her stereo system, papers in her desk, etc. Poor kid!

Better get going.

More later,

Rebecca

 

Update on flooding

Well Pavan met the insurance appraiser at the house this morning, he was shocked by the extent of the damage. He told Pavan it would be 6 to 8 weeks before we can move back into the house, which was a shock to us because we'd previously been told 2 or 3 weeks. It's been almost a week though, and they are still trying to dry out the house. The upstairs seems to be nearly dry, but the basement is still very wet. Of course all I can see are the superficial surfaces. Apparently the walls and such are still very wet, the appraiser looked up into the basement ceiling and said all of the 2x4s are still wet. How do you dry out the insides of walls, heck if I know! What I do know is that it takes a lot of time.

As things start to dry, the extent of the damage becomes more apparent. The hard wood flooring in the kitchen is so warped at this point that it's nearly impossible to walk across, you just can's get your footing it's so bumpy. The ceiling of the sauna looks the same, horrible! And just yesterday a new stain started to form on the ceiling of the toy room, this time all the way at the edge of the house....clear across the room from where part of the ceiling collapsed. What a mess!

The good news is that our insurance company is taking good care of us. He even told us to go ahead and call an electrician and someone from the phone company to make sure nothing was damaged. Our electric panels are all in the laundry room, which was one of the worst affected areas of the house. (I opened the washing machine 2 days ago just to make sure there weren't any clothes inside and found that it was completely full of water!!) Also, when Connie first discovered the flooding she tried to call DJ to come over, but our phones wouldn't work, they were just static. We already had someone from the well drilling company come out and take a look in the pump room. He had to replace a switch which was apparently ruined from the constant running of the water when it flooded...even that is covered by our insurance. What a blessing!!

If it truly takes that long for us to move back home, we might have to look at kenneling the animals, at least the dogs. For now, we've been having nice weather, but the next 8 weeks will surely see colder weather and our first significant snowfall. The cats are all safe in the house (we found Sweetie Pea two days ago, and Kindra was able to get her inside yesterday), but the dogs are living in the garage. Poor puppies!

I'll try to get a few more pictures when I go out to feed the animals this afternoon. Hopefully the girls' clothing will be back today, Anna has a slumber party tonight and the one set of PJs she brought to KC with us are WAY too small! Guess we'll be making a trip to WalMart for some new PJs if the clothes aren't back yet.

I just have to comment again on how wonderful the people of Rhinelander have been to us. The girl from gymnastics brought Anna a leotard when she heard what happened and saw that the only one Anna had left was way too small. The principal at the Catholic school sent us a very nice card and some gift certificates to McDonalds. All of the women with the pregnancy resource center have offered to help in any way possible, from cleaning at the house to washing all of our wet laundry. People Pavan works with and even some of the patients he's seen in clinic have been asking how they can help, offering clothing for us and the kids. It's just been wonderful to have so much support, you always see the best in the people around you when things are at their worst!

Better get going, Noah will be out of school soon and I need to run by and pick up some more medicine for the dogs before I pick him up.

More later,

Rebecca

pictures of house

For some reason I couldn't get the pictures to work on yesterday's journal entry, so I just deleted all of them and decided to add them by themselves today.

We are surviving the hotel just fine. Hard getting everyone settled down and into bed at night, but it's nice only having 2 rooms to keep clean! My Suburban is in the shop today, so we are just hanging out at the hotel. They had a shuttle service that brought us back to the hotel, so that was nice. Might walk across the street to the library later, or maybe go swimming again.

I wanted to let everyone know that Anna tried out for the school Christmas play last week, and found out that she got a part! Only 5 of the 3rd graders got a part, so it's a pretty big deal. She's the little shepard, which is the part she wanted. I wanted to let you all know so you could make arrangements to be here if you wanted to. I don't have the exact date for the play right now, it will most likely be sometime the week of December 17th. I will try to get specifics ASAP.

More later,

Rebecca

Welcome home...

For those of you who haven't heard, our house flooded while we were in Kansas City for the weekend. We left Rhinelander on Thursday afternoon. Connie came out to the house on Thursday, came back out twice on Friday...and everything was fine. When she came into the house on Saturday afternoon, there was water everywhere. The poor cats were sitting on the stairs that lead up to the loft, and the water was so deep in the kitchen area that it was up over Connie's shoes. Well she threw all the cats outside and then left to call DJ...at that point our phones weren't working. DJ came out and shut off all water to the house and called us. He also called our insurance agent, and within three hours there was a restoration company on site pumping water out of the house. So far they have pumped out over 200 gallons of water. There are big green blowers all over the house, the carpet has been ripped up and the padding removed. There are also a couple of big machines that appear to be filtering the air in the house and removing the humidity. They have hoses running from them and draining into the bathtub.

Every room of the house is affected by the flooding, except for the loft, the master bathroom and the small sunroom area behind the fireplace.Anna's bathroom and bedroom are completely flooded. The master bedroom closet is completely flooded, and the master bedroom is about halfway flooded. The kitchen is about halfway flooded, with the wooden floors buckling. The living room is about halfway flooded. Downstairs is such a huge mess. The laundry room seems to have taken most of the water, which might be a good thing since there is a huge drain in the floor that probably drained a lot of the water. Unfortunately all of Kindra and Anna's clothing, as well as all of our towels and blankets, and all of the linens for the camper were stored in the laundry room. All of it is completely soaked, and since the ceiling in the laundry room collapsed, a great deal of it is covered in pieces of ceiling. Thank God we had a few outfits with us!! Even their shoes are soaked, and Pavan's. Poor Anna had to go to Mass on Monday wearing blue jeans, she was so embarrassed, especially since it was a special Mass for them to meet our new bishop! She also didn't have a heavy coat, justher hoodie and it was cold! Of course when I let everyone know what had happened they were very understanding, and yesterday I was able to find an old coat and a dress in her closet that weren't wet, so she'll be ok for the rest of the week until they get all of her clothing laundered. She showed up for gymnastics last night in a way too small leotard, which was actually pretty funny. One of the ladies had her daughter bring Anna a couple of leotards she'd outgrown recently, which was so nice!

Most of the living room downstairs is completely flooded...downstairs the water made it all the way across the house. So, the old hot tub room (now a workout room) is soaked, the sauna is completely soaked, Kindra's room is soaked, her bathroom is soaked...including all of the drawers and under her sink, Kindra's study is soaked, and the toy room is about halfway flooded. Also, part of the ceiling in the toy room collapsed. The basement definitely is the worst part, because the water was coming from the ceilings so everything got wet. At least upstairs only the items on or near the floor were soaked.

Yesterday we were at the house taking pictures and video and meeting with the restoration company and insurance agent. I was going through Anna's closet pulling out wet items and about it tears thinking about all of the stuff I needed to haul to the laundry mat and wash. Then the man from the restoration company came in and told me I didn't need to worry about any of it...they will take care of everything. They are even going to take all of the laundry and wash it for us!! That was such a relief to hear about that. Just being in the house was making me sick, the smell is horrible and my allergies were out of control. Now I just have to go out there every day to take care of the animals and see how things are going.

Right now we are staying at the Claridge in downtown Rhinelander. It's a couple of block from the historic courthouse, in an old neighborhood surrounded by big old houses. We are only a block from Anna's school, which is nice. We will be herefor at least a couple of weeks. Wehave a two room suite. One room has 2 queen beds, plus a rollaway for Anna. The other room is a large living room with a fold out loveseat for Kindra. It has a kitchenette with a nice sized fridge. There is a great pool room with games for the kids, and a wonderful restaurant downstairs. Amaya and I walked to the park (3 blocks down) this morning while they cleaned out room, and the library is right next door. It's nice being in town instead of 15 minutes outside of town! I miss having the animals with us, but we weren't able to find anywhere that would allow us to have all of them. Right now I can't even find Sweetie Pea, she's probably hiding up in the walls somewhere! I'm sure she'll feel better once they turn off all of those blowers, they are so loud!

I'd better get going. We are going out to the house to pick up a few things and feed the animals. Also going to grab our swimsuits...looks like Amaya and I are going to have the pool all to ourselves during the day!

By the way, I just have to tell you that the pictures don't even begin to capture the humidity in the house or the horrible smell...it's just overwhelming and so disgusting!! They are monitoring the air every day and I guess they go by the humidity levels in the air to determine when the house is dried out completely. Then they spray down some fungicide to keep molds from growing. Yuk!

More later,

Rebecca

Pictures

I don't have time to write much, I have to leave in 10 minutes to pick the children up from school and then head to Merrill for dance class. I just wanted to try and get some picutres online for everyone. These are pictures from Pavan's trip to New Orleans last week and pictures from our trip to the apple orchard last weekend. We had a great time and brought home 50 pounds of apples that we picked! I've been busy making and canning everything you can imagine that uses apples...and I've not even gone through one bag of apples yet!

If the pictures are all out of order, I apologize. I'll try to get online tonight or tomorrow and sort through them, straighten them out and maybe even add captions!

A couple of reminders...first of all we are leaving this Thursday for Kansas City. We will arrive in KC at 9PM Thursday and head back to Rhinelander at 6PM on Sunday. Supposed to get into Rhinelander at 1015PM Sunday. You can reach us on our cell phones or at my mom's house if you need us for anything.

Second, I hope everyone will remember our family and especially my mom in your prayers today. Today marks one year since Allen died. Hard to believe it's already been a year, although I have to say this last year has been the longest of my life. Losing someone you love simply changes everything.

More later,

Rebecca

Mall of America and Amaya's birthday

We had a great time at Mall of America last weekend for Amaya's birthday. I apologize that it's taken me so long to get these pictures online, it's a lot of work combining my pictures with my mom's pictures, and then getting them all in the right order for the journal! I can easily organize them by date taken in my computer's picture folder, but as soon as I upload them to the AOL journal, they get scrambled up, it drives me crazy!!!!

Can't believe our baby is three years old!!

Be sure to check out the very last picture, it's Kindra's volleyball team...well half of them. She played on B team this particular day. She has 2 more games this week, both away games (Merrill and Medford), then the season is over! Anna has 2 more weeks of flag football and then it's over too. Then maybe a breather before basketball starts for Kindra and competition season starts for Anna's gymnastics!

I'll try to add captions later, need to run and pick Kindra up from her Red Cross babysitting class.

PS Anna sang at mass this morning, it was wonderful!

More later,

Rebecca

Old pictures from 35mm camera

Ok playing catch up with some old pictures. I found an old black and white roll of film in my 35mm camera with pictures from about a year ago. I can tell because Bob (Noah's cat) is just a baby in the pictures and Pavan brought Bob home last October. So, here are a few pictures from that roll. It's fun to play around in black and white sometimes.

Also a roll of film taken in my 35mm camera over the last month. Pictures from volleyball games, flag football games, around the house...

I am hoping to get pictures from Mall of America online soon, bear with me! There are literally hundreds of them, since my mother sent me the pictures she took too. If you add in all of the pictures and video Pavan's parents took, I think we managed to document every second of the weekend!!!

More later,

Rebecca

He's back!

You won't believe what was walking down our driveway when we got home from dance class last night, that darn porcupine! This time we had the camera along, so we got out and took some pictures. When he saw me walk up, all his quills stood up on end....but I kept my distance. I was taking the pictures from about 10 feet away, I know they can't throw their quills and I know they move pretty slow, but I wasn't going to take any chances! Of course, Pavan kept coming up behind us and poking us with sticks, saying there was a baby porcupine behind us. Men! Thank goodness it was at the start of the driveway, so the dogs didn't come out to greet us this time! He walked over to the nearest tree, and started to climb, which surprised all of us. I didn't realize they climb trees. I hope they hold on good and tight, because I would hate to be walking along and have a porcupine fall out of a tree onto me! Molly is feeling better. Still tender, but acting more normal. She is on antibiotics two times a day for the next week or so, and she's getting away with more than usual (which explains why she's on the couch...). Just like a kid, they can get away with almost anything when they aren't feeling well! Kindra's volleyball team did great last night against Horace Mann Middle School in Wausau (they have 3 middle schools in Wausau). The B team won all three games and the A team won two out of three. These wins were much needed, and the girls were so excited to walk away the winners! Better run. Suffering from a horrible headache today, but I bought 8 pounds of apples to make apple butter, so that's what I'm doing! More later, Rebecca

Molly vs Porcupine

Yesterday evening we left to drop Anna off at gymnastics and pick Kindra up from volleyball. We stopped by Trigs on the way home for some milk. As we were coming down the driveway, I thought there was a big fluffy cat in the driveway...as we got closer we could see it was a big porcupine! We were all staring out the windows, watching the porcupine make it's way (very slowly...) across the driveway. Just as it stepped onto the ground, and I started to pull forward, here came Molly! I guess she'd heard us and came out to greet us, but when she sniffed that porcupine she ran straight into harm's way! Well, I quickly drove to the house and got the little ones out of the car because I knew Molly would need some attention when she got back to the house. Just as we got Noah and Amaya out of the car, here came Molly, whimpering and crying. It was pitiful. The left side of her face was covered in quills, even her nose and inside her mouth. Her left shoulder was covered, and she had some on her paw. I pulled out a couple of the quills, but then Kindra took over so I could go inside and call the veterinarian. Amazingly, Kindra was able to remove more than half the quills before Molly was in too much pain. At that point Molly started nipping at Kindra, so we loaded her up and headed to the on call vet's office. Pavan met us there. They sedated Molly and removed the rest of the quills, ouch! She was still pretty dopey last night, but is much better today. She's just laying around resting, and you can tell the left side of her face is swollen. She is walking with a limp, and isn't eating much, but I would imagine she'll be sore for a few days. Hopefully next time she meets a porcupine, she'll run the other direction!

The pictures were taken as we loaded her into the car to head to the vet. There weren't many quills remaining at that point, but some of them were very deep. I took some pictures with my 35mm camera as Kindra was removing some of the quills, I'll post them online as soon as I get that roll developed. Poor Molly!

Yet another adventure in the Northwoods! Oh, did I mention she came home smelling like a skunk too? Geez, she's been having entirely too much fun lately!

More later,

Rebecca

Another week gone by...

I cannot believe how time flies we are so busy. Another week has come and gone, and by this time next week our baby will be three years old!

My Mom and Aunt Sharon came to our house last Wednesday night and stayed until Saturday afternoon. We had a good time exploring the area on Thursday and Friday while the children were in school, and they got to watch Kindra play volleyball on Thursday and Anna play football on Saturday morning. We were supposed to go to the varsity football game Friday night, but there were some storms moving through the area about the time the game was set to start so we didn't go. I didn't feel comfortable sitting on metal bleachers during a lightning storm, or sending Anna down on the football field to play while it was storming. The weather was different every day they were here...typical fall weather I suppose. Thursday it was cloudy with a high in the mid 50s. Friday it was hot and stormed. Saturday it was around 70 with such a beautiful blue sky. The leaves are really changing in the Northwoods, and it is so beautiful! Hard to believe in just another couple of months everything will be covered in snow until May!

Amaya had her very first dance class last Tuesday. When we arrived, her tap shoes had already come in that we ordered the week before at open house. We hurried upstairs to try them on, and you should have seen the look on her face when she stood up and took her first step in them! Her eyes got so big when she heard the tapping sound it made, and she had the biggest smile on her face. A few stomps later, and we had to take the shoes off until time for her class! She did such a great job in her class, and even tried to go back in with Noah for his class. She is the youngest child in her class, Dorinda put her in a class with children who are turning 4 and 5 this year...but this is the first year dancing for all of them. By putting her in that class, we could keep all of the kids on Tuesday night. Amaya did great though, other than being smaller than the other kids, you couldn't tell she was any younger. She memorized Noah's dance last year, so I was confident she would be fine with the older kids.

Noah has a really interesting dance class this year. It's made up of 5 boys and 3 girls! I can't wait to see what sort of dance they do for recital, I'm sure Dorinda will come up with something to showcase the boys. And Anna's classes are interesting this year too. There are only 3 girls in her ballet class, and only 4 in her tap class, compared to the 10+ that are normally in her classes. This will hopefully allow them more one on one time with the instructor, and maybe more difficult dances. Anna is counting down the days until she turns 10 and can take poin classes, I bet she'll be great at point...she has such strong legs!

Ok I'd better run. Enjoy the pictures. I am leaving for Mall of America with the children Thursday right after school. My mom is flying into Minneapolis late Thursday night, so we will share a hotel room with her on Thursday.  Unfortunately, Pavan is on call Thursday so he can't come with us. He will fly to Minneapolis on Friday morning to meet up with us. My dad, Margaret, and Grandmother Rigsbee are driving to Minneapolis on Friday and Pavan's parents are flying in on Saturday. We always have so much fun at Mall of America, it's the perfect place for a family reunion and birthday party!

More later,

Rebecca

Weekend

We had a very busy weekend, funny how "relaxing" can wear you out so much!

Friday night Kindra had practice until 430, and then an appointment to have her hair cut and highlighted from 530 until 730. So, after volleyball we had dinner at Subway in Walmart until time for her hair appointment (the appointment was at The Barbers, inside Walmart). Then I took the other kids back home for their camping adventure with Pavan. The plan was originally to camp out in the back yard, down by the fire pit. Unfortunately, the temperatures dropped into the lower 30s Friday night, so they decided to camp in the downstairs living room instead. I never appreciated how big our tent really is until Pavan set it up inside the house!! They had a camp fire in the fireplace downstairs, and told scary stories, and had a nice time. They were up early and had everything put away before we left for flag football Saturday morning, which was nice!

Saturday we knew we had to get a lot of work done around the house. Anna had several hours of work in her bedroom (what a mess!) and the toy room needed some serious attention!! Pavan had been wanting to take the kids to the animal park in Minocqua, so we decided that he would take Noah and Amaya up there while Kindra and Anna stayed home to help me clean. It worked out great. Anna had football from 1030AM until noon. Kindra and I dropped her off and then ran to the farmer's market while the football teams warmed up. We made it back in time to watch her team scrimmage another team. It was fun to watch! This Friday night, the flag football teams are playing short games during halftime of the varsity football game. It will be so much fun to watch!

Pavan left for Minocqua about the same time we left for football. As I was driving into Rhinelander, I saw a monster truck set up at the intersection of47 and K, about a mile from our house. So I called Pavan and told him about it so he could bring Noah and Amaya back to take a look. Then they  headed up to Minocqua and "mimi land" as Amaya calls it. They had a lot of fun, and we had most of the cleaning done by the time they got back home. Noah and Amaya were so tired, they took long naps, so we were able to get the rest of the cleaning done while they slept. Anna's room and the toy room look much better now, and we have several bags to drop off at Goodwill this week!

On Sunday we took a little drive over to Tomahawk in the afternoon. Anna went to a friend's house, so she didn't go with us. We wanted to see what was left of the Tomahawk Fall Ride, which went from Thursday through Sunday morning. There wasn't much left by the time we got there, but we got to walk through some vendor tents and saw some neat stuff. Tomahawk is a town of around 4000 people, and every year an extra 40,000 people descend on the town and surrounding areas (Rhinelander was packed with motorcycles all weekend, and we are 30 minutes from Tomahawk) for the Fall Ride. The ride raises money for MDA, and brings thousands of motorcycles into town...which is fun to watch.

I'd better get going. Just wanted to share the pictures of our weekend with you. I have almost taken up the entire roll of film in my 35mm camera, so I should have more pictures of volleyball and football to post on here later this week. My Mom and Aunt Sharon are at a quilting retreat just outside of Minneapolis, and will be driving to our house Wednesday evening. They will be here until Saturday afternoon, so they will get to see Kindra play volleyball and Anna play football during halftime Friday night, and Saturday morning. We should have a lot of fun, and the fall colors are beautiful up here right now, so we might even take a "fall colors cruise" on the new Wisconsin River Cruises that leave from Rhinelander and head down the Wisconsin River.

More later,

Rebecca

Volleyball game

We made it back to Rhinelander just in time to see the B team's 3rd game, which they won. I think they lost the other two.

The A team did awesome! Huge improvement in their performance since Tuesday's game, and they won two of the three games. All of the games were very close, which is a good sign. Our skills are about the same level as the other 7th grade teams in the area, so far. Next Tuesday we have our first away game, at DC Everest, which is one of two middle schools in Wausau. This is a bitter debate subject here in Rhinelander...why do we, a school from a town of 7000 people, play DC Everest, a school from a town of 37,000???? We lose every time. Not to jinx our team...but statistics will show you that their team is bound to be better, they have more kids to choose from and a lot more resources!! After all, Kindra's team is being coached by her science teacher and her husband, who is a fireman!!

Anyway, the win tonight was awesome. The girls were so excited, and it was great to see! I pulled out my 35 mm camera to take some pictures, I wasn't happy with the quality of the indoor pictures my digital camera was taking. So, once I take up the entire roll I'll get those posted on here too.

More later,

Rebecca

Busy

Just wanted to post these pictures before I get too far behind! We've been very busy this week with most of the children's activities starting. The only thing that hasn't started yet is dance class, which starts next week.

Monday Kindra had volleyball until 515, and Anna had gymnastics from 530 until 730. Tuesday Kindra had her first volleyball game, the B team played from 430 until 530 and the A team played from 530 until 630. Starting next week, Anna, Noah and Amaya will have dance class on Tuesday nights. Wednesday Kindra had volleyball practice until 530, Anna had choir after school until 415, then Anna had flag football from 515 until 645, and Kindra had youth group at church from 6 until 8PM. Today I have to run to Merrill as soon as I pick Noah and Anna up from school, for the open house at the dance studio. We have to attend the open house to order dance shoes. Then we have to rush back to Rhinelander for Kindra's game at 530! Like I said...busy!

Kindra made the A team for volleyball, which is very exciting. She was pretty frustrated by their first game. The B team lost all three matches, the A team lost two of the three. BUT the A team games were all very close, within a few points. I thought they did great, after all it was their first time ever playing volleyball.

Ok gotta run. I need to pack a bag full of toys and snacks to (hopefully!) keep Noah and Amaya distracted during Kindra's game. They were terrible at the game on Tuesday, and I came home with the worst headache! I'd imagine anyone sitting within 10 feet of us went home with a headache too!! Need to leave the house by 2 so I can pick up the dog's medicine at the vet, then pick up Noah at 230 at St.Joseph's...pick up Anna at 255 at St.Mary's, then quick to Merrill, quick back to Rhinelander. The days are flying by...

More later,

Rebecca

First day of school

Just a quick note to let you know how school is going. Kindra started school on Tuesday...waking up at 5:30AM to catch the bus by 6:45. Thank goodness she will normally only have to ride the bus on Mondays, since that's the one day Noah doesn't have school. The Catholic school doesn't allow it's 4K students to ride the school bus, they have to be dropped off and picked up by the parents, so I take the girls to school and pick them up from school Tuesday through Friday.

This year Kindra's home room teacher is Mrs.Swaney, who is also her volleyball coach. She's really young, has two small children, and Kindra likes her a lot. Kindra is in advanced English and advanced math this year because of her high scores in those classes last year, and high scores on the WI standardized tests they took last year. She is also taking foreign language, family and consumer education (better known as home ec., mandatory), industrial tech (also mandatory) and chorus (with an opportunity to compete in solo and ensemble in February). This week she has volleyball practice every day after school, and next week their games start on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We had to cancel her dance class this year, because I wanted her to give 100% to whichever sport she chose to do...she chose volleyball, and will probably play basketball too. Who knows, she might even try softball in the spring!

Anna's first day was Wednesday. She is at a different building this year, St.Mary's, which is for 3rd through 8th graders. The Catholic school system in Rhinelander ends at 8th grade. Her teacher this year is Miss Coenen, who is a new teacher at Nativity this year. Anna already likes her a lot, she has a lot of new ideas that have the kids really excited. One example is that each child was given a check book and a check register. She "gives" them $100/month just to be in her class. If they misbehave, forget to do their homework, etc. they are given a fine, which they pay out of that $100. At the end of the month she opens the classroom store, and they can use their remaining money to purchase items...by writing another check. Some of the items cost a lot, so they will have to save up for many months and behave! I thought it was a great way to get the kids to behave, and teach them the important skills of managing their money. Anna signed up for the school choir, which sings at Mass once a month. She is also going to be taking dance class (tap and ballet), flag football in September and October, and gymnastics. She is such a busy girl, but she thrives on all of the activity.

Noah is in 4K, and is still going to St.Joseph's (still Nativity Catholic School, they just have 2 buildings). His teacher is Mrs. Sampe in the mornings, and Mrs. Gittens in the afternoon. He was nervous when we went to meet his teachers on Tuesday, but has been fine his first two days of school. He has even eaten the school lunch both days, a chicken sandwich and a taco!! They have nap time in the afternoon, but he said that he just lays there and listens to the music. This year he is going four full days each week, it's strange having him gone all day!

And Amaya is still home with me. She would have had to be 3 years old by September 1st to attend preschool this year. She really wants to go to school, but I'm happy to have her home with me for one more year. She's such a good girl, especially when Noah's not around to harass her!

I'd better go. Kindra will be done at practice in 20 minutes, so it's time to load everyone up and head into town to pick her up.

More later,

Rebecca

The end of vacation...back to the real world!

We are back home, as I'm sure most of you are already aware. We arrived in Rhinelander around 2:30 Sunday afternoon and spent the next few hours unloading the camper! It was kind of a pain, but much better to load it once before you leave and unload it once when you get home than to unload everything every night at a hotel!

As always, the end of a great vacation is kind of sad, but it's nice to be home. This year we have a week and a half between the end of vacation and the time school starts, which is great! The past two years we've arrived home from vacation the day before school starts, which is terrible! The best thing is that we finished all of our back to school shopping before vacation, so this week has been a nice relaxing one.

Kindra started volleyball practice on Monday. We had been told she would miss an entire week of practice while we were on vacation, but it turns out she only missed one day, which made her feel a lot better! She has had practice for two hours each day this week, but they don't have any more practice until next Tuesday. Then they will have practice for two hours after school each day, except for game days. Starting September 11th they will have games most Tuesday and Thursday afternoons through the middle of October. Living in a place like Rhinelander, where the towns are pretty far apart, some of the games are at schools two hours from here!

OK, back to vacation. To be quite honest with you, we were all exhausted the last few days of vacation and ended up skipping all of our planned activities in Bemidji, MN and Hayward, WI. We did stop at the park and take pictures of Paul Bunyan and Babe, but we didn't make the 30 mile drive to the Headwaters of the Mississippi River. The KOA in Bemidji was great though....we had Lumberjack Stew for dinner and it only cost $1/person!

However, the KOA in Hayward, WI was the best one we'd ever seen! This place was just unbelievable for kids. I tried to take pictures to show you how many people (kids) were at this place, but I don't know if you can really tell. It was just so busy, I'd never seen so many people doing so many different things at any other campground! It might drive some people crazy, but we thought it was great. There were kids playing basketball, kids swimming, kids playing volleyball, lots of kids riding bikes (and you could rent bikes), there was a huge water slide, a game room, and awesome playground...it goes on and on. They had a great pancake breakfast in the morning, they had kids activities throughout the day, like dressing up like a pirate, and wagon rides on a big wagon pulled by a tractor. Saturday night they had a dance from 7-10PM with a DJ, and at 830 they had a nighttime scavenger hunt for all kids. They had treasure scattered all over the mini golf course, and divided the kids by age. They let the little ones in first (age 1-5) and they had about 10 minutes to find all the treasure they could. Then they let the older kids come in...until they had found everything. This was all done in complete darkness with just flashlights, it was so much fun!! There must have been over 100 kids there...and of course a lot of parents too.

One more cool thing about the Hayward KOA is that you can go tubing on the river, it's a calm 2 hour ride down the river. They rent you the tubes, take you to the entry point in the river, and pick you up 2 hours later downstream! Sounds like something really fun to do when the kids are just a little bit older! I'm already envisioning a trip back to the Hayward KOA, and probably the Bemidji one too, next summer when Chris comes up (with Dad's awesome new camper!)!

So on Sunday we had planned to visit the giant muskie at the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. We drove by, waved at the muskie and came home!! We are planning a long weekend, or maybe even a week next spring to visit the things we missed the last couple of days. After our busy vacation, we needed a couple of days to rest before we got home!

School starts Tuesday, and EVERYTHING else starts that next two weeks. I'll spare you all the details, it's too late to exhaust myself like that, haha. It'll be nice to get back into a routine though, and Noah is very excited to get back to school. The girls are excited to get back and see their friends. Noah just loves school! Amaya is excited to start dance class...she found the bag with her dance leotards and wore them all day and all night the past two days. Fortunately, she eventually spilled something on both of them and had to put them in the wash!!

I'm off to bed....more later!

Rebecca

Vacation Days 12, 13, 14

Ok, I've been trying to update the journal for two hours now, and I give up!! This internet connection and I seem to disagree on everything, so I am going to just leave it at this:

Wednesday we drove to Fargo and spent the evening at the campsite. We had planned to stop at a buffalo museum on the way from Bismarck to Fargo, but our hectic vacation was catching up with all of us and we just wanted to relax! Anna met a friend from California who was camping right next to us, and they exchanged addresses and email before they left. That's one of the best things about camping, all of the great people you meet from all over the country.

Thursday we toured Fargo....first an aviation museum, then Bonanzaville...which is basically a recreated village from the later 1800s. All of the buildings are actually from that time period, and were moved to Bonanzaville over the years. As you can tell, I loved touring the old houses! Then we went to Famous Dave's for dinner, again! Fargo is a great town, and we could have spent a lot more time there. I wish I would have had more energy to see more of the town, we'll have to head back there sometime.

http://www.bonanzaville.org/main.php

Today we spent the morning at an RV service center in Fargo, having a problem with our water looked at. Basically, our toilet was running nonstop, even if we disconnected the outside water line and turned off the water pump. A leaky valve was allowing water from our fresh water tank to leak into the toilet. If we didn't flush it every 30 minutes or so, it would overflow. As you can imagine, that was a problem when we went to bed! Last night I had to use the toilet brush to prop open the lever so it would drain instead of filling. What a pain! They weren't able to permanently repair the problem, but did create a temporary fix until we get back home. Looks like our camper will be spending some time in the shop having many problems repaired when we get home!

Tomorrow we head to Hayward, WI and the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame...a huge fish.

More later,

Rebecca

 

Vacation Days 9, 10, 11

I apologize for taking so long to update again, now I have to play catch up! Sunday was very busy until late, Monday we were on the road until late, and this morning I couldn't get the internet to work because we were too far from the office for the wireless to connect.

On Sunday we took our rental car and headed about an hour north of our KOA to check out Deadwood, SD. The cool thing about Deadwood is that the entire town is designated a National Historic Landmark. There are blocks and blocks of buildings that are from around 1880, which is amazing! Deadwood was home to many notorious people, such as Wild Bill Hickock. Our first stop was the Broken Boot Gold Mine, which was established in 1878, during one of America's last great gold rushes. It was a small place, but it was nice and cool inside and we all developed a new appreciation for what difficult and dangerous work mining was 100+ years ago!

Once we got there, we quickly realized Deadwood wasn't a place designed for kids. Ninety percent of the businesses in downtown had gambling inside, which was a little intimidating. Behind all of these gaming machines there would be restaurants, gift shops, etc. but there were all these signs up telling you all the rules if you brought children inside. Such as children must remain 4 feet from all gaming machines, they can't touch the gaming machines, they cannot hold any money that will be used in or has been won from gaming machines, etc. Well, when I take Noah and Amaya into any store, I can't guarantee I can keep them 4 feet from anything! Curiosity made me enter the Bullock Hotel (you know, it's supposedly haunted, unfortunately they didn't do the ghost tours on Sundays or Mondays), and the first thing Noah did was run up to one of the gaming machines (the whole lobby was full of them...didn't seem all that historical to me!) and start punching buttons! Anyway, we had a nice lunch there, enjoyed all of the historic buildings, and then headed three miles to the town of Lead (pronounced leed).

Lead is home to the Homestake Gold Mine, which was in operation for over 120 years! The most amazing thing about this mine is what they call the Open Cut. It's a HUGE "surface pit" from which they mined the gold. This cut is so big that they've actually had to move Main Street in Lead several times over the years. The last time they significantly enlarged the cut was back in the late 80s, and at that time they had to move around 80 houses in town!! The pit is 12,000 feet deep and about a mile across. Take a look at the pictures, see if you can find the "little" pink booth...I thought it was a trashcan, it was actually a shack big enough to hold 12 men! It was such an amazing place. We even took the trolley tour of Lead, which basically took us around the entire town (the town was created because of the mine, and it seems like everything in town was directly affected by the mine), and ended up at the mills and such that took the ore and broke it down into the gold.

Once we left Lead, we headed back to the campground for about an hour, just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat. Then we boarded the bus for the Crazy Horse lighting ceremony and laser show. For about 30 minutes before the show started, we were sitting outside watching Mother Nature put on a lights show of her own! I thought we'd be rained on before the show ever started, but all we got were a couple of sprinkles and then it all headed the other way. The show was nice, Amaya spent the whole time dancing to the music. It rained on us all the way back to the KOA, but had stopped by the time we got off the bus. We ran inside to grab some milk, and ended up running back to the camper when it started raining again!

Got back to the camper, realized our camper was having an electrical problem. So, got ready for bed using our flashlights! The next morning realized our hot water heater wasn't working either, so had to take showers in the bath house. Pavan was able to find a man who would come to our campground and take a look at the problem, since none of the RV repair places in the area could see us until later in the week. Basically, there is your chassis battery which runs the engine, and there are your house batteries, which run a lot of the stuff inside....such as all of your lights, the pilot on your hot water heater, controls on your fridge, etc. Well, for some reason our house batteries are charging just fine off of our chassis battery but won't charge when we are hooked up to AC power at the campsite. So, while we're driving the batteries are charging just fine. But after 2 days camped with the engine off, the house batteries go dead because they aren't charging from the land line like they should. Won't be a problem for the rest of our trip because we aren't staying anywhere for more than 2 days, but is something we'll have to get fixed once we get home.

OK...so we got a late start leaving on Monday because of the guy coming over to look at the RV. We had about 375 miles to get to Bismarck....375 miles of absolutely nothing!! We stopped at a WalMart in Spearfish, picked up some things, and then grabbed a couple of pizzas before we hit the road again. It was a beautiful drive, but empty. We saw a lot of antelope, some beautiful buttes that turned to huge rolling hills the closer we got to Bismarck. Drove through Sturgis and Belle Fourche, the geographical center of the USA. We didn't get to Bismarck until just before 10PM, so we ate the rest of the pizza and went to bed.

Woke up this morning to rain. They had said a few sprinkles in the morning and then sunny in the afternoon, so we just waited it out and washed 4 loads of laundry. (Had 5 loads to do, but they only had 4 washers, so did the last load tonight!) Pavan left at noon via taxi to pick up a rental car at the airport, a very nice mini van this time. We left around 2PM for Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. What a great place! It is built on a site that was home to Mandan Indians back in the 1500s-1700s. They were eventually wiped out by smallpox, and the remaining Indians moved north to join with some ally tribes...safety in numbers. However, there were reconstructed earth lodges and a great museum about the Mandan people. There was a guided tour of the lodges by a Native woman who was so knowledgeable, it was fascinating.

A hundred years after the Mandan left the "On A Slant" village, there was a fort built on the site to help guard the railroad as it pushed westward. Named Fort Abraham Lincoln, at one point it had around 650 infantry and calvary men stationed there, including General Custer and the 7th Calvary...they left Fort Abraham Lincoln and followed the Missouri River (the fort is right on the river) into Montana for the Battle of Little Big Horn. Not many of them returned...

So, we got to tour the reconstructed home of George and Libbie Custer...a guided tour by a man dressed in period clothing. It was a lot of fun. The funny thing is that the fort was abandoned in 1891. After the railroad was completed, they just had no need for the fort. About that time, homesteaders were coming into that area...they came onto the fort and dismantled all of the barracks and homes and used that wood to build their houses!! So, a lot of the older homes in theMandan/Bismarck area are build with stolen government property!

We left Fort Abraham Lincoln at 5:15 and rushed to get to our next stop, the Historic Port of Bismarck, for our dinner cruise on the Lewis and Clark Riverboat. The cruise left at 6:15 but we were supposed to arrive 30 minutes early. Tuesday nights are Famous Dave's cruises, you get to eat BBQ during the hour and a half cruise up the Missouri River. It was such a beautiful day, and such a great cruise. Afterward we walked around Keelboat Park (where the port is located) and saw a reproduction keelboat like one Lewis and Clark used on their trip on the Missouri back to St.Louis. OH, FYI...it was about 30 miles north of Bismarck where Lewis and Clark met Sakakawea! We've learned a lot about Lewis and Clark AND Sakakawea during our time in North Dakota!

Then we drove around Bismarck, drove through the capitol grounds where I took pictures of the Sakakawea statue. Then back to the campground, time at the playground, finishing laundry,etc. Now I'm officially caught up!! Tomorrow we leave Bismarck for Fargo/Moorhead. Will spend all day Thursday in the Fargo area.

More later!

Rebecca

Vacation Day #8

I know, you are all shocked to see that I have less than 100 pictures today. The Black Hills are beautiful, but we just haven't been much of anywhere yet...that will change today though. We are planning a trip to Deadwood to see an original gold rush town, including a tour of a 100+ year old gold mine and a visit to the haunted Bullock Hotel. Maybe even a trip up the mountain to view the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. Should be some interesting pictures to come out of Deadwood...

Yesterday we ate the delicious breakfast Dad prepared over the camp fire. He made the most delicious biscuits in his Dutch oven, which I think surprised us all, him included! We had biscuits and sausage gravy and scrambled eggs, it was great. We picked up our rental mini van (a real relic...I think it was one of the original mini vans...) and then drove by Crazy Horse to take some pictures from the side of the road. Then we headed to Keystone to check out all of the shops and such. We looked at a lot of Black Hills Gold jewelry, and I finally found a necklace and earrings that I really liked. After that we headed into Hill City for a trip to the grocery store, and then back to the campground. We rested for awhile, had supper, and boarded the bus at 6:20 to head to Mt.Rushmore for the lighting ceremony. We had plenty of time to look in the gift shop and eat some ice cream before the ceremony started at 8. It was a very touching ceremony, I would recommend it for anyone...unfortunately when it came time to light Mt.Rushmore, the fog had rolled in and you couldn't see anything! It was like one of those bad postcards that are pure white on the front and say "Mt.Rushmore in the fog".

Better run, suddenly everyone is ready to go!

More later,

Rebecca 

Vacation Day #7

Yesterday morning we all dragged out of bed, and then Pavan took the kids to the playground while I showered. Then I took advantage of the time alone in the camper to get some cleaning done...sweeping, spot cleaning the floor, washing the counters, cleaning the bathroom, etc. The thing that amazes me the most is all of the dust on everything. Driving with all the windows wide open, combined with the always present wind in the plains seems to create quite a layer of dust in the camper! The good thing is that cleaning the entire camper only takes 20 minutes, at the most!

We hit the road right at 11AM, and the first thing we did was take a wrong turn! We followed the signs that said they would take us to I-90, but about 12 miles down the road the sign to I-90 pointed up a gravel road! Well, that couldn't be right!!! So we pulled out all the maps and realized we were supposed to turn right, not left! There was nowhere to turn around, so Pavan just slowly turned us around right in the middle of the road. It's not like there was any other traffic anyway! So we headed back the other way and found our way onto the Badlands Loop...a 40 mile loop of road that takes you right through Badlands National Park. You get off I-90 at Cactus Flats and end up back on I-90 in Wall...which was perfect because we wanted to visit Wall Drug.

If you ever drive through South Dakota, I highly recommend you take the Badlands Loop and experience this amazing National Park. I cannot put into words the beauty of the Badlands. You can just imagine people hiding out in the many crevices, and the contrast between the varying landscapes is just breathtaking! As you can tell by my 150 pictures...I just couldn't seem to get enough of it! Every time we turned a corner, it was something even more beautiful than the last! The one thing I didn't count on, though, was the extreme dryness of the area. You would walk out of the camper, and could feel the moisture being sucked right out of your nose and mouth and throat! We'd get back into the camper after 20 or 30 minutes at one of the overlooks, and suck down a glass of water. We were very careful to keep the little ones hydrated!

After we left the park, it was only about 10 miles to Wall. We stopped for a couple of hours at Wall Drug, which is quite a place! I think we could have spent a couple of more hours poking around all the stores in Wall, but after lunch we headed toward Mt.Rushmore, where we knew Dad and Margaret were waiting.

All the way from Wall to Rapid City we could see some storms developing off to the north. As you can see, the contrast between the yellow prairie land and the dark sky was beautiful. We turned off I-90 just before Rapid City, following the signs to Mt.Rushmore, as our campground is on that same road, 5 miles west. It was an interesting drive in the camper, at times I felt like we should all start chanting "I think I can, I think I can", and then holding on tight as we came back down the hills. Again, the landscapes were amazing. To think that a couple of hours before we'd been in the Badlands, a dry, desert area with many canyons and wide open spaces. And now, we were in the mountains!

At one point we knew we were getting close to the area where Mt.Rushmore is located, but I wasn't prepared to round a corner and see the monument right from the road! I was shouting, all of the kids came running up to the front and we all had our noses pressed to the window! It was just amazing. We are planning to head back to Mt.Rushmore for the lighting ceremony tonight. We can catch a shuttle from the campground, or take our own cars if necessary. There is also a lighting ceremony at Crazy Horse, but it's a lot more expensive. I think we'll just visit Crazy Horse on our own during the day today.

The KOA here at Mt.Rushmore is HUGE!! We are lucky enough to be about 10 spaces down from the front gates, but the campground goes on forever! Dad and Margaret were supposedly going to be two spaces over from us, but they are actually about 5 spaces down from us, on the other side of the road. Oh well. Last night Dad had plans to grill brats and hamburgers. As soon as he got the grill going, it started to pour down rain! Not only that, but we soon discovered we were under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, Flash Flood Warning, and TORNADO Warning!! We went up to the camp store to ask where we should go in case of bad weather, and were told that most severe weather breaks up when it hits the mountains...the worst we might get is huge hail!!! We ended up eating dinner in our camper, and looking through all of the pictures I've taken so far.

This morning Dad is making biscuits and gravy in his dutch oven, and then we are going to visit Crazy Horse and Custer State Park, then the lighting ceremony tonight. 

Here comes Margaret with breakfast, gotta run!

More later

Rebecca 

Vacation Days #4,5,6

Tonight has been one of those frustrating times when I can't get the internet to work quite the way I'd like, and I find myself writing my journal entry for the second time...because it failed to save the first time. SO, it's late, I'm tired, I still have four loads of laundry in the dryer...forgive me if this is shorter than you'd like. I'm sure most of you are most interested in the pictures anyway!!

Tuesday we had to check out of the KOA in Sioux Falls by 11AM. Around 1045 Kindra and I headed to the airport to return the rental car, and Pavan took the others in the camper to stop by the RV dealer to pick up one more thing. After he picked us up at the airport, we headed to Falls Park one last time to pick up a few souvenirs and to take a few more pictures of the falls in the daylight.

We left Sioux Falls around 1PM and headed to De Smet, a drive of about 2 hours in the camper. It was a beautiful drive. A lot of people might think the endless corn fields and prairie grass is boring, but I think it's wonderful.

Once we arrived in De Smet, we took a quick drive around town to get a feel for how easy it would be to walk around the town the next day. It's a small town, a little too far from the camp ground to walk into town, but small enough to walk wherever we wanted to go once we drove into town.

Then we headed out to the Ingalls Homestead. Talk about love at first sight!! You can see from the pictures the beauty of the land and the buildings, you can see all of the fun activities we were able to experience...but what you can't see is the magical feeling of walking on the same land as Laura, experiencing many of the same sights and sounds as she described in her books that we've all read for so many years. It was awesome. I cannot even begin to describe the wonderful time we had at the Homestead, or how sad it was to drive away this morning. During the day it was great, but the evening was even better. All of the other tourists went home, the Homestead was officially closed. But we were left, along with two or three other families (there were only 4 RV sites, which were never full...and then a few covered wagons you could rent to sleep in for the night). The barns were still open, the houses were still open, some of the animals were still there (most of the horses and the big cow were taken across the road to a field at night). It was like we owned the place, and it was so amazing! One more thing I want to say about the Homestead....the kids loved it there. There was no internet access, there was no cable TV, there was no playground or swimming pool (other than the teeter totter and sandbox)...but I never once heard them complain about being bored! SIMPLICITY...that is the key to so much of the happiness we are all searching for in life!

Yesterday we drove the camper into De Smet, parked on a side road and walked around town. (and walked, and walked, and walked!) We ate lunch at a diner in town, checked out a lot of the historic homes and buildings that Laura talked about in some of her books, and visited a lot of gift shops. Once we were walked out, Pavan and Amaya went to get the camper, and the rest of us headed to the only grocery store in town...a very small store that reminded me of the one we shopped at when I was maybe 5 years old. Then back to the Homestead, where we made some new friends from Canada and had a campfire until nearly midnight.

This morning we spent a few more hours visiting with our new friends on the Homestead and then headed for Mitchell, SD to see the Corn Palace. We spent maybe an hour in Mitchell and then headed west for the Badlands and our next stop. The thing about the Badlands is that they come up so suddenly, they are such a shock! Here you are driving along for hundreds of miles and all you see is prairie and corn. Then all of a sudden you come upon the most amazing landscapes, like you are on another planet! I just kept wondering about all of those pioneers that headed west in their wagons, traveling maybe 15or 20 miles a day. Nothing but grass, grass, grass....and then suddenly these huge canyons and amazing landscapes. They were probably wondering, now what??

Ok, so here we are at the Badlands/White River KOA. We will take the scenic 30 mile loop through part of the Badlands tomorrow, which will bring us into Wall, SD...where we will stop at Wall Drug. Then onto the Hill City / Mt.Rushmore KOA.

Time to get the clothes out of the dryer...

More later

Rebecca

Update....it's midnight (mountain time), the laundry is done, the journal is finally done...and I am going to bed! I will try to get the Badlands pictures online tomorrow night, ran out of time tonight!

Vacation Day #3 Sioux Falls, SD

We spent yesterday exploring Sioux Falls and preparing for the next couple of days in DeSmet. We don't know anything about the campground in DeSmet, so we are preparing for the possibility that it won't have any hook ups at all. Maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised when we arrive, and find out they at least have electricity and water, wouldn't that be nice! Regardless, we are going to have a great time in De Smet! Here is a website that tells you a little bit about the town and the great stuff there is to see...Kindra and I both love reading about live on the prairie 100+ years ago. She has been reading the Little House series recently, and I have been reading a series about a group of homesteaders from Norway who settled in North Dakota in the 1880s...so the trials of the homesteaders in this area of the country are fresh in our minds, even if it is the fictionalized trials! To actually see the town, the land, the houses, the prairie they speak of in those books will be an amazing experience.

Yesterday morning weslept in and then relaxed here at the camper for a few hours. At 1145, a taxi came and took Pavan to the airport to pick up a rental car (minivan to be exact). When he got back, we loaded up and headed into Sioux Falls. First stop, Falls Park. It was terribly hot and humid outside, but there was a stiff breeze that helped us along. We spent about 45 minutes in Falls Park and then hopped on the trolley (free! very nice). Our intention was to get off the trolley at some point and walk around Main St. but once we got on we realized what a perfect tourist tool the trolley really is. As you drive through downtown, there is a narrative playing overhead, telling you all about the historic buildings in the city. So, we rode the entire trolley route all the way back to Falls Park, then drove around some of the historic housing districts on our own.

After a trip to Wal-Mart, We spent yesterday afternoon/early evening catching up on some things around the camper. We already had three loads of laundry that needed washed, so I took advantage of a few hours free time to get that done. Pavan made a run to the RV dealer next door to pick up a few tabs to hold a glass door panel in place and a few other things we've realized we could use, and spent some time making a few minor repairs to the camper. The kids just watched TV and played. After living in Rhinelander for the last few years, the heat just zapped everyone. Of course I made the mistake of looking at the weather in Rhinelander this week...it was only 79 there yesterday. Will be in the 60s and 70s all week, with lows all the way down to the lower 40s!!!

We left the camper around 7PM to get some dinner and then head over to Falls Park for the laser lights show. Pavan was craving BBQ, so we went to Famous Daves. None of us had ever been there, but we will definitely be going back! My stomach is growling just writing about it...everyone was tearing up the BBQ, especially the ribs. Even Noah ate 2 ribs....NOAH!!! They have 6 or 7 different sauces on the table, so we tried every single one. Ordered a sampler meal that was enough to feed an army...all of it absolutely delicious! Yummy!

All afternoon we'd been keeping an eye on the weather. Just as we were leaving the restaurant, it started to rain and the sky was so dark. We almost headed back to the camper, but decided to drive by Falls Park to see if the show was still going to happen. When we got there, it wasn't raining. We spent about 20 minutes climbing on the rocks and looking at the falls (such a cool place!), and then spread out some blankets on the grass to watch the show. It was such a beautiful night, nice and cool with a wonderful breeze blowing. The show was so neat, and every once in awhile a plane would fly overhead on it's way to or from the airport, which the kids loved. The light show on the falls was beautiful, as was the lazar lights show. The main part of theshow was the history of Sioux Falls played overhead and shown in light pictures on the side of a building. I took some video during the show, I'll get it on YouTube eventually! Noah fell asleep during the last 15 minutes of the show, but afterward the rest of us climbed down some more rocks and took some video clips of the falls. It was too nice out to go home! (Kindra stayed behind on the grass with Noah, she was talking with a friend on the phone anyway!)

Ok I'd better go. Lots to do before we head out today. After I drop the car off at the airport, we are going to make a quick stop at Falls Park so I can get some pictures of the kids climbing on the rocks down to the Falls, so you can see what I"m talking about. It was just too dark last night to get any good pictures. Also, pick up a few souvenirs at the visitor center there.

Remember, we are headed to De Smet this afternoon. Not sure if we'll have electricity or water, let alone internet access. Might be a few days before we are online for more updates.

Oh, almost forgot to mention something very important. We have made a change to our itinerary for later this week. When we leave De Smet, we are going to check out the Corn Palace in Mitchell and then stay overnight at the Badlands/White River KOA in Interior, SD. That will be Thursday night. That will allow us to take a drive through part of the badlands, stop in Wall at Wall Drug, and then continue on to the Hill City/Mt.Rushmore KOA on Friday.

More later,

Rebecca