When Christina said she had an extra spot in her car on it's way to South Dakota, I was quick to fill it! Demitra (4) and Lucas (2) were traveling champs, and I now know how to keep kids entertained in a car for 2 days straight of traveling (22 hours total). Maybe I should Open up a consulting business for this (hehehe).
We took off Saturday morning at the crack of dawn. We drove as far as we could without stopping and waking the kids. Though, Demitra didn't sleep a whole lot that first day. She was too excited to be at Grandma's house. The first thing she said when we slowed down to merge on to I-90 was "are we at Grandma's house now!??" Christina and I looked at each other with a little giggle. We knew it would be a long trip for her. I ended up making a small car to move across the ceiling of the car so that they could tell where we were on our journey, that seemed to help them understand just how far we had to go! Both of them snacked and played a lot Demitra let me know that she wasn't a very good "patienter" every time I asked her to be patient with her. There were lots of memories made on this trip. We stopped in Miles City Montana the first night after driving 14 hours. The last hour the kids were getting restless so I pulled out some neon glow sticks and gave them 4 each which seemed to keep them entertained! The Comfort Inn that we stayed at was one I had stayed at before on my drive out to Seattle when I moved. It was funny to see it (hardly unchanged) so many years later.
We landed in South Dakota after about 9 hours of driving on Sunday afternoon. Everyone was out in the yard playing and waiting for us to arrive. Dad, Leslie, Tony & Boys and Bruce and Diane were all there with Grandma. It was fun to throw the ball around with the boys after being in the car for so long! We visited a bit, and then Tony was leaving to go to the races, so I decided to tag along with them.
We got to see the whole set of races, and Shannie & Erica showed up toward the end to snag me and head to Kathy's for the night. It was fun to see other family at the races, Kris, Addison, Bently and Uncle Mylo. Tony and Kris ended up winning the 50/50 drawing after purchasing 569 tickets. It was funny to watch them hassle a couple of High School Kids about tickets. Kathy and Todd were home when we got there after our Mid-night Wal-Mart run, and we helped them count some money from their night at the races, then we stayed up and visited with Kathy till 2 am.
The next morning, Shannon, Erica and I woke around 6 am to get moving for the day. I went out to Kathy's shed and found some of Mom's stuff I wanted to take with me. Once we left Kathy's house we stopped for a little breakfast and headed to Madison so I could see Shannie's house and take senior pictures for Erica.
Shannie's house is really cute - and her puppies are too! That's Shannon and Erica with Zoey, below is Shannon with Duce and Archie.
This is Erica's room!
I spent some time looking at Mom's journals while Erica got all dolled up for her Senior Pictures. I found the journals Mom wrote on the day I was born, pretty special seeing it in her handwriting.
I also got to snuggle her teddy bear for a little bit. I miss her.
1,600 miles apart, and Shannon and I still have the same phone and same phone case. We laughed pretty hard at this discovery.
Once we took a few shots around their house, Erica drove us to her favorite state park in Madison with Taco Johns for lunch and we had a nice lunch together. It was fun to see some of Erica's favorite places in Madison. It took us seriously all day to get the pictures done - and I will post them after a bit. Once we were done in Madison, we drove back to Watertown, and found Kathy and then went out to the Race Track to get a few more pictures there. After that we went to Pizza Ranch for dinner, and then Shannon took me back up to Grandma Mylas for the evening.
The next morning I woke up and took a 2.5 mile run/walk over to Bruce and Diane's and back again. It was nice to hear my feet crunch on the gravel road and to have the quiet. Then, I came back and got showered up and we loaded in the car and took the kids to Story Book Land in Alberdeen.
Who says Grandma's are too old for slides!?
This slide was so fast that Lucas caught air coming off of it. He got up and laughed, but this picture just cracks me up!
Grandma and I walked the Yellow Brick Road together!
We stopped at Burger King in Aberdeen for lunch and Grandma Treated. Then we headed to Ken's Supermarket to load up on groceries. Don't worry, I landed 4 Bags of Puff Corn, 5 bags of Twin Bings, and 4 bags of sunflower seeds. That should hold me.
Once we got back to the farm, I packed myself a little lunch and headed to Tony's place. Once I arrived, there wasn't anyone there, so I headed out to the cemetery to visit with Mom for awhile, and then went back to Tony's and our whole family was there!
We ate pizza for dinner, and then went out side to play - Tony and Dad built a bon fire for us to enjoy.
It was a fun night on Tony's Farm. It was really nice to have all of us together again! I got home late around 10 and Grandma was still awake. Her and I stat up and visited for 2 hours, and had a really nice talk.
The next morning, Grandma suggested that we just stayed around the farm and had some fun. So I took Lucas and Demi for rides on the 4-Wheeler and Grandma was giving rides on the lawn mower. It was a fun day! We all came back to Grandma's for a rest, and then we had family over for dinner.
After dinner, I went out for a ride in the combine with Scott. It was cool to see how high tech his Combine is as it's just a few years old.
We said our "See ya Laters" and were on the road the following morning for a day in Omaha with friends. The trip to South Dakota was a very good one. I have several more photos I'd like to share, so tune in this week to see them. These are just the one's off one of my cameras.
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