Shout-outs!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

***

Grandma Charlotte was nice enough (or crazy enough) to fly out to S.D. on Friday, so that when we drove home on Saturday, I wouldn't have to do it alone again. That is a looooong drive! The kids were totally good on both drives, but it was really nice to have another adult. Thank you Charlotte!

"king of the mountain"

***

And a big, big thanks to our good friends/good neighbors for their help in getting Grandma Charlotte to us!

South Dakota

WARNING! Lots of pictures :)

***

Paige and Zoe being silly

This place was paradise for my little rock collector!
teeter-tottering with Grandma

there were cool little caves all over the place

Paige left some cave drawings to be found by the next explorers.

They all had so much fun with Dad.

Do you think they all made it all the way across?

Sisters..... I love it!

We were at Custer state park, looking for gold in a stream. Next thing we know, Zoe is floating away down the stream. :) The water was just a little bit chilly!

They still allow the fun metal slides out there. The kids loved them!

Seriously.....

I have the best brothers ever!!!

And they do have the greatest shoe/sock fashion sense too. :)

Since Craig has been gone, my yard hasn't suffered at all. In fact, I think it's much improved. (sorry Craig :)) Cody and Tad have been taking care of everything without any complaint. I've never even asked them either. They just do it on their own. Cody get's out there despite his fear of mosquitos and fire ants, and Tad comes over with weed killer and new trash cans. Actually I think Tad just comes over so he can have another driveway to hose down. That is definitely one of his favorite things to do! Thanks Tad and Cody. There are some fresh baked loaves of bread coming your way!

We miss this guy!

After a very long month we decided that we missed him too much, so we took a spur of the moment road trip. 18 hours later we were happily united!

We had such a great week! Lots of sightseeing; Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Custer State Park, Black Hills....... The kids were just happy to be with their Dad again, and so was I! Stay tuned for lots more pictures and some fun little stories. :)

Zoe's Braces

before:

during:
after:
Confused?

Well..... in the first picture you can see that nice little cold sore that she has. Her ortho was afraid that with all of the stretching around in her mouth that her cold sore would split and be hurting Zoe pretty bad. So another tortuous three weeks to go until she gets her braces for real. Poor kid has been waiting forever! :) She was a little nervous this morning, but totally excited too. When we were leaving her appt. I told her that since she didn't get the colorful rubberbands on her teeth like she was expecting, I would take her to get some colorful polish on her fingernails. She loved that! She even got some cute little flowers painted on each thumbnail. She was happy that she would have something fun to show her friends when she got back to school.