Sylvan Lake and the Nose guy....

Saturday morning we headed for Sylvan lake to do some hiking. It was just around the corner from our campground and was BEAUTIFUL! We had the best time, I think we would all agree it was our favorite part of the whole trip. Gracie is quiet a little rock climber and at least once left us really questioning how we were going to get back down then rocks we'd scaled with her in the lead. Maggie was very apprehensive at first, but once she made it up a couple of times, she was all in.

 

 

 

 

 

After some lunch and a short rest, we decided we'd make good use of our last afternoon with a bike ride. There is a really nice trail that leads all the way through the Black Hills, we did about 11 miles of it.

Gracie was not ammused that we rode 6 miles up hill to see "that guys nose".....if you look really close behind us you can see crazy horse. She's right, it's really not all that great, but it gave us a good spot to turn around on our ride and go back down hill. We saw lots of deer on the trail, Maggie says it's because they are Crepuscular animals (they like to come out at dusk).

 

After bike riding and rock climbing we were a pretty tired bunch. We made some dinner and enjoyed a campfire. 

This morning we packed up and hit the road for home. I told Arnie I wished we could just sell our house and spend a year traveling the country and experiencing all the sites with the girls, while our new house is being built. It doesn't sound like I'm going to get my way on that one, so for now I guess we'll just keep doing it one few day trip at a time. This one was a great one!

Custer Buffalo Round-Up

When Arnie was looking for campground last week, we had more trouble then we expected....come to find out Friday was the 50th Annual Custer State Park Buffalo Round-Up. We decided since we were there, we should probably check it out. The guy at our campground told us we better be headed for Custer by 6am???? apparently buffalo and cowboys don't sleep in! Lots of people in our campground were there just for the Round-Up, one guy was full of information for us and told us it was a bucket list trip for him. So we headed out at 6 am, it was COLD and the traffic was unreal! We went about 26 miles and it took us just over 2 hours. There were TONS of people, I have no idea how many, maybe 20 or 25 thousand. The buffalo (and the traffic) were apparently not cooperating, because the stampede was about an hour and a half late. It was neat, the cowboys were really working hard and watching the buffalo run into their corrals was cool.....in hindsight, I'm not sure that I'd call it a bucket list trip, or make another special trip out for it, but it was neat.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

 

The cars were lined up as far as you could see.

 

Okay, we're here. Come on Buffalo, let's get this show on the road!

 

 

 

Waiting for Buffalo is exhausting!

We stopped on our way back to the camper for another picnic lunch. The weather was perfect the whole trip (after 9 am). 

This guy must have missed the memo about the round-up, he was hanging out right by the side of the road on our way out. We heard they leave some of the meanest bulls out, because they are too much of a liability (geeeeee, that makes me feel better).

Friday afternoon we drove the needles highway to Keystone, it's an amazing drive. Then we explored Keystone a bit and headed back to Mt Rushmore for the lighting ceremony. If you've never been, you should go, it's very neat. The lighting itself is neat, but they honor all the veterans and have them help take down the flag. Even though the crowd was light, there were probably 75 veterans there. It was an honor to watch. Maggie is such a little patriot, she LOVED the whole thing and was ready to lead America the Beautiful if they needed her :)

 

 

 

If you look closely behind Gracie are 4 Mountain Goats. She wanted to climb with them!

  

Mt Rushmore

Thursday morning we woke up and got our first real look around because it had been so dark as we drove in. The Black Hills really are beautiful. Maggie was very eager to see Mt Rushmore, so we decided to do that first.

 

Arnie and I went to Italy for our first anniversary......we spent our 10th at Mt Rushmore???? I guess I shouldn't complain, I think last year we had gas station hot dogs on our way to Branson :)

We stopped at Breezy Point for a picnic after leaving Mt Rushmore....Gracie liked the park name.

 

Using her "googels" (or binoculares) to look for Breezy's :) she didn't find any.

 

 

Family picnic selfie! Love these people!

 

After a rest, some play time and dinner, we headed to Custer to explore a little and have some ice cream!

Off we go again.....

Last week after we determined Gracie's leg wasn't going to need any immediate care, we decided to use a couple days Maggie had off school and head for the Black Hills. We left Wednesday at noon, it's a good thing we didn't wait until later, the drive seemed to take FOREVER.....I'm not sure what I was expecting, it's a LONG ways up there.

Since Arnie and the girls have never been to the Black Hills, we had to make a stop at Wall Drug. It was about like I remember. Arnie says we don't need to go back :) but now they can all say they've been there and we have the free bumper sticker to prove it!

We arrived at the campground shortly before 9 (mountain time). We were all ready for a good nights sleep.

Gracie's Lump!

Last Wednesday after school Gracie crawled up in my lap to read a book, as she was climbing I happened to notice her ankle.....it was HUGE!! Like there was a half a baseball on the inside of her heel, huge! I asked her if it hurt, she said "no, why??"...she let me touch it and mess with it without complaint. I decided it was worth a trip to the doctor.....

 They did an x-ray right away and set us up for an ultrasound at the hospital on Thursday....

 

The ultrasound was done by a students and she was struggling a bit....every time the doctor sent her back to try again she brought more stickers for Gracie :) The ultrasound was a little painful, but I think that's because she was pushing so hard on Gracie's ankle.

After the ultrasound the doctor called and said he wasn't sure what was going on but wanted us to see an orthopedic specialist at Children's....

Gracie wasn't amused that we had to drive ALL the way to Omaha Monday, and Grandma and Grandpa weren't even there!

She was really brave at the Doctor. He took a look at everything and assured us that she hadn't torn a tendon, which is what the doctors in Norfolk thought happened. He did a lot of blood work, you can see how Gracie felt about that.....

 ...he told us it would likely be 5 days before the test Rheumatoid results were in (he thought maybe arthritis was a likely the cause)....but he surprised me this morning with a phone call. The lab worked way faster then expected and her results were all GREAT!  Praise God! At this point she's being treated with antibiotics and we are all assuming she has a little infection. That's about the best case scenario, so I'm happy to argue with her about gross antibiotics!

  After the hospital she picked cheese pizza and milk for lunch :)

Gracie and I did a little shopping before we headed home. She's been begging for a backpack for a while....I've successfully been saying no....but yesterday, she won! She was really mad when she couldn't wear it home in her car seat (so she held it).

Today she's been using all the things she snagged at the hospital to fix up her sick babies. notice the tourniquet, mask and "shot". She told her babies to "stop crying, shots don't hurt that bad!" Compassion may not be high on her skill list!

Grandparents Day 2015

Last Friday was Grandparents Day at Maggie's school. Most of the kids were done in their classrooms in just a few minutes and then came downstairs to have their pictures taken and have a snack.....not Maggie! Her tour was VERY thorough (keep in mind she's in the same classroom as last year when they visited). Grandma & Grandpa and Grandma & Pops got to see everything....including a little xtra math work. I wonder what Maggie will think next year when she has to share Grandparents day with Gracie :) She'll have to work on shortening her tour!

September?

Well September is officially half over. We're back in our "school year" schedule, everybody is growing accustomed to waking up again (well as close Gracie will ever get) and life continues.

Maggie has jumped back into school with both feet. She's enjoying having 1st graders in her class to help. Today they have some kind of standardized testing and she was SO excited! (I bet that wears off in a few years). When they did their beginning of the year reading tests Maggie scored in the 5th grade 8th month category....while I'm very proud of her reading ability, this score has caused some grief in our lives. She's expected to read and test at her reading level not her grade level....do you have any idea how hard it is to find 6th grade books interesting, appealing and appropriate for a 2nd grader? She was struggling a bit because she was reading books that just weren't for her, thankfully we worked out an agreement with her teacher that we were going to focus at about 4th grade....we can find several enticing books in that category and her school goes to 4th grade so those books are available in her library.

Gracie is officially a "downstairs kid" at preschool and Monday she got her workbook!! That's a BIG deal in the life of a Montessori kid! It means she's finished all her phonics drawers and she's ready to read and write. She's much more reserved about her accomplishments then her sister, so I've have to be sure to ask what's going on.

There is a horse at our barn that is sick, it has a super contagious horse illness called Strangles. Our horses have been vaccinated but being sure all the animals stay healthy is obviously everyone's number one concern. This causes a GIANT pain for us, because part of keeping all the horses safe is that outside horses aren't allowed in the barn and inside horses aren't allowed out of the barn.....Jude lives inside and Breezy lives outside......so for 6 weeks I can't let the girls ride at the same time or in the same arena and I have to keep all of Breezy's stuff in my car because once it touches an outside horse it can't go back in the tack room. I know, I know first world problems. It looks like I'm going to be spending a lot of time at the barn for the next month.....then coming home, sterilizing myself and going back with the other kid. As long as the horses stay healthy it'll all be ok, and when quarantine is over, I think Breezy will move inside, so at least next time, they are both locked in the same place.

Gracie and Breezy play a lot of tug-o-war....Breezy thinks she needs to eat every stray piece of hay
and Gracie disagrees!

Unfortunately it was because Dennis was sick, but the kids loved getting to spend the day with Hailie and Connor!

How many Robinson's does it take to change a light bulb??

Hey, show me the pictures??

It's hard to see Maggie and Jude in this picture but she thought she was BIG stuff
because she got to chase the roping calf with the big kids!

After school started Gracie got to have her Grandma & Grandpa days. She loves getting to
be there by herself, but I think she really missed Maggie.

We love when Lauren gets to spend the afternoon with us!!

Gracie and her 2 best friends :)

A couple of cowgirls!

Gracie is really afraid someone is going to claim her bedroom in the new house, one day
when I was looking at the plans, I found this :)

It doesn't look like much but it's a stake in the ground, so I'll take it! Hopefully they'll flatten out
the house site and give us a road before the end of the month....then we'll wait patiently for the ground
to thaw in the spring.

The view from the stake.....which also happens to be my office window.

We camped at Camp Merrill last weekend. We couldn't have asked for better weather!

A little Saturday afternoon football....Gracie thought she needed a helmet!

Sunday afternoon was a Norfolk Iron Picnic. Their was an animal show that the girls loved.
Gracie wondered what would happen if the tape was gone.

Yesterday I spent ALL day cleaning the shed, Gracie was helping me for awhile and then she
disappeared. Apparently she was sick of helping and she needed a little Bible time :) Love that kid!

I didn't get any pictures of Maggie riding this week because she was inside with Kristine and Gracie and I were
locked outside.....before I was 'contaminated' I forgot to grab Gracie's helmet, so she rode without it. She told me
bare back without a helmet is how they did it in the olden days! (Then she asked if the olden days were when I was a kid)