Birthday Secret!

When the girls woke up Friday morning there was a big present in the living room....they asked Arnie what it was and he told them it was a Birthday surprise for me and them. They were patient all day and then we opened it......

They didn't get it at first. When they figured out it was a stroller Maggie asked Arnie why he got me a stroller. I hid t-shirts in the bottom of the box wrapped in tissue paper, when Maggie saw them she said, "look it came with pillows." Then when Maggie read Gracie's tshirt, she told Gracie it said "Big Sister" because she was such a big girl now :)

Needless to say, she was surprised....she told Gracie last week,
"mom and dad will not be having any more kids!" hehehe...

They were both so excited, it was hard to get them to calm down and call their Grandparents :) Gracie's face pretty much says it all!

After all that excitement we bundled up and headed to the Panther Football game. Arnie bought me a piece of pizza for my Birthday dinner :) and we all tried to stay warm.....

...it was a little hard because Gracie had all the hats on!

 

It's been a long weekend for Gracie, she asks about 5 times a day how long we have to wait for our baby to be born. Then she asks what I think it's doing in my belly, "sleeping" is too boring of an answer for her. Arnie asked her if she wanted to read to the baby, and she looked at him with that "are you an idiot" look that Gracie has perfected, and said "no, it can't even see the pictures!" Hopefully after a few days she'll get distracted and a little time will pass. I'd have waited 5 more months to tell her if I could have, but it's about time to switch to my fat pants....and I think she'd notice that.

 

Baby Robinson should make his or her (we aren't going to find out which) appearance about Tax Day. I've felt great this time around...just tired. (Maggie was quick to say "that's why your ready for bed so early!") The doctors are keeping a very close eye on me, I am of 'advanced maternal age' (GAG ME!) now, so that gets you some extra stickers on your folder and a little extra attention.

 

On a side note, It took me 33 years and 364 days, but for the first time in my life I gave a horse a bath. Notice Gracie is no where to be found, that's because Breezy was being mean and she thought it was funnier to take a pictures of me fighting with her. Not long after this picture I got bit....she's the sweetest pony, but apparently her fear of water (and the hose....it could be a snake you know), turns her into a demon! Next time I'll drug her!

Here's to 34....new experiences, new travels and tons of memories with all my favorite people (and animals)!

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!