{Girls Weekend}

A much needed girls break happened this weekend as Emilie came into town for a visit.  It's always fun to catch up with her - we are the kind of friends who don't talk forever but can pick up right where we left off when we do get together - and she has proven a true friend by visiting every place we've been assigned so far (you people who came to visit us when we lived in Vegas and Hawaii I'm looking at you - visiting South Dakota will show the depth of our friendship! hahaha :) 

We enjoyed catching up, eating delicious food, and listening to the Hamilton soundtrack.  Admittedly, I am the only one who enjoyed listening to the Hamilton soundtrack, but there you have it - a true friend lets you listen to broadway rap and doesn't judge you.

She treated the boys to a trip to the Aquarium and Butterfly House - they LOVED it!  Calvin was terrified of the butterflies which made the whole trip even more enjoyable for us :) He did love the fishies though, and he bravely pet the sting ray.  Wesley was wreckless and carefree - nothing even phases that little dude!

Petting the starfish (or "poop" as Calvin kept calling them)

There is a little baby shark camped out on the top and the sting ray swam right up to - he didn't hang out as long by us though!

Calvin loved seeing Dory in real life!

I'll be honest I was also a little uneasy around some of those huge butterflies...  Not scared like Calvin but I'm not a big fan of any creature fluttering around me and I especially don't want it landing on me.  

Calvin's response to butterflies everywhere was "I WANNA HOLD YOU" while screaming and ducking away from them.

It was a fun outing for the kids (despite what Calvin's face in that last photo would suggest). 

That weekend we road tripped with Holly to Minneapolis for a girls trip!  We left the boys with Mike and Mario (who were great sports about letting us have our weekend).  We had a blast but tried to make a plan before we left - we have discovered that the three of us are all babies in the family which leads to an attitude of "I don't care what we do" and when you have three indecisive people who are pretty much okay with anything, sometimes NOTHING happens!  BUT since we had a plan and we stuck with it I feel like we ended up getting to eat / do / see a lot of fun stuff.

Minnehaha Falls - halfway frozen (as were our bodies after we visited them).  But they were gorgeous!! 

Juicy Lucy burgers at Matts.  They did not disappoint!  One of my favorite Minnesota finds!

Shopping at Mall of America (although the real shopping was done at an underground target and Ikea - HOURS and HOURS of shopping - I could get behind that!)

Emilie posing in front of the cherry spoon statue - a pretty cool shot of the Minneapolis skyline in the background!

Those were some of my favorite shots from exploring the twin cities in Minnesota!

It was a fun weekend - I'm glad for tiny little breaks like these <3

{Rapid City Trip}

This past week Mike had a doctor's appointment he had to go to at Ellsworth AFB.  We decided to make a small road trip out of it and took the boys for an overnight stay at the base!

We break out the DVD player in the van for our trips and they seem to love it.  They did SO good on the ride there & back.  Even though it was just a short little jaunt it was such a nice trip and I enjoyed every second of it with the boys in tow :) 

Our first stop was the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.  It's a pretty big venue with some fun corn themed art.  Plus it's in the middle of nowhere so it makes for a nice place to stop to break up the drive.  The boys both enjoyed riding the big tractor they had there!

Wall Drug Store in Wall, SD is also a great place to stop.  It is a little town pretty geared toward the tourists driving through and stopping there!  It is famous for giving out glasses of ice water during the depression to anyone who needed water.  The kids enjoyed romping around and we had some tasty doughnuts there.

A stop by the historic Mount Rushmore just happened to work! Even though it was FREEZING we loved it because there was only 2 or 3 other people there (and judging by the size of the parking available I'd venture to guess it gets pretty busy during peak season).  Calvin enjoyed the "faces on the mountain" and talked about them the rest of the trip.

On our way out we stopped at the Outdoor Campus West building.  We really the the campus here in Sioux Falls and the Rapid City one was also nice - it's the perfect pace for the boys (and the perfect price for us - free! haha :)

It can be nice to escape reality even for only a short time and spend time with the kids.  Travelling is probably the best way I can think of to do that.  Here's to more trips in our future!

{Silver Creek Orchard}

The other day we ventured out to Silver Creek Orchard about 15 minutes north of us in Baltic.  It was nice outside, and Calvin had specifically requested a hayride that morning (he has a little book where the characters go on a hayride and has consequently been curious as to the nature of an actual hayride). 

Unfortunately we did not get to do a hay ride as anticipated - but we did walk around the Pumpkin patch and see the small petting zoo!  This particular orchard is really just someone's farm and land they are willing to share with the community.  It was just us visiting and they had a sign on the door of the business that said, "We're up at the house - call and we'll come down right away."  It was a teeny little outing - but just the right pace for the boys!  Plus there was no crowds so it was nice to just walk around as a family.  I took the camera and tried to get some fun pictures of the kids soaking up the fall festivities!

Since it's fall and I really liked the visiting teaching message this month I'll wrap up this post with this cute little quote from the message -