MS bike trip 2012

Monday June 18 through Friday June 22 Terry went with/led the middle school youth group kids on a bike trip in the Black Hills. Since this trip is an every two year event at this church and he'd never done it before, an awesome leader named Ed planned the trip and Terry did the teaching.

They biked the Mickelson Trail which runs from it's northernmost point at Deadwood south to Edgemont. Though, our group veered east to Hot Springs near the end, so they didn't do the entire 109 miles, but they were awfully close.

Here they are just about to begin on Tuesday June 19th, which also happened to be me and Terry's 8th anniversary. Boo! Such is the life of a youth pastor's wife, or as I like to be called: Terry's wife or Eva. Haha

This is Day 1 again and they look to be on a break. They took many such breaks on the trail. And since Terry took me on the Mick (only 25 miles of it) last weekend, I can understand why they'd want breaks! The trail doesn't have huge uphill and downhill grades of steepness, but there are long stretches of uphill pedaling which gets discouraging. The theme of the weekend was Press On from the book of Philippians - a perfect topic since they needed to do a lot of pressing on.

Look what they discovered when Terry took his helmet off for the first time! Impressive right? He has incredibly thick hair and it just worked it's way up into the helmet grooves.

This is Rockford at the end of Day 1 - their first stop for camp on the trail. I took our kids and visited Terry here - it was our anniversary! We had a nice time hanging out and eating dinner though the drive was really long to get there.

This is the first tunnel that the group came to on Day 2 at mile marker 73 - I know b/c Terry took me to this one last weekend (this is where he and I turned around). Those boys were bombing their fellow bikers with pine cones as they emerged from the tunnel. HA!

I think this photo is from Day 2 on a bridge over Hwy 385 which is the main drag through the hills. Break time. They were headed to Custer for camp and again me and the kids drove out to visit.

I'm not positive, but I think this photo is from Day 3 nearing Hot Springs and the end of their journey. The kids and I didn't visit this time since they're too little to swim...

Some punks leaders slapped some peanut butter spoons on Terry. He's so mad at Paige but she doesn't care ;)

Yucca plant helmets. Zach and David are awesome. They wore these for about the last 12 miles of the trip.

30-some bikes resting at their final destination in Hot Springs. The kids and leaders also got a well deserved rest and night of fun at Evan's Plunge before coming home the following day. They had some sore butts. But they had a lot of fun too.

light sabers

I forgot about these photos! They're from May 22nd.

I thought it was pretty cool that Samuel needs no help learning how to play like a boy. Broken brook stick? Light saber sword. Noah's just lucky he could find his own weapon.

What's a sister to do when brother wars break out? Read a book.

one more month

My kids are always where I am. And I guess that's okay, according to Terry - it means they like me (I hope).

But since we moved into my grampa's house, it's more like they're continually under my feet. All day long. Every day.

They don't want to be alone anywhere in the house. It wasn't this way in Gburg. We had a four-level house (like what we're buying) and since it was only a half flight of stairs to anywhere else in the house, it didn't seem like you were that far away. However, in my grampa's huge ranch house, if you go downstairs, it's like you're in another house. You'd think 3500 square feet would be a good thing for kids to spread out in. Turns out it does the opposite - makes them close in on us.

For example, yesterday during lunch. They were all done and it was finally my turn to eat. Did they run off and play? Well, they ran off to get a few toys and then returned to the Dining-area-with-a-couch-in-it-because-we-don't-want-to-take-it-downstairs Room. Yeah, they returned to play near me even though there's no toys in this room and there's tons of other more suitable space.

All this to say: I am really excited for us to be able to move into our new house. Closing is only ONE MONTH away now! Yippee!!!

Below is a photo from the day that we took the slide off the play set in Nebraska so we could come back to SD. When we move to our new house, I think one of the first things we'll do is set-up the kid's play-set. Then they'll have something more to do outside and my feet will be free-er.

The play-set has been strapped down to the trailer ever since we moved away (what a sad photo - taken right when we left Gburg). The trailer is parked at my parents until we can set the bad boy up.

We are so looking forward to moving in to our new house. In ONE MONTH!!!

HFM disease

Hey guys. Samuel here. Just wanted to let you know that I have HFM disease.

HAND,

FOOT,

and MOUTH disease.

Okay, it's Samuel's mom again. Yes, Samuel is right. He has Hand Food and Mouth Disease. His siblings should be safe according to the doc who said it's mostly for kids under 4 to get. That's not what the link says though...

I think this is pay back for thinking this viral infection could not traverse the United States from Alabama to South Dakota like I read and shuttered about over here on Noah's mom's blog. This diagnosis comes after I boasted that this virus was too far away to catch. Pshaw! I was so wrong. When in fact this virus is everywhere - all of my friends say so: Rapid City, Sioux Falls, Omaha, Alabama and even Guam. Yes that's right. It's a worldwide epidemic. Silly mother of me.

At first I thought Samuel's leg rashes were somehow breakthrough chicken pox, since he's had the vaccine. Even the PA had to ask for a second opinion if they were indeed HFM disease rashes vs chicken pox rashes! These began on Saturday and keep getting ickier every day. We were given some antibiotic cream for these ones but otherwise it just has to run it's course.

It wasn't until this morning when his feet developed these funny splotches on them that I grew suspect of something besides chicken pox. These splotches are the tell tale sign of HFM disease - that and mouth ulcers.

Samuel luckily only has/had one ulcer thingy in his throat. Hopefully it will stay like that since those are the really badly painful ones. And he's really not doing too bad aside from being extra clingy and whiny - he never even had a bad fever. But poor cousin Grace has it worse. She's had a fever and vomiting the last couple days and just found out tonight that she has HFM disease as well, which makes sense since we were with her all last week and it's very contagious. She's got spots like Samuel, only all over her bottom :( . Hopefully Samuel and Grace and all the little babies out there get well soon.

dinosaur park revisited

Last week we just needed to get out of the house after dinner. So we did a quick trip over to Shari and Jesse's and then Dinosaur Park. Shari and Jesse just moved to town from the ranch and now live in an apartment at the base of the park. So convenient!

I took the kids to the park for their first time last summer while Terry was in Mexico and they were very keen to visit it again. Except last time Samuel was so little he was strapped to my chest and therefore was in no photos. Here he is now! Oh, and me too. Thanks Terry.

Evie is perhaps admiring the fact that all the dino's were recently were repainted. Samuel's working his quads.

Not such a bad view. Looking west to the hills.

Not bad at all. Looking north to M-Hill.

Jesse kept joking about how Samuel looked like a coach with his shirt tucked into his shorts and his belly sticking out (it was a onesie and he had just had a good dinner). Now Jesse wants to get him a whistle.

It's a little embarrassing that Evie is wearing the same capris as last summer...

Our kids are cute.

Especially this little guy. I love to tickle him and hear his funny little laugh.

Noah builds and daydreams

Noah built this little Lego guy yesterday all by himself. I was impressed.

He used the Star Wars Lego's he received for his birthday. He had preferred to leave all his Star Wars sets put-together on his shelf and rarely play with them (what is the use in having them then?!). But after playing with Eli's big bucket of Lego's a couple weeks ago, he insisted on taking all his figures off the shelf and disassembling them so he could make his own creations. Well, he did a good job.

Also, I will share here something Noah said last week that made me laugh. He does a lot of day-dreaming during the day and it's mostly about his Skunk (Skunk is usually saving the world from bad guys and from what I understand it's pretty similar to a video game. I told him someday we need to write these stories down. He was not into that.). This particular instance he was by himself making some weird noises that made no sense whatsoever. That's when he said to himself, "What am I saying? I have no idea." I'm glad we can agree on that.

dog/kid park?

A couple weeks ago we went for a family bike ride. Terry pulled Noah and Evie and I had Samuel behind me in his seat. It's a few miles west to the end of the bike path (i think) and when we reached it I noticed a picnic area off the path by the creek. So we headed over there. It was so pretty.

I thought we were in a place called Cleghorn Canyon, but there were a lot of dogs around. After talking to a friend, I think we may have brought our kids to a dog park. ! I'm still not certain but feel a little silly nonetheless.

We had a good time regardless.

At first we tried to keep Samuel away from the water.

Evie had her special kitty with her that we would have forgotten in a bush had her motherly instincts not kicked in.

Samuel was getting more and more wiggly...

Noah still had his red cast so we wanted to keep him out of the water too.

We stayed too long because eventually we lost the battle over not entering the water. Samuel was the first to go in. Then Noah and Evie followed suit. Hopefully they didn't walk in any dog pee...

petting reptiles

Since Monday Terry's been with the middle school students biking the Mickelson Trail. That means I've had to manage 3 small kids on my own - no small feat. (here's a map for you since i know you were dying to know. they camped at Deadwood, then Rochford, then Custer and finally-tonight- Hot Springs.)

From past experience, I knew it was important to stay busy to prevent us all from going crazy. So that's exactly what we've done. Tuesday we went to Reptile Gardens and then drove an hour into the hills to see daddy at Rochford. Wednesday we went to the ranch and then drove well over an hour to Custer to see daddy. Today we are hanging out at home, counting the hours til daddy gets home tomorrow. I have put 200 miles on the van in two days!

At any rate, I gave Noah a quick review about what reptiles were before we left and before we knew it, we were face to face with real life reptiles. Check out them snappers.

We went with my sister-in-law and good buddy Shari and "baby" Grace (as Evie always calls her)

We learned the difference between alligators and crocodiles and how they have two sets of eyelids - one transparent one to protect their eyes under water. We also learned how to correctly "wrestle a gator" like his shirt said.

We went to a bird show next, which, incidentally was the kids' favorite part and quite pointless to get pictures of, and then to the kids park where I tried not to lose any children. Here's Samuel and Grace in the tube play thing.

Next we went and saw something completely native to me but never seen up close by my kids: Prairie Dogs. Oh, and Evie saw a rattlesnake and we all saw a python though I was the only one brave enough to touch it. I must be a Gryffindor at heart right?

Next were the giant tortoises. Noah was far too interested in it's "long neck" to look at the camera as instructed. That other kid did good though, aside from the blink.

These two tortoises were only 40-45 years old. Methuselah died last year after 130 years. Oh and I almost forgot: This one gave me a priceless memory - the sound and smell of tortoise gas as I walked behind him. Yummy.

Next we headed into the tropical-like dome. Pretty flowers and uninterested boy. There were some that smelled like chocolate!

Turtles and more turtles. I love turtles.

And a pretty waterfall. But the best part of the trip is that though it was expensive to get in, we have passes that will last until November 30! Next we'll force Daddy to come along. :)

slippin

Terry had a wonderful suggestion while I was at Target last week. He told me to get a slip 'n slide. It was only $5 and it's brought so much fun to our back yard.

Noah, of course, did not have the fun that the other two had the first day due to our laziness of not wanting to wrap his cast and the fear of not knowing if said wrap would protect from water. So Noah watched longingly at first.

Then he got creative and began spraying his siblings.

Evie didn't mind. Perhaps because she's so cute.

The water pressure here isn't very good so you had to step on the blue tube to get it to spray like it's supposed to. Or perhaps that's because the slide was $5.

Mommy and Daddy watched comfortably from the shade. I guess my comfort was impeded due to wet-diaper-baby sitting with me.

Wet-diaper-baby (later wet-and-nasty-diaper-baby) had a fun time on the slide also and even figured out how to do his own spraying, squirting fun.

Until he slipped and fell.

Don't worry though. He's fine. His first instinct is to scream bloody murder and once he's been comforted, he's off again.