Happy 12th Birthday Tessa!!

     Where do I begin?   I have been away far too long.   There has been so much going on at our house there is no way I can update it all.   At the same time I am sad that I lost a year of our lives.  Maybe I will find the time to go back and try to add the pieces we are missing.   I do like to print this out for the girls to have.   But on with the post of the day.....

     Happy Happy 12th Birthday Tessa Louise JiXing!!   You were only 6 years old when we first met you.  I always tease you that you didn't like your Mama in China :)    I know, I was this old, white woman who was taking you away from everything you had known.   Good thing I had two of your big sisters along or I don't know if you would have left China with me.  I really think you thought I might eat you?  I am not sure.

     That was then.........

     This is now......you are a crack up.  You are usually a pretty good girl...there are times when you are pretty sassy.   Sometimes you sass at the wrong time and it irritates your Mom somewhat.  I know you are trying to work on that.   I am so proud of you in band, you are such a good flute player.   I know you will do great playing volley ball this fall.  

     We can not imagine our lives without you here with us.   I am sorry I had to work on your birthday.  I hope you enjoyed the cake and the cell phone.   One more year and you are a teen!  Yikes!!

     We love you to the moon and back Tessa!!

October 7, 2007

I will come back to this date and post another day.   It is a very good post :)

I'm BACK!

I thought I better continue with the vacation posts so when I print this off in book form they will be in here.   Since no one leaves me comments, I am obviously talking to myself :(   

Okay we arrived in Hot Springs, South Dakota the third night.  Of course the girls were excited to see the swimming pool and I was excited to see the laundry room.  It was too late to do anything so the girls went swimming while I washed a load of clothes and then we all headed to bed.

We were up pretty early the next day.  The breakfast at this hotel wasn't anything special but we found enough to fill our stomachs for the morning.   Then we hit the road to see Mount Rushmore!

It was amazing how the landscape changed as we got closer and closer to Mount Rushmore.   We kept our eyes open to see any animals in the forest.   No bears anywhere!   When we finally arrived at Mount Rushmore we were more than ready to get out and stretch our legs.   It has changed a lot since I was there when I was 5 years old!   It was a great day to be there.  The sky was so pretty and there was a nice breeze.  Mark decided he would stay down at the beginning and take photos from there while the girls and I trekked up to the closest we could get.   Us plus probably 100's of other people!  We did manage to take a couple of photos with the President's behind us.  One lady offered to take our photo so I could be in the photo, but I declined the offer.   We did take photos for others who wanted to be in the picture and didn't have enough hands!

Then we took the elevator down and watched the movie about the man who came up with the idea to do the president's and carried through with the plan.   Of course, I can't think of his name right now so I will have to add it in here later.   Pretty amazing to watch them blast part of the mountain off in areas so they could finish carving it out.   And OSHA would have had a hay day with the way they were hanging off the cliff in the rope swings!!  Wow!   They were brave men!

After we watched the movie we went back up and the girls could see some people had went down in the stadium and was over on the mountain under the monument walking around.  They really wanted to do that but I talked them out of it.   We headed back down to the front, walking through the towers of flags.   Then Jordis, RaeAnne, Kendalan and I decided to stop for ice cream!  That will teach all the others to slow down!  Zora couldn't wait to get down and tell her Dad that we could get him a wheelchair if he wanted to go to the top.  He was done taking photos and was more than ready to leave.   Unfortunately they had to wait for us to eat our ice cream!  It was yummy!

Then we took off to see Crazy Horse.   On the way you can stop and see a side view of George Washington.  Mark and I got out but the girls were chilling by that time.

We have decided that there will be another trip up this way in our future as we just did not have enough time to see and do everything we wanted too.   Crazy Horse is going to be huge!   You kind of have to use your imagination of how it is going to look.   They actually have put some markings on it so you can see where the horses head will be.   It is sad that the Crazy Horse monument is all being paid for by donations and there is not any Parks and Recreation funds being used.  Somehow that doesn't seem right.  I mean, weren't the Indians here before us?!

They have a very large gift shop and lots of items that have been donated by different tribes and families to show the different items they made from leather, metal, etc.   We really didn't spend much time looking at all of that.  When we got there they told us to hurry out as there was going to be authentic Indian dancing going on.   I went out along with a few of the girls.  It was very hot and muggy, but I enjoyed watching him and listening to him tell about the dances.  

We then decided it was time to eat!  They had a great restaurant right there that we all found something good to eat.   Just about the time we were getting ready to leave it started pouring rain!  We ran over to the gift shop and spent about an hour looking through everything.   Spent a little money in there too!

On the way back to the hotel we finally found a buffalo!  There was a pickup that was pulled over and a girl was sitting on the window sill taking photos.   We slowed down and pulled over to get some photos.   He was not a happy bull.  He took off and charged the pickup and us as we passed the truck!   I can see why they have signs all over to not get out around the buffalo!

Of course, the girls went swimming again when we arrived at the hotel and I did another load of laundry!

Travel day three

It is late, we have been up and on the road since 9 AM today.   I may fall asleep doing this but will try to get it down before I crash.

We left Mitchell, S. D. for destination Wall, S.D.  It was a nice drive and along the way we stopped at a rest area to take photos and eat watermelon.   This was a very informative stop with photos of a bridge that Lewis and Clark helped with.  

Wall was aptly named as it was kind of a hole in the Wall!   The town is very small and only had a grocery store and a DQ handy to get something to eat.    We decided to go through the Badlands first before it got too hot and then we would wander through Wall Drug in the afternoon.

On the way to the Badlands we found a very interesting, well restored dugout house that the family had built a extra room on after a few years so they could have a portion of the house that did not leak.  They had homesteaded this property in the 1930's when the man was 55 years old.   Very interesting history here that I love to read....the girls....not so much.   But I did convince two of them to dress up in clothes of the time era and they looked really cute!

The prairie dogs here have been bred for so many years that the brown prairie dog has been bred out and all they have left is the white haired prairie dog with black skin.

We toured the house, barn, chicken coup and met some animals.  The photos will tell the tale for you.

Then we drove on into the Badlands.   Very beautiful and at the same time sad because no one can use this land for very much.  

We took the Badlands loop and ended up right back in Wall where we started so it was time to see what all the hype about Wall Drug is about.   We ate at the restaurant and it was pretty good.  The girls and I then walked around and checked out the sites at Wall Drug.   Almost too much selling and not so much anything else.

But we spent over an hour looking around and then we decided it was time to go to our next destination, Hot Springs!   We had an extra person with us on the trip who wishes to remain anonymous, so I will cover the face with a smile :)

Travel day two

The end of day two found us in Wall, South Dakota.   Seemed like a long time to get there.  Really we didn't have an actual itinerary for any of our days.   We did have a little method to our madness ;)
Mitchell is the home of the Corn Palace.  

The Corn Palace is pretty amazing.   They change the murals on the outside of the building each year.  The local college art director comes up with the ideas and many work together to get the design on the outside walls.   Then they put corn and other living things up to fill in the mural.   Each year they have a Corn Festival which is kind of like a county or state fair.   People come from far and wide to enjoy the Festival.  

During the school year, the high school basketball team uses the Corn Palace for their basket ball games as do the College.   The high School team is known as...you got it....the Kernals and their team color is gold!  

We then headed out toward Wall, South Dakota.   Everyone has told us you have got to go to Wall Drug.   Well, you couldn't miss Wall Drug from all the advertising along the road!   Along the way we saw signs talking about the 1880 town.   We were ready to stop for a pit stop and fill our stomachs when we saw the exit for the town.   First of all there was a train we could eat lunch in.  Food was good :)    We asked the waitress was it really worth paying to get in the old town next two them.   She said it really was and to tell the guy taking money that we were really nice and deserved a discount!  So we did and he gave us a discount.

 

The town is comprised of a multiple sided barn that was moved the new location from some 30 miles away.   The people who own this town have quite a collection of things they have bought over the years.   The town has been put together from bits and pieces of other towns that have been declining over the years and needed to sale parts of their buildings.  ie; one room school house, bank, saloon, etc.   Most things are in pretty good shape but some are in quite the disrepair.   It was still interesting to see all the things and it reminded me of many things from my youth!!

They also had animals and some of the "Dances with Wolves" wagons and other memorabilia.

 

It was really worth the stop.   Good thing we had been hungry and needed to use the bathroom or we may have driven right on by.   Just wish I had more time to look.   Some really neat things there.

Traveling

So today started off early.   We were up at 5:30AM and on the road by 7AM.    After the heat in Kansas yesterday we were ready to move on to something cooler.   It was 85 degrees this afternoon when we arrived in Mitchell, South Dakota.

It was warming up in the 90's in Nebraska.   They are working on the roads and boy do they need too.

We arrived at our hotel and were starved!   After a quick trip to WalMart it was off to the Whiskey Creek for an early supper.   Then back to the hotel where some of the girls enjoyed the water slide/swimming pool.   After eating as much as I did I don't know how they kept climbing the stairs after each trip down the slide.   I guess if I had been doing it I might have seen the fun....nah!  Looked like too much work to me!!

 

Kendalan decided to try the lemon wedge they served her in her lemonade.   Guess it was kind of sour!!