Going home!

This was the phone in our hotel......who has front desk, wake-up, emergency, pizza and housekeeping as their main numbers?????? This made us crack up and Kyle was disappointed I never let him push the button to see what happens!
As we were leaving the hotel and going to Aunt Alice's to say good bye look who we saw driving by......yep, they knew it was time for Clark to go home and get back to work!
We had quite a bit of soda and water left from the hotel so we tried to drop it off at the Brandon volunteer fire department but no one was there. We ended up taking it to Aunt Alice's and Nancy and Rich said it was a great idea and they would call them up and drop off the stuff. The fire department is volunteer and could use any support the town gives them.

When we got back to Aunt Alice's I think the sisters were sad their time was coming to an end but also happy that they were able to visit each other. I am happy we were all able to go and learn more about our family history. I think Kyle will remember most of the trip and he "gets" some of what my Grandma talks about now. Savannah probably will remember nothing but it was wonderful to have all of us together to celebrate.

We appreciate all the cousins and Aunt Joyce for also traveling to help Grandma celebrate being 90 years old. A big party at home would not have been the same and she was soo happy to be able to spend time with her sisters, brother, nieces and nephews in South Dakota. At this point, she is not able to travel on her own and would not be able to go unless someone else was willing to go with her. I know she will be thinking of how she will be able to go back and celebrate when Aunt Alice turns 90 next November. We should probably go somewhere more tropical since I am allergic to snow!

We had a good time and were able to see almost everything that we wanted to in a short period of time. My 2 missed items were the concrete dinosaur park and the Laura Ingalls Wilder visitor center.

Today is offically one month home so I got this part done....I have over 1500 pictures to turn into a scrapbook of the trip and get it printed for everyone but tomorrow I am headed off with Savannah and my mom to the House of Mouse......you can't keep us away from the mecca too long and I have not been since March! I will fly home Monday and Savannah and my mom will come home with Clark and Kyle on Wednesday. They are driving in from boy scout camp Saturday and will be happy to go to the happy place and get some real food!

I will go back to regular posting when I get back so TTFN!!!!!!

Go Karts!!!!! GO Kyle!!!!

After we ate and Savannah started to nap, we headed off to Thunder Road. Kyle has never go karted before and he really wanted to try. I went up to the window and bought 3 passes for them to try it out.
So fast the camera couldn't catch him!!!! Having a Blast though!
Clark came in first place and was soo proud of himself!
Papa pulled in second and again I think this was one of their favorite things to do.....well wait we did have that junkyard adventure for someone?!!!!
Kyle pulling in and ready to go do more stuff. He was not sure about the other acticities and you really needed more people to have lots of fun but they were happy with their 15 minute race around the track and I'm sure they will be going again at home once they find a track and some buddies to take. I think Kyle is up for an Uncle Michael challenge too!

We had a little bit of rain as they finished so we headed back to the hotel for some more waterslide and pool time. We headed out to get some Taco John's for a snack that night and I think I will never need to know what Taco John's sells again. I woke up at 2 a.m. and needed tums. I also slept the rest of the night in the chair! Clark got up and took some tums too! I'm not sure what spice was in the meat but it was no Mexican food that we have ever eaten before. The only one it did not bother was my mom who had the chicken so I think it was the beef only. The kids were not bothered at all!

Sioux Falls...yes, they actually have falls

Since my mom was off visiting, we stayed at the hotel and packed up. Also, went and got some breakfast and decided what to do. Clark wanted to go to the dive store in Sioux Falls so I said let's go and maybe we can catch them there. We took a ride over to the water tower so I could take a picture of it. Most towns had one with their city name on it.
After we went to Sioux Falls and found out my mom was back at Brandon....back we went to pick her up. We had all decided to let my Grandma and Aunt Alice have sort of an alone day together since most people had left by this point. We traveled back into Sioux Falls to see the Falls. I think Kyle enjoyed this. He walked all arounf and down to the water.
Clark and Kyle and I went up into the tower to see all around. Savannah was happy to be with Papa and climbing on the rocks. We were able to see the city and John Morell Plant. My great Grandfather used to work in the Stockyard for the John Morell Plant...they make beef summer sausage which I always remember being excited to get at my Grandma's when Aunt Alice sent her some. My kids could care less though.....If I buy it at Christmas it is usually one of the first things Michael goes for so he remembers it too!
Our Princess pissed off.....man was she mad!! She wanted me to see this buffalo and since she was so excited to see any buffalo we thought she would want to be on top....guess not!! We pulled her down and back she went to climbing on rocks.
Here she is soo happy. I think she climbed on every rock outcropping that was at the park. After this trip to the falls, we headed into Sioux Falls to the Empire Mall. We walked around the mall and checked out the local scene before we ended up eating at Culver's which is a local hot spot. Everyone we talked to told us to eat there so we went. We had cheese curds, butter burgers, and frozen custard. Savannah fell asleep in the car so we left her and Grandma to nap and took Kyle to the Go Cart Races.....tune in later for those pics and a wrap up of our trip!

Sunday afternoon and Monday morning....

Guest photographer for this entry is my mom!!! She took 42 pictures on the trip but these are two places I did not go so she was in charge of the pictures. My mom, Grandma, Aunt Alice, Nancy, Shirley, and Louise went to the Swedona Church on Sunday afternoon after the picnic. This church was designed and built with some help from my Grandma's mother's father. (got that?) so my Great Great grandfather! There is also a cemetary attached to the church and this is where they are buried. My Grandma's Aunt Amanda is also buried here. I did not know much about her Aunt Amanda but Alice gave me a brief run down when we were looking at Nancy's album on Sunday. Aunt Amanda lived by herself even though she was married. She ended up homesteading her own land and when her husband was sick and dying she took care of him and made him comfortable until his death. Alice said she was able to visit them quite often when they were growing up. Aunt Amanda died in 1967.
This is what the church looks like today. It still has services and has a basement kitchen and active parish.
On Monday morning, my mom drove over to ride with Grandma, Nancy and Alice to go visit her Uncle Herbert. He is in a home in Sioux Falls. Grandma has not seen him in quite some time so they took him a piece of her birthday cake from Saturday night. He does not talk and my mom said that some of the other cousins had said that he does not smile much. My mom said he seemed happy and to remember them when they visited. He smiled when he saw the cake and they walked down with him for lunch. He was able to eat the cake before lunch and he was very happy!
Uncle Herbert passed away yesterday, July 21, 2008. My mom had just brought me her camera to post these pictures in the morning but I did not have time before work. We are all happy that my Grandma was able to see her brother while he was still alive and give her a smile. My Grandma is now the oldest living sibling.

Uncle Herbert was a funny man who loved to joke around and work in his corn field. I remember him shucking corn and having lots of tractors when we visited 30 years ago. We were also able to see him when he came out to visit Grandma in Tahoe for her 75th birthday too. Nice to see a man who worked all his life and never asked for much was happy to have a piece of his sister's birthday cake and smile. Even better that that sister lives in California and was so happy to visit him! another reason this trip was taken at the right time and was a better gift then any that we could have purchased for her.

Sunday Gathering

Randy and Alice had a wonderful picnic catered in and we had another family gathering at Aunt Alice's. If you were hungry after that it was your own fault!!! Everyone wanted to do family pictures again so we started with these three ladies and added generations......
These are all the first cousins that attended this gathering.
This group is all blood relatives so it would include 4 generations! Trying to get everyone to look at the same time is always amazing but I think we got a pretty good representaion. Nancy had an album that Aunt Ethel had made for her of family pictures so Tina and I were able to sit with Grandma and Aunt Alice and have them give us some history of who the people were and where the pictures were taken. I was happy that I had scrapbooked the album for Grandma's 85th birthday since I had some copies of the pictures and already knew some of the history. It was a great album and we are lucky that they shared some history with us.

The rest of the afternoon was taken up playing ladder ball, lawn darts, badmition, giving rides in the wagon and plenty of conversation. In the afternoon as everyone started to get tired and need a break, we headed back to the hotel. Rebecca and Kyle went to the waterslide to cool off and have fun. Michael and Tina went to the laundry to be able to have clean clothes for another week on their trip. Scott flew home in the afternoon. Savannah and Joseph napped.

Everyone decided to waterslide in the evening. The kids begged Papa to fill up his jacuzzi tub in his room. Papa decided to add some bubbles to it to make it more fun. He dumped the whole bottle in and once they turned on the jets---Watch out! Bubbles everywhere!! The kids had a BLAST!

Rub a Dub Dub-4 Kids in Papa's Tub!
My 2 were nice and clean once they got out of this bathtub!!! It was the last night we were with the cousins and they had a great time. We said goodbye to Michaels's family since they were leaving in the morning and heading off to Kansas to watch his students compete in the Nationals. We still had 2 more days to spend before it was our turn to go home.

Weenie Roast

Another of Aunt Ethel's traditions was to have a Weenie Roast. We have one for Grandma's birthday sometimes because she will ask for one but quite a large number of people would be gathering tonight at Aunt Alice's so a weenie roast it was. Randy's girls got the burn barrel and they set it up so we were all good to roast!If you did not find a stick you could always use an old fly swatter with the swatter part taken off!
We took our family picture tonight since I had asked all of us to wear red, white and blue today but I also asked the aunt's to come and take a picture too. Here is Grandma and her sisters. Joyce lives on the east coast and Grandma lives on the west coast so Alice holds down the midwest! They do not get to see each other as often as they wished but it goes right back to their childhoods when they are together. Grandma is not one to tell us her "secrets"...whatever they may be but Alice and Joyce will be happy to fill in the details. During this photo shoot, we heard the story of Joyce who was the youngest boobytrapped the stairs with cans and noisy metal things so when you opened the door the pile of cans would make a huge racket and wake everyone in the house up. Joyce was determined to tell their folks what time everyone came home. As each of the kids came home, they helped Joyce to boobytrap the next one and it would start all over again. Aunt Alice said that finally Grandma came home last so they just decided to sleep downstairs with Joyce. When they all got in bed, Joyce wanted to get back up because she forgot to check what the time was when they were all finally home. Alice and Grandma held her down and made her go to sleep!
This was the night we gave Grandma her surprise birthday cake and everyone gathered for a picture. Nancy's college roommate Twila and her husband Ed came by to say hi so they were elected the family photographers of the minute and I think they had about 5 cameras thrown at them to get this shot!
After the weenie roast with the fire still going you have to make smore's right.....Nancy had gone to Sam's Club for the hot dogs for us and we had stopped at the store for some soda, beer, salads, veggies and chips, my mom and Nancy think alike since they both bought smores stuff and there was plenty to go around.
Rebecca asking Dallas for the best way to roast a marshmallow! After the roasting, the kids got into Uncle Michael's fireworks! and had a great time with that!

More Courthouse Visit

This stove was in the courthouse and both Grandma and Aunt Alice said right away that this was very similar to the stove that heated their home. They had fond memories of getting dressed near it and the way the glass let the light into the room.
This was in the homesteading room and you were supposed to spin it and see what kind of year you were going to have. I actually got a good year, but almost everyone else had some disaster so we called it the Wheel of Misfortune.......
This bronze statue was outside the Courthouse and we were all gathering here to met after we had explored the other offerings.
Here is Kyle and Rebecca trying to reenact the statue with a little help from Michael and Scott.....see Scott is the wind making her hair fly and Michael was making sure Kyle was posing correctly! I have a picture without Michael and Scott but this one makes me smile every time I see it!
While in the gift shop, I let the big kids pick out something and they picked stone necklaces.....Rebecca picked out a buffalo one and Kyle picked out a parrot one.....yes, a parrot...what the heck that has to do with South Dakota is beyond me but I let him get it....the museum people were probably relieved that some dummy bought the parrot one! The little kids were in nap mode so I picked them out wooden tops and Scott is showing Joseph how to make it work.

Wedding dresses and more...

After we left the picnic, we headed into Sioux Falls to the Courthouse. The Courthouse has been converted to a museum. They were having a special display of wedding customs and traditions. My Great-Grandmother's wedding dress was donated to the museum quite some time ago and it was going to be one of the dresses featured in the display.
This is a picture of my Great-Grandparents on their wedding day. I did not know how much my Grandma looks like her father until I saw this picture blown up. My mom has copies of this picture and I have seen it in other albums but to see it so life size it was obvious to me who she took after in the family! The dress was beautifully made and you could see all the work and master stichery that went into the dress. Nancy said she and her mother probably worked on it together. The sleeves are tucked and sewn at least a dozen times and the fabric at the bottom of the dress is sewn to give more detail to the dress. The lace is very fragile looking but for being almost 100 years old it looked awesome!!!
Here is the plaque with the history of the dress and their other information. Kinda cool to go to a museum and read about someone who is actually related to you!!
We toured the other exhibts and my boy had to make a funny face and hold up this skunk! He thought it was sooo funny to see all the pelts and Rebecca was grossed out and wanted nothing to do with it.
My other boy child was soooo happy to finally be able to try on a Buffalo Robe. I still do not know what his obsession is about this but if they were affordable, I know I would have one on my bed right now! Thank goodness they were in the non-negotiable amount and I would not have to explain to people why we had it!

Saturday-South Dakota Style

We decided to go to another of Kyle's pics from the South Dakota magazine. The butterfly house! We had a great time here. It is very well done and we just so happened to come on the day of their new reading room and Cecil the Caterpillar's birthday. There were extra fun things going on and I think everyone enjoyed their time here.

Kyle and Rebecca showing Grandma which butterfly's they want to see. Rebecca ended up being pretty lucky with the butterfly's...she had 2 attach to her clothes and they held on tight for a long time. Clark also made it into the special room without knowing he had one attached to him and a worker came into the room to remove it from him so it would not get lost!
Great-Grandma and Aunt Alice take a rest on a bench. The butterfly's were all around you and on the plants so it was very enjoyable to take a seat and watch them fly by you and land on the plants or the food stations. As we left, they gave each of us a yummy cupcake for Cecil's birthday. We sat outside and enjoyed the sunshine and a treat!
After the butterfly's, we went to catch up with more relatives at the Park. Shirley and Louise who are cousin's of my mom's and children of my Grandma's sister Evelyn put on a wonderful picnic lunch for everyone that came. The park was great because it provided a shaded area for the picnic and conversations but also had a great playground for the kids to explore. Joseph and Savannah attempt to dig some dirt here but team work is not on thier minds.
Rebecca was so happy and excited to meet these girls on the plaground and then they turned out to be cousins!!!! She enjoyed her time playing with the girls and going swinging and sliding.
Visiting with Grandma are Rich (Nancy's husband) and Allen on this side of the picnic bench and Randy and Debbie on Grandma's side. Allen is brother to Shirly and Louise. Randy is Aunt Alice's son, he is also Nancy's brother and Debbie is his wife. Their girls also joined us. Karissa, her husband Dallas and son Wyatt, Libby and Heather. Carla and Cindy and some of their families were also at the picnic. Carla and Cindy are Uncle Herbert's daughters. He is the brother right above Grandma and Alice. Aunt Joyce who is the yongest sister came too.

We had a little bit of rain but it blew thru and was dry in about 10 minutes. It was a nice way to catch up with some of the cousins that were not able to make it to the other events at Aunt Alice's house.

After lunch we headed into Sioux Falls to the Courthouse......

Jesse James and Devil's Gulch

After we left the Corson house, we drove to the family church Split Rock and visited the cemetary. My Grandma's parents and siblings are buried here. It was a white steeple church and small cemetary.

Then onto Garretson, my Grandma had also lived here at one time. This is the Devil's Gulch which is where Jesse James and his horse jumped across the gulch while riding away from robbing a bank. The town was having a celebration that weekend. It was the anniversary of the famous ride. They were going to have a "burn-out" contest that night. I'm still surprised that Michael did not go back over to check it out in the evening!

Here is part of what you look down at. They have a bridge over the top. It is definately not safe for children! There are no real handrails or barriers so one wrong step and you could end up at the bottom.
Here is everyone on the bridge. Scott, Catalina, Aunt Alice, Kyle, Mom, Savannah, and Great Grandma!
Scott and Kyle went out on the ledge to take a picture so you can see that they pretty much allow you to walk wherever you want! They also walked to the falls and there was some sort of bet made and Michael turned down Clark and Scott's $150 ! Surprising but I think it involved going over the falls and getting wet. Since they were riding with my parents I'm sure Michael decided to not go for it!

After we returned Aunt Alice and Grandma to Aunt Alice's house, we stopped for a bite for the kids at Dairy Queen and back to the hotel. The kids were supercharged so down to the pool with them!
Water slides and swimming definately wear them out so we ended up staying at the hotel this night and relaxing.

Friday in South Dakota.....

Nancy and Rich wanted to have a pancake breakfast for all of us. My mom said this was one of the traditions of her Aunt Ethel whenever they went to visit. The kids were all happy to be back together again. Not sure what Kyle is telling Rebecca in the background here but it looks serious!
This is the house my Grandma grew up in. It is located in Corson which is the next town over from Brandon. When we crossed the freeway into town I think it had a population of 70 people! My Grandma was very excited to see the house and look around. On the side of the yard, there were some Peony plants and she said her mother had planted them. She told me how much she loved them and I made a mental note to send her some!
Alice and Grandma at the front of the Corson house. Their bedroom was a hallway upstairs. We asked about it and they showed us the hallway and said that is where they slept.
I turned around and took a picture of the view from the porch........beautiful country, so green and lush. Also the trees must have grown quite a bit since they were planted to provide shade for the family.
This is the woodwork on the stairs. After our cop brother figured out a way to get into the house......we were able to go upstairs and see the "hallway" bedroom. They were also proud to tell us of the many dances and parties that they had in the front room. There was also beautiful wood floors and cabinets that were built into the wall. I told them I could not imagine such a large family being in the house but they said it was the perfect size for them! At this point, the people who own the property have built a new modular home and they want to move this house or knock it down. Being built in 1916 it is pretty much a historical home and it would be nice for someone to take it and fix it up. More history tour to come!