July 4 weekend

This morning when I went to get Luke from his crib he said, "Birthday cake and balloons?" "No, that's tomorrow," I said. My guys are getting very excited about their birthdays coming up tomorrow! Yesterday Heather said, "I thought it was the 7th."

Well, it should have been. My pre-eclampsia was full blown and dangerous with my blood pressure in the 200s over 110 and I had a high fever that Friday night but there was no physician until morning so I lay awake the night of the 7th as the nurse checked on me every hour and took my bp and temp. So their birthday is tomorrow instead.

Since our town celebrates on the weekend after the 4th, we don't do much on the 4th. This year I took the twinkies to the zoo on Friday which was a colossal mistake. Since it was overcast I mistakenly thought few would be there. Not only was it the most crowded I'd ever seen, we had to park like 2 miles away on a residential street. But my guys were excited once we got there to ride the train and see the animals.

Two undercover detectives on the train...

Then Lk decided he wanted to sit between me and his brother to feel more secure, so he swapped places with Lm and held on to our legs with each hand as security.

They are starting to appreciate the animals more now...

We left after 2 hours because we couldn't get in the indoor stuff easily what with the huge lines (usually there are no lines) so we cut our losses and came home but they still very much enjoyed it; it was more me that was miserable dealing with the crowd and the stroller etc.

Sat was much better. We went to a parade in a nearby town with my parents.

They were very eager to get candy in their buckets...

Lk held his out pretty far...

Lm wanted to dig in...

They love farm equipment and waved at every float.

My guys were pretty content with their loot though they wanted to eat it all right then and there.

Lm got a sticker which he proudly wore all day

They got a set of sparklers in one of their buckets so I set those off that night. That's about as far as I will go with firecrackers. The first two were duds so I grabbed the remaining ones from the pack and lit them all at once to get it over with. Shouldn't have done that as they all took and sparks went flying everywhere on my wooden porch, scorching a board or two and scaring the **** out of my boys, not to mention myself as I am lucky to still have my right hand intact!

Tomorrow I'm taking the day off to take them to a different zoo with my mom and Friday's the big town doings with another parade, then their big birthday party Saturday.

HARD TO BELIEVE MY GUYS WILL BE THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

South Dakota vaca

On Thursday morning after dropping the boys off at daycare, K and I took a much needed road trip. We went to Rapid City SD to visit my friend Nat and her friend John. It took a good 8-9 hours to get there. Plus on the way we HAD to stop at Corn Palace...

Here are some gorgeous murals inside, all made of corn.

And the outside of the place, also made from corn...

Pretty cool!

On Friday we went to Needles Park which has some of the best scenery in the country. Here's John, K and I...

And me, Nat and John (not too bad looking, eh?)

Me being a smartass...

These aren't in great order...here is a pic from Sunday near the lake where we went paddleboating.

More at Needles...

Nat was smart and stayed behind the railing. She's probably been here a hundred times before. I've been once.

But you don't get this kind of view below by standing behind the railing. You have to really go a few boulders out.

Hence our stupidity in climbing over these high boulders and through poison ivy to get where the guy in the bottom left corner of this picture was...

We chickened out about halfway down but then my camera fell out of my pocket and John yelled "stop!" before it would quit tumbling down the ravine.

At that point I had to retrieve it as I'm not about to blow $200 on a camera right now. John lost his contact lens and carried K's camcorder back up the mtn and was safely at the guard rail while K and I made our way down to the camera.

Nat's big into texting. I don't see the draw. Punching in all these little buttons...I'll stick with old fashioned emailing.

This is how far down we had to climb...

Making our precarious way back. My camera's mem card popped out and has a few scrapes but otherwise works, so the risk of our lives was well worth it.

Next we went to a winery, which was much-needed after our excursion.

Again, these are in the wrong order...

I think it was Sat, after a champagne brunch at Nat's, we went to a REAL ghost town. It's now owned by the state so no new development can wreck it (yay!). This used to be an old mining town and the remnants of what used to be there are still present. The last guy who lived there lived in this house until 1973. When he died, the house remained with no upkeep.

Natch, we went in, and climbed the rickety stairs, hoping not to fall through the floorboards at any moment.

Pretty drive getting there.

Here is the old schoolhouse; you can still see the old blackboards. This mining town thrived between 1880 until around 1950.

There were even abandoned old cars just left there.

The mining shack...

With my high insurance deductible I had no business climbing around in there but we did anyway.

Sunday we went horseback riding.

Gorgeous scenery that we traveled through!

At the end, we got one of the cowboys to take a pic of the 4 of us...

Monday we went home and stopped at Wall Drug. I'd never been there before but it was well worth it! They sell everything there.

Last year in the tornado, the sign above the shed where I park said "Theresa's Parking Only; All others will be towed." It got dislodged and broken in the tornado, so I found one at Wall Drug! I also got one for my dad for his truck shed.

We sped to get home before my boys went to bed but were an hour late. Still, my guys were up waiting for me in their beds and I went to them and they were SOOO excited as was I to see them.

Next day we played in the pool and "warffle" as they call the "waterfall" the spider sprinkler that my aunt and uncle gave them for their birthday.

I let 'em run around in the buff with a shirt on since we're out in the country and the corn is pretty high right now.

I used this collander to get some bugs out of the pool but Lm has always thought of it as "my hat" and kept it on the rest of the evening...