Sioux Falls Trip

We took a quick trip to Sioux Falls this past weekend. In 24 hours we took the kids to the zoo, went to a wedding, and I ran a 5K. Here is some photo highlights!

Cool Miss Addi on a gorilla!

Trav and El trying to feed the goats. Ella didn't much care for this part of the zoo. She likes chucking food at the fish more than goats eating out of her hand!

Kole really enjoyed the zoo. He kept pointing at things and saying bird. Good thing there are so many birds at that zoo so he was right about 50% of the time.

Here is Ella already enjoying the parking lot and trying to milk a 'cow'.

Sister Sus, my Gma DG, and I at the wedding.

Kole's favorite part of the wedding was collecting rocks in the parking lot!

Finally my 5K. I ran in the 1st ever Jazz Fest 5K. They didn't start the race until 9 and by that time it was already like 85 degrees. Talk about hot!!!!

Not so graceful!!

Most people that know me well know that I am not so graceful. I try, but sometimes I am just a plain klutz. I had a big klutz moment at church on Sunday. I had dropped Kole off at the nursery and was just ready to head down the steps. I don't know if I missed the step or slipped on them, but next thing I knew I was sprawled out on the ground five steps down. It was not a pleasant fall. I twisted my ankle, bent back my wrist, bruised the top of my foot and scraped up my knee. I thought it wasn't too bad considering the fall. Well on Monday morning I awoke with a very sore rear and a huge deep bruise on my lower leg. I am starting to think maybe I shouldn't wear heels anymore!!

To top this all off it seems I have passed this oh so neat trait on to my daughter. Yesterday Addi was helping me unload groceries from the van. All of a sudden a hear a splat!! She tripped over nothing in particular and there was our watermelon sitting in a puddle on the garage floor!

Having a better day today!!

Mr. Koleson had a rough day yesterday. It started when he was playing outside yesterday morning. He thinks that he is big stuff and likes to walk on the blocks on the retaining wall. No matter how close we watch him he seems to get over to them rather quickly. I was trimming a bush beside the driveway and I saw him heading for the wall. Before I could stop him he did a head first somersault off the retaining wall. Talk about heart in your throat. He only cried for a minute and I think it was more traumatizing to me then him because he is already standing on it again, but he appears to be fine. On top of that he has been fighting a cold that has settled in his eyes and nose. After calling the doctor they thought he should come in and it turns out that he has a sinus infection so 10 days of antibiotics for him plus an hour in the car which he was none to happy about. Thinking things were going to get better he was playing in the driveway while I was grilling supper. He was racing across on one of his little ride on toys. The next thing a hear is a crying Kole tipped over on top of a rose bush. After I got the bike off of him I unstuck him from the bush. He only had a few thorns stuck in him!! Thankfully he is no worse for the wear and is feeling much better today.

Another skier in the family!!!

Addi learned how to ski!! She spent quite a bit of time out on the lake last week and one night she learned how to ski. Daddy got to drive the boat and a friend of ours was in the water with her. A pretty skilled eight year old took these pictures of her. I missed it because I was home with a tired toddler. :( She is absolutely thrilled.

The girls have also taken a few tube rides. Addi has gotten quite daring as you can see. They were trying to talk Ella into standing, but it was a no go!!

I've learned to be more specific!!

The other morning I told the girls to get something on their feet because it was time to go. When I got to the garage this is what I found.

I have now learned to say put your sandles on!!!

Be very quiet I'm hunting rabbits!!

If you were to live close to us this would be just about a daily sight in our backyard. There are some little bunnies that think they can help themselves to our fresh produce. Trav isn't having any of that so he stalks bunnies. Our neighbor next door also hunts rabbits so sometimes they call each other to talk about the bunnies in each others gardens. After having one of these conversations it seems that deer are coming to eat out of our gardens as well. Let's hope he doesn't start hunting those out of the backyard as well!! The girls have gotten so used to dad hunting the bunnies that one day when Trav wasn't home Addi yelled for me to hurry and grab the gun because she saw a bunny in the backyard. I then informed her that was a daddy only job!

Young Explorers at the Nature Center

One of my friends has been telling me about the young explorers program at the nature center. I was finally able to take the kids. Addi had gone two weeks ago and loved it. The theme was building an indoor pond for the new nature center that opens in August. The kids were all given plastic containers to collect their additions to the pond and we headed for the wetlands. Addi was one of the lucky kids to find a frog right off the bat. He was dropped several times, but thankfully he didn't get squeezed too much! Kole was a trooper waiting for the kids to collect their additions. He thought it was fun to poke at the reed grass. This was all good and fine until he tried to eat a special kind of grass we were holding for the girls. Thankfully they didn't even notice by the time they collected their frog, snails, seaweed, leaches, etc.
We headed up to the nature center to put everything together after awhile and we also had to have snack. The kids got to go fishing for their snack. The pretzels were their poles, the easy cheese the bait, and then their caught 'fish.'

Finally it was time to dump things into the pond. They were supposed to wait and tell everyone what was in their container, but I caught Ella dumping about halfway through!! The kids had a great time and can't wait to go back in two weeks!