Little words....

Just wanted to update you all on what's been "new" and what's come out of the little mouths in our family.

Last night Dave was reading the paper and he was on the weather page. When out of nowhere Amanda comes up to him, puts her finger on SD on the map and says..."What's the weather like there?" Now keep in mind, we've only looked at maps to show her where we would be traveling or where our friends and family live. We've never showed her the weather maps. Dave was floored that she knew that. I think she's picked it up from the weather channel or something.

Today, on the walk back to the car from swimming lessons she asked me "What would we be if we weren't people?" I said, "I don't know. What would we be?" A: "We would be flowers. Girls would be sunflowers." Curious to see what she would next say, I asked..."What would boys be?" A: "Blueberry flowers." Very interesting.


Sarah isn't talking too much...Ok, let me qualify that, she talks all the time, but it's usually just "No, no, no, no!" Do you think she may hear that a lot? :0) But, she is trying to say Sissy. She points at everything. Uses the sign language sign for more to mean more, food, or bottle. She has finally learned to crawl down the stairs instead of just walking off it and she has learned to high five, to my surprise. I haven't really worked on it with her, but when she got down the stairs for the first time without falling off them, I said "High five Sarah!" and held my hand up. I was expecting to have to take her hand and show her how to do it. But, she got a big smile on her face and just started slapping my hand. I think she picked it up by watching us do it with Amanda. I was so excited.

The end of our vacation-Day 17-20

Well, here is the end of our vacation, finally!

On Day 17, we left Dave's parent's house at about 10:00 am. It seemed on this whole trip, that no matter what time we woke up, we couldn't get in the truck and on the road until 10. We were headed for Medora, ND. I was prepared for it to be a very boring trip, but it was actually very beautiful. I think some believe farm country to be very boring, but its so pretty. I prob. think that because I didn't grow up in the country. I grew up on the coast, both east and west.

We stopped at the Jamestown rest area for a picnic. It was so nice there. The view was great. That's where we got a great pic. of us all together. Thank goodness I have a tripod. I just may use that pic. for our x-mas card.

After lunch and before we got to Theodore Roosevelt State Park, we hit one doosey of a thunder storm. I tried to film it on the camcorder, but it seemed lightning only struck where I wasn't pointing the camera. There were strikes so close our radio would cut out. I haven't been in a storm like that since we lived in Florida. It was great! Amanda wasn't even very scared. I think that's because she couldn't really hear the thunder.

When we got to Medora, we made a quick, light dinner and ate at the old town playground. It was great! A kids dream playground. We spent alot of time there. The campground we stayed at had live music. It was old timers playing country. Very nice. We also had a little visitor. A friendly little bunny. He wouldn't let us pet him but he let me get a good pic. of him. We had a great view of the mountains out the back of our camper. I really liked it there.

On day 18 we headed for Greycliff, MT. The driving was pretty uneventful. We stayed at the Big Timber KOA. Before we checked in, we visited a prairie dog town. That was so cute! They were all over the place and when we rolled down our windows we could hear them barking. The campground wasn't anything special, but they had a bouncing pillow. It was HUGE, and so much fun. We could all go jumping at the same time. In fact, at one point there was about 15 kids jumping on it at the same time. I wish the girls had been older and able to swim, there was a neat water slide park right next door to the campgrounds. The cg had a pool, too. So, we did go swimming for a bit.

On day 19, we took off for St. Regis, MT. We didn't really do much site seeing, we just wanted to make time and get home. We drove thru Billings again and saw a park from the highway and decided to stop there for a picnic lunch. The girls really enjoyed our lunches. After all that time in car seats, I can only imagine how they liked stretching out. I feel sorry for kids nowadays. Remember when we were kids and we could get out of our seats and play in the car. Yeah, not any more.

That night we stayed at THE BEST campground I've ever stayed at. It was so clean!!!! Let me tell you, it was so clean I let my baby sit on the bathroom floor and didn't feel grossed out at all. I think that bathroom was cleaner than my own bathroom. I really, REALLY want to go back there and go hiking. The only bad thing, was that I was missing home so bad. I think if we didn't have the kids we would have just kept driving, I wanted to be home so bad. So what if it was only another 6 hours or so. :0) That evening was a scorcher. It was around 100 degrees, thank goodness for AC. We went swimming and had ice cream, then as the sun was setting we took a little hike around the CG and a bit in the forest. The camp ground is the Nugget CG in ST. Regis, MT. Check it out if you go out that way. I'm telling ya, you'll love it.

Day 20, We got home. Yay!!!!!

Slide show of the end of our vacation.

Our Trip-Day 14-16

Wow! I just picked up the pic.'s from our trip. Cha-Ching! Yeah, I put a few bucks down for those. But, I just loved them all. I think I printed about 600 pic's. Somebody take my camera please. Yeah, try to get it away from me. :0)

Any way the trip story continues.....

Let's see, I left off with us visiting the farm where Dave grew up. That night was the rehearsal for Dave's niece's wedding. I don't know if you've heard this before or not, but when I was in high school our band teacher always said if you have a bad rehearsal, you will have a great performance. Well, the opposite is true, too. Amanda did very well in the rehearsal. But, when it came to the wedding and she saw all the people sitting in the church, I think she got a bit of stage fright. My plan was, to send her on down the aisle and step to the side so I wouldn't be in any of the pic's or the wedding video. Poor Amanda just stood at the beginning of the aisle, throwing her flower petals, quietly crying Mommy, Mommy. She wasn't moving, but she was throwing her petals. Finally, I ran down the aisle and called to her like she was a puppy, to get her to come down the aisle. The whole way she threw her petals and quietly cried Mommy, Mommy. So cute. I was hoping that if she got scared at least we could get something for Funniest Home Videos, but it wasn't bad enough to submit. Darn, I won't win $10,000. :0)

Dave was a speaker in the wedding and his brother Al was the videographer. It was a beautiful wedding and the reception was nice, too. We had plenty of food and the kids liked drinking their punch out of champagne glasses.

The next day was Sunday. I was going to go to church, but knew it would be a disaster with the girls. They didn't get enough sleep the day before (because of the wedding), so I stayed home and started getting things ready for our trip back. We had a ton of laundry to get done and packed up. Later that afternoon, Dave loaded on the camper and we packed as much as we could so we would be ready to leave first thing the next morning.

I made a slide show below of the pic's from the wedding, reception and getting the camper ready. Enjoy!

Check out my Slide Show!

Cute conversation

I just put Amanda to bed and while we were sitting on her floor listening to one song on her cd before I kissed her goodnight and put her to bed, we had a cute little conversation. It went like this:
A: Mom,when did I cry when I was a baby?
M: When you were hurt, or hungry, or tired.
A: No, when they took me out of you.
M: Oh, yeah you cried right when they took your head out. (she was a c-section)
A: Yeah, I said, AaaaHhhh, put me back in!
M: Yes, you did.
A: Did you cry when they opened you up?
M: No, they gave me medicine so I wouldn't feel anything.
A: How did they open you?
M: With a knife.
A: And you didn't cry?
M: Nope, they gave me medicine. It hurt later. Remember when Sarah was born and I
had a big Owie on my tummy?
A: Yeah.
M: Yeah, that hurt. But, I'm all better now.
A: Can I see the baby in your tummy? (We just finished reading a book about dif.
kinds of moms and it showed a pic of a mom with a baby in the belly)
M: No, I don't have a baby in my belly. Or, do you know something Mom doesn't know?
A: No, I just want to see a baby in a mom's belly.
M: Oh, OK. Time for bed.

Our Trip-Day 12-14

July 4th (or Day 12) We spent the day at a lake where Dave's cousin's live. Oh, what a beautiful house and view. Very relaxing. There were a lot of family there to celebrate the fourth. We also had a surprise party for Mary's 80th there. Al and Lori got a cake and balloons for her. It was nice to celebrate again with a lot of family there. The day was very warm, which was good for swimming. The kids had a great time splashing around and riding the jet skis. Amanda just liked getting her feet wet, Megan was a little more adventurous. Derek was like a little fish, he kept jumping off the dock. The guys all took a tour of the lake early in the afternoon and the ladies took one right before and during the sunset. I got some great pictures of that. It was gorgeous! I'm glad we waited until evening for our trip, the guys had a very choppy, windy ride. Ours was smooth sailing. The best part was the fireworks. There isn't any established fireworks, but it seemed like every house on the lake had their own mini version of a display and it was beautiful. To see the whole lake erupt in sparkles was amazing. I hope to do this again. If we could only get the mosquitoes to quit-o eating us-o. I had so many bites on me, I'm amazed I don't have West Nile.

The next day, Dave and I took a trip to the nearby optometrist. I had been and still have a spot in my vision that won't go away. So annoying. It's like having a camera flash go off and you have that little spot that lingers, only mine won't go away. Any way, we drove an hour to go see a top notch guy, and he did all kinds of tests and all they come up with is that I have a floater and to get used to it. Groovy! We had fun when we got back though. Dave, the girls, Lori and Megan and I all walked to the city pool and spent about an hour tootling around in there. It was a lot of fun. The girls really enjoyed themselves.

On day 14 we went to visit the old farm where Dave and Al grew up. His cousin owns it now and they have been making some changes. Oh boy, have they made changes. It looks great, nothing like I remember. Amanda liked the cows and the horse we saw when we were leaving. We stopped to see if they would come close. Only the horse really did. Amanda didn't want to get too close, but Dad could feed it. She's chicken just like her mother.

That's all for now. I'll post more soon.