Greetings all! So yet another weekend is behind us so how about I tells ya a little about it? Sound good? Not really? Well tough, cause you are gonna hear it anyway!
Friday was a typical Friday night for us here, dinner out (pizza this time, one of those brick oven type places, much better than expected for these parts!) then of course a trip to Target and the mall. It's amazing that we can still find clothes that Preston does not own yet. Getting a little silly!
Preston blessed us on Saturday by sleeping in till 8:15! I woke up expecting to feed him breakfast and the like and had to putz around for a while because he wasn't waking up! Once he finally woke up and was ready for the day we decided to stick to our normal Sat plan even though swim classes are over. We headed in to town for our usual stop at the bagel shop. After that we drove off into the hills in search of new caves to explore. Our first stop was an old mine shaft called Thunderhead mine. This one was unique as it is supposedly the only one with a waterfall in it! It was pretty cool to see but it was quite obvious that this waterfall was not a natural one. Looks like some miners forgot to look at the area they were digging in and ended up hitting an riverbed which now flows through the mineshaft and out into a nearby creek. I'm sure the environmentalists would have a heyday with this one had it not happened back in the 1800's when no one gave a golly-gosh-darn. Despite it's unnaturalness, it was still pretty impressive.
We then drove to the Pactola Reservoir to see the Pactola Dam. Pretty impressive and strange enough the reservoir was the first lake we have seen here in SoDak!
After the mine, where Karl carried Pres a good 600 feet in and out, we traded places and headed to the Black Hills Caverns for a 60 min underground tour. This was a cave discovered by a man looking for gold who stopped to rest in a creek valley only to find a cool breeze blowing on his back. Thinking he would find gold in the cave he bought the land only to discover that it was all limestone and thus not gold bearing. The land was then bought by a Doctor who wanted the cave for tours and thus we have Black Hills Caverns! It was a pretty impressive tour and looked like there was a lot left to be seen in there with tunnels branching off all over. Having just heard the theme for Fraggle Rock on the radio before we got out of the car, Karley could not help but look for little Dozers making their edible structures. She's a little crazy. Anyway, it was very nice to get out of the heat and into the 50 deg caves! Pres was great through most of the tour but pretty much had enough by the end. He made sure to put in his two cents whenever he could. Guess he thought the guide was not giving us enough info. Carrying Pres through the whole tour reminded me that I have a cracked vertebrae and I was glad to plop him back in his car seat! We had planned on hitting one more cave but thought the better of it and went to Sonic instead for a late lunch.
After enduring 100 degree weather we were dying to hit the base pool and cool off if only for a few min. Our hopes were crushed when we found the pool was closed because of chemical levels. BOOOOOO!!! Instead we headed home to pout. My night was uplifted with a request to play Halo with Kevin and Jake. Good times.
The next day, Preston was good to us again, this time sleeping to 8:30!! There was a rubber ducky race to be held downtown in the creek so we packed up and headed into town to watch. It was a fundraiser for Children's Miracle Network where you sponsored rubber ducks for 5 bones each and they were dumped into the creek and the first ones to cross the finish won prizes! Pretty neat to see and it was an excuse to ride our bikes up and down the trails in the city. We'll let you know if we brought home any hardware, haven't checked the site to see if we won! The weather again was HOT and being out in it all day was making us pretty sticky. So we made a quick stop at Lowes and then headed for the pool praying that it would be open today! Thank goodness it was and we took a refreshing plunge before heading back to the house to bring the weekend to a close. The new uhh.....New Kids on the Block song was playing at the pool and Karl felt as if she were a kid again, hanging at the pool listening to the Kids. I could not relate.
Just FYI, we have updated the videos portion of the site so all videos should be working fine and we added some new ones, along with the weekly photos. Stayed tuned as we have a couple of trips laid out. Early August we are going to Minneapolis for a Seahawks preseason game and in September we are So Carolina bound for a wedding and to meet Paige Dorio. Until next week, xoxo
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Back in the swing...
As we are no longer sick, prepping to go out of town or out of town we had no excuses for not getting out and seeing some things. Although it was mostly close to home we saw some neat things and soaked in a ton of vitamin D (maybe a little too much on Regan's part as he is slightly red). We had a good week of normalcy and routine. Nothing amazing on the home front. Preston continuing to get around quickly. Seems so odd that he is in the middle of the kitchen floor or any other spot we didn't place him. He loves the Tupperware cabinet (left unlocked intentionally) so exploring is his new past time. He also loves to check on the dog...paws okay, ears okay, tail tastes good, etc. Luckily Coulee is pleased to get the love.
Anyhow on to the weekend, Friday night we went to Red Lobster for dinner and then did some shopping at the mall. Not a weekend unless we hit Target at least once! Got home and put Monkey to bed and then watched Letters from Iwo Jima. I fell asleep but Regan said he didn’t like it.
Saturday we went to swim lessons then to the bagel place downtown. We brought our bikes so we left the truck downtown and rode the bike path for about 6 miles (one way) to the “Chapel in the Hills”. It is an old Norwegian Chapel that is totally made of wood, quite ornate with lots of carvings. Even nooks and crannies that bats live in. Not creepy at all. There is a museum and overall the stop was pretty neat. They even had this other building that had a grass roof, called a stubor. I guess it holds in heat or keeps cool really well.
After that we biked to the flower gardens which are growing well with all the jungle humidity we have…we were all soaked in sweat! Then biked to Story Book Island which is a park here that has a ton of scenes from a lot of children's stories. Everything from Winnie the Pooh to DR Seuss to the 3 little pigs. So each scene is a slide or sand box or something like that. Like a giant themed play ground. (http://www.storybookisland.com/ )Pretty neat to see but was packed with kids and Preston is too young to give a crap.
Then we biked back through a Christian rock concert in the park, not our type of thing but had quite the turn out. Navigating 2 bikes and a chariot along the bike path with the throngs of people was tricky. Then went to late lunch/early dinner at this brewery downtown called the Fire house. All total it was about 12-13 miles of biking we think. Got home and sat still till we all fell asleep.
Sunday we drove to Spearfish to an Art Festival. They had live bands and loads of booths…like an artsy crafty swap meet. It was neat, the park where the art festival was at is really nice and along the river. The heat was amazing and there was no breeze. Another humid, humid day. We stopped at a bike shop and got a bell and mirror for my bike..woohoo!! Then we went back to base and went to the base pool. We picked up a summer pass since Preston’s lessons are over, this way he will still be able to get some swimming in until the next session starts up in Sept. The base pool is a neat facility and even has a water slide that I made Regan go down…too funny! It was really fun. We are looking towards biking there after work for the rest of the summer. Should work out well. Wrapped up the weekend with the Espys and then back to the grind.
Took pics as per the usual and posted a little video as well. Hope all is well with everyone. Paige Morgan and Haeven Grace were both born this past week. We are looking forward to seeing the new little girls. Congrats Dorios & Sweenys!
Anyhow on to the weekend, Friday night we went to Red Lobster for dinner and then did some shopping at the mall. Not a weekend unless we hit Target at least once! Got home and put Monkey to bed and then watched Letters from Iwo Jima. I fell asleep but Regan said he didn’t like it.
Saturday we went to swim lessons then to the bagel place downtown. We brought our bikes so we left the truck downtown and rode the bike path for about 6 miles (one way) to the “Chapel in the Hills”. It is an old Norwegian Chapel that is totally made of wood, quite ornate with lots of carvings. Even nooks and crannies that bats live in. Not creepy at all. There is a museum and overall the stop was pretty neat. They even had this other building that had a grass roof, called a stubor. I guess it holds in heat or keeps cool really well.
After that we biked to the flower gardens which are growing well with all the jungle humidity we have…we were all soaked in sweat! Then biked to Story Book Island which is a park here that has a ton of scenes from a lot of children's stories. Everything from Winnie the Pooh to DR Seuss to the 3 little pigs. So each scene is a slide or sand box or something like that. Like a giant themed play ground. (http://www.storybookisland.com/ )Pretty neat to see but was packed with kids and Preston is too young to give a crap.
Then we biked back through a Christian rock concert in the park, not our type of thing but had quite the turn out. Navigating 2 bikes and a chariot along the bike path with the throngs of people was tricky. Then went to late lunch/early dinner at this brewery downtown called the Fire house. All total it was about 12-13 miles of biking we think. Got home and sat still till we all fell asleep.
Sunday we drove to Spearfish to an Art Festival. They had live bands and loads of booths…like an artsy crafty swap meet. It was neat, the park where the art festival was at is really nice and along the river. The heat was amazing and there was no breeze. Another humid, humid day. We stopped at a bike shop and got a bell and mirror for my bike..woohoo!! Then we went back to base and went to the base pool. We picked up a summer pass since Preston’s lessons are over, this way he will still be able to get some swimming in until the next session starts up in Sept. The base pool is a neat facility and even has a water slide that I made Regan go down…too funny! It was really fun. We are looking towards biking there after work for the rest of the summer. Should work out well. Wrapped up the weekend with the Espys and then back to the grind.
Took pics as per the usual and posted a little video as well. Hope all is well with everyone. Paige Morgan and Haeven Grace were both born this past week. We are looking forward to seeing the new little girls. Congrats Dorios & Sweenys!
Sunday, July 13, 2008
R&R
Greetings all! Hope everyone is doing well. We are still recovering from last weekend. Karley's eyes have returned to normal color but not without a trip to hospital and some drops. She ended up staying home a day to help get through the other bugs in her system. We continue to battle coughs and are not enjoying that at all. Preston seems to be the most healthy person in our family right now. This weekend paled in comparison to the excitement of last weekend but we still experienced some pretty cool stuff.
So, on Friday, Karley stayed after work to have some drinks with her co-workers and Pres and I went downtown after work to meet her for dinner. We hit up a local Italian joint and let Preston entertain the customers. He always seems to attract some ladies to the table where ever we go. He's a cute kid. We then hit up the mall for some clothes, coffee, and other little nik-naks.
Saturday brought our newest weekend routine. First, Pres and I hit the pool for our weekly swim lessons. Big week for him too as he was dunked under for the first time! No, no, no...it was on purpose. Settle down....all part of the class people. He's getting pretty comfortable in the water! We're hoping to keep the ball rolling. After our swim, we headed in to town to hit up our Bagel shop. Yummers. Pres was exhausted from class so he didn't make it to the Bagel shop and rather than wake him up to drag him inside like usual we got our breakfast to go. And where would a family with bagels and coffee go? Why Bear Country of course! All the animals were happy to see us as usual. All the babies are getting so big! After we said 'bye' to all our pals, we headed back into town to donate money to our local Sam's Club. As usual we managed to bring home WAY more than necessary. One of the new toys was a wall mount for the TV in the bedroom so we had fun putting that up when we got home. Karl enjoys manning the instructions while I wield the weapons. Turned out pretty nice. Freed up some space on the dresser. Preston entertained us the rest of the day. He made a mobility breakthrough that evening! I wouldn't call it crawling but he is getting pretty close! He was definitely happy to be able to get places without us having to move him. All the work tuckered the little guy out and went to bed without any fuss. Karley and I tried to enjoy some shows on the newly mounted TV but we did not last long.
Sunday, Preston and I let Karley sleep in a little and then we made some waffles. We chilled around the house before heading to the grocery store to fill in the gaps from Sam's Club the day before. We then hopped on our bikes and tooled around the base. We had purchased a kiddie pool at Target and put some water in it hoping the sun would warm it up when we were on the ride. I think it managed to bring it up a half a degree or so but that didn't stop our little man from splashing around! Karley is hoping that Preston grows up like Sean, doesn't matter what the temperature is, as long as he's having fun! Pres then demonstrated his mad movement skills by skittering around the house. He's made some vast improvement on his work from Sat night so I think we are going to be in some trouble. He has also taught himself to sit-up on his own! Just kinda happened while he was squirming around and just like that it's part of his movement arsenal. We managed to capture some of his magic on camera so you'll have to keep an eye out for some video on the blog. We are super excited for him but a little scared at the same time.
So that pretty much brings us to the present. Pres is in bed and we will be following him shortly. We're excited for him to show off his new skills at day care! His teachers will be so excited. We need to give a couple shout-outs to some of our friends and family; Congrats to Jake and Liz Nielson and welcome to the party little Ethan! Joe & Kristin Dorio and Holly & Jon Sweeny are extremely close to adding their own little bundles to the world so we are thinking about you guys and can't wait to hear the news! And a big congrats to my Bro, newly planted in South Carolina, he and his girlfriend Laura have just got engaged, can't wait to plan another trip out east for that!
That's all from SoDak for this week! Hope everyone is lovin life! Talk to ya later!
-Regan, Karley and our newly mobile monster Preston!
So, on Friday, Karley stayed after work to have some drinks with her co-workers and Pres and I went downtown after work to meet her for dinner. We hit up a local Italian joint and let Preston entertain the customers. He always seems to attract some ladies to the table where ever we go. He's a cute kid. We then hit up the mall for some clothes, coffee, and other little nik-naks.
Saturday brought our newest weekend routine. First, Pres and I hit the pool for our weekly swim lessons. Big week for him too as he was dunked under for the first time! No, no, no...it was on purpose. Settle down....all part of the class people. He's getting pretty comfortable in the water! We're hoping to keep the ball rolling. After our swim, we headed in to town to hit up our Bagel shop. Yummers. Pres was exhausted from class so he didn't make it to the Bagel shop and rather than wake him up to drag him inside like usual we got our breakfast to go. And where would a family with bagels and coffee go? Why Bear Country of course! All the animals were happy to see us as usual. All the babies are getting so big! After we said 'bye' to all our pals, we headed back into town to donate money to our local Sam's Club. As usual we managed to bring home WAY more than necessary. One of the new toys was a wall mount for the TV in the bedroom so we had fun putting that up when we got home. Karl enjoys manning the instructions while I wield the weapons. Turned out pretty nice. Freed up some space on the dresser. Preston entertained us the rest of the day. He made a mobility breakthrough that evening! I wouldn't call it crawling but he is getting pretty close! He was definitely happy to be able to get places without us having to move him. All the work tuckered the little guy out and went to bed without any fuss. Karley and I tried to enjoy some shows on the newly mounted TV but we did not last long.
Sunday, Preston and I let Karley sleep in a little and then we made some waffles. We chilled around the house before heading to the grocery store to fill in the gaps from Sam's Club the day before. We then hopped on our bikes and tooled around the base. We had purchased a kiddie pool at Target and put some water in it hoping the sun would warm it up when we were on the ride. I think it managed to bring it up a half a degree or so but that didn't stop our little man from splashing around! Karley is hoping that Preston grows up like Sean, doesn't matter what the temperature is, as long as he's having fun! Pres then demonstrated his mad movement skills by skittering around the house. He's made some vast improvement on his work from Sat night so I think we are going to be in some trouble. He has also taught himself to sit-up on his own! Just kinda happened while he was squirming around and just like that it's part of his movement arsenal. We managed to capture some of his magic on camera so you'll have to keep an eye out for some video on the blog. We are super excited for him but a little scared at the same time.
So that pretty much brings us to the present. Pres is in bed and we will be following him shortly. We're excited for him to show off his new skills at day care! His teachers will be so excited. We need to give a couple shout-outs to some of our friends and family; Congrats to Jake and Liz Nielson and welcome to the party little Ethan! Joe & Kristin Dorio and Holly & Jon Sweeny are extremely close to adding their own little bundles to the world so we are thinking about you guys and can't wait to hear the news! And a big congrats to my Bro, newly planted in South Carolina, he and his girlfriend Laura have just got engaged, can't wait to plan another trip out east for that!
That's all from SoDak for this week! Hope everyone is lovin life! Talk to ya later!
-Regan, Karley and our newly mobile monster Preston!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Catching up!
We have been off the radar for a bit but only because we have been busy with chores and what not. Not too many adventures to speak of so it was easy to put blogging off. We have no cause or distraction to slack off for a while so we should be posting regularly again.
Last wrote after fathers day weekend, the following weekend was full of organizing and cleaning as Regan's parents were due to come through. The office is where we would shove visitors and it was the room that was not done yet. Well after some elbow grease, some blind hanging and a few pictures for the walls the room was complete. Halsteds came in that following Monday. They were passing through in route to MN for a family reunion. They were here Tues-Thurs, leaving Friday for MN. Due to the 4th trip Reg & Karl had not planned to take any days off but Preston came down with a case of the ol' rosie ball (aka pink eye) and that allowed for some sick time home with the folks. They did minor sightseeing including a Scandinavian chapel and the local museum. Besides that it was cards, BBQ and chit chat while observing Pres.
Once the Halsteds left we had a weekend spent prepping for the eminent 4th camping trip. Lots of shopping and list making. Amazing what a fam of 3 (basically 2.5!!) needs to go away for 5 days. So needless to say that sapped up the weekend. We did go to swim class and morning bagels, also dropped in on a local attraction called Art Alley but besides that it was mostly uneventful. Sunday night the Halsteds returned for some enchiladas and a little rest before they finished the drive back to Spokane Monday morning. We were glad to see them and sorry not to spend more quality time.
Then finally the camping trip begins..er...kinda. We got off to a slow start as the whole fam came down with some cold/fever hybrid. All had fevers, congestion and coughs. What drag. We had Pres in and out of the clinic checking for pink eye or anything else. Regan doing all the packing sick as Karley slept on the couch. Even an incident where Karley passed out in the truck while it was parked in the driveway for 30 min. Good thing it was only 95 degrees outside. The plan was for us to drive halfway on Tuesday night to Sheridan, WY. Then press on Wednesday and drive the remainder to Big Timber, MT and meet up with everyone. In order to appease the germ gods we waited till Wednesday to leave and drove straight through. For an 8 hour drive Preston champed it up. He took a good nap and then conked out at his bed time. We pulled into the campsite and found our cabin by 830. The Benavidezes got in at 130am, Dentlers at 1030 Thurs and the Fetchos got in close to 3pm.
The site was a trout farm with camp sites for tents, RVs and the cabins. The cabins and sites we stayed in were on the river. Literally 10 feet from the Boulder River. With all the rains the river was very high and moving extremely fast. I think we were all thankful that 3 out of the 4 kids were not mobile. Markus Fetcho was the only walker of the 4 kids and he was really good about staying away from the river. He even made a point of pointing at the river and saying "no, no no!" There were bathrooms and showers that were separated from our cabins by a trout pond. The campsite was pretty full. We set up a screened-in sun tent that was like a nursery and there was also a open air tent to block sun. Everyone had a stove or grill and we had the picnic tables pushed together. There was, of course, a fire pit where the obligatory marshmallows were roasted.
All together we did community meals which worked out famously! Cook a couple meals for all and you are set. While there we visited the Land Bridge State Park, hiked to a waterfall, squeezed in the city pool in between thunder storms, biked around the site (mostly to bathrooms) and into town, played some boccie and lawn bowling, few rounds of catchphrase. There was some fly fishing...nothing was caught. Overall it was a lot of hanging out and enjoying the company. The only downfall was that Karley was sick the whole time, lost her voice for 2 days and then wrapped up the trip by exposing the campers to pink eye!
We have been horrible with the camera so sorry for the lack of pictures of all the things discussed. I think we were just so excited to be with the friends and family we only recently left that picture taking wasn't our first thought. We are gonna try to get the pics from everyone else. We had such a great time and loved seeing all those little boys.
Lastly I will leave you with our suggestion to listen to 80's stations while driving, makes for great rehashing and if you get the chance watch the show called Wipeout...hilarious!!
Last wrote after fathers day weekend, the following weekend was full of organizing and cleaning as Regan's parents were due to come through. The office is where we would shove visitors and it was the room that was not done yet. Well after some elbow grease, some blind hanging and a few pictures for the walls the room was complete. Halsteds came in that following Monday. They were passing through in route to MN for a family reunion. They were here Tues-Thurs, leaving Friday for MN. Due to the 4th trip Reg & Karl had not planned to take any days off but Preston came down with a case of the ol' rosie ball (aka pink eye) and that allowed for some sick time home with the folks. They did minor sightseeing including a Scandinavian chapel and the local museum. Besides that it was cards, BBQ and chit chat while observing Pres.
Once the Halsteds left we had a weekend spent prepping for the eminent 4th camping trip. Lots of shopping and list making. Amazing what a fam of 3 (basically 2.5!!) needs to go away for 5 days. So needless to say that sapped up the weekend. We did go to swim class and morning bagels, also dropped in on a local attraction called Art Alley but besides that it was mostly uneventful. Sunday night the Halsteds returned for some enchiladas and a little rest before they finished the drive back to Spokane Monday morning. We were glad to see them and sorry not to spend more quality time.
Then finally the camping trip begins..er...kinda. We got off to a slow start as the whole fam came down with some cold/fever hybrid. All had fevers, congestion and coughs. What drag. We had Pres in and out of the clinic checking for pink eye or anything else. Regan doing all the packing sick as Karley slept on the couch. Even an incident where Karley passed out in the truck while it was parked in the driveway for 30 min. Good thing it was only 95 degrees outside. The plan was for us to drive halfway on Tuesday night to Sheridan, WY. Then press on Wednesday and drive the remainder to Big Timber, MT and meet up with everyone. In order to appease the germ gods we waited till Wednesday to leave and drove straight through. For an 8 hour drive Preston champed it up. He took a good nap and then conked out at his bed time. We pulled into the campsite and found our cabin by 830. The Benavidezes got in at 130am, Dentlers at 1030 Thurs and the Fetchos got in close to 3pm.
The site was a trout farm with camp sites for tents, RVs and the cabins. The cabins and sites we stayed in were on the river. Literally 10 feet from the Boulder River. With all the rains the river was very high and moving extremely fast. I think we were all thankful that 3 out of the 4 kids were not mobile. Markus Fetcho was the only walker of the 4 kids and he was really good about staying away from the river. He even made a point of pointing at the river and saying "no, no no!" There were bathrooms and showers that were separated from our cabins by a trout pond. The campsite was pretty full. We set up a screened-in sun tent that was like a nursery and there was also a open air tent to block sun. Everyone had a stove or grill and we had the picnic tables pushed together. There was, of course, a fire pit where the obligatory marshmallows were roasted.
All together we did community meals which worked out famously! Cook a couple meals for all and you are set. While there we visited the Land Bridge State Park, hiked to a waterfall, squeezed in the city pool in between thunder storms, biked around the site (mostly to bathrooms) and into town, played some boccie and lawn bowling, few rounds of catchphrase. There was some fly fishing...nothing was caught. Overall it was a lot of hanging out and enjoying the company. The only downfall was that Karley was sick the whole time, lost her voice for 2 days and then wrapped up the trip by exposing the campers to pink eye!
We have been horrible with the camera so sorry for the lack of pictures of all the things discussed. I think we were just so excited to be with the friends and family we only recently left that picture taking wasn't our first thought. We are gonna try to get the pics from everyone else. We had such a great time and loved seeing all those little boys.
Lastly I will leave you with our suggestion to listen to 80's stations while driving, makes for great rehashing and if you get the chance watch the show called Wipeout...hilarious!!
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