The trip from ND to SD

8 of us left ND on Sept 21st to come to SD. Jeff and I, our oldest daughter, the 5 chicks, our grandchildren and our 12 yr old dog. Yes it was a load but went very well with well behaved children. It was quite enjoyable especially for me who got to sit in back with the children. Jeff and our daughter did the driving and it was not always pleasant due to rain and very strong wind. Our son-in-law left a day early with our Tahoe to attend a conference.
We stopped at a park so mom could nurse the baby and you can tell energy and silliness was in the air as they acted up on the outdoor theater stage and ran down to a Air Force plane that was on display.

Full stomach and a very tired baby!

Below the 2nd oldest enjoys a road game!

Bear Country was the first big adventure. Here Mom takes pictures of the big black bear.

There were many animals to enjoy including these big buffalo.

See that sleeping Bear?

That one is sitting up like a person!

Even the baby spotted the bear and other animals.

Bear Country baby land was also fun for all!

A special ride with Nana and Papa. We got to see lots of beautiful scenery!

A picnic next to a creek. It was perfect weather for the afternoon fun.

Panning for Gold in the creek. Yep, I think I see a little flake!

Even Dad got in on the action. Everyone got their feet wet

and some got even more wet then their feet!

The 3 oldest grandchildren enjoyed a little rock climbing. What fun SD is.

Below are pictures of some of the other fun in our back yard and in our home.

Our 4 yr old grandson had a lot of fun with his toy gun!

Watching something fun on the computer with Papa!

It was so much fun but time just flew by too fast.

Lots of fun family memories. It is such a blessing to spend time with family!

Adventures on the farm!

Our youngest Granddaughter and her mom (our oldest daughter) enjoying the green grass and fresh warm air!
Notice the beautiful flowers in the background. My mother still has a green thumb both Indore and out!

Here we were looking at my fathers WW II medals! We are all very proud of him and his job in the Army protecting our country!

We found these huge pumpkins in the garden and decorated the yard.

The grandchildren enjoying the harvest. They got to take turns riding in the combine.

They got a long ride with Uncle Dale on the swather.
So much fun!

Watching the combine unload into the truck.

Unloading the truck load of wheat into the granary.

My dad watches as the wheat load is being unloaded.

My dads faithful dog, Spot, is almost always at his side when he rides his four-wheeler.

Combining until sun set or even after sun set.

Our 4 yr old grandson in the wheat field.

It's a big, big field for such a little guy! I think he was getting ready to jump over the swath!

Our 11 yr old granddaughter walks in the wheat field and checking out a head of wheat!

Grandchildren in the golden ripe wheat field.

Hear comes the combine, who will get to ride this time?

One of the things we always enjoy is a walk in the Coulee. This is our farm from across the Coulee.

Walking in the coulee. We all had to find a walking stick.

Pass the baby up the creek bank. We took turns carrying her but

I think mom had her the most. At least both our daughters and all 6 grandchildren

got to walk the coulee together.

Peek a boo behind the big tree.

It is so beautiful down in the coulee and so many interesting things to see.

Here they all sit on the big rock shaped like a loaf of bread.
They called it the Loaf of Bread rock!

The boys off on an adventure!

Mom, Dad and the three little ones off on a coulee adventure.

Papa and Nana in the coulee with all seven grandchildren.
What a great time we had!

Papa with the baby! She loves her Papa!

What a fun couple of days on the farm. These are fun memories!
It's wonderful to spend this quality time with family!

It reminds me of when my brother and I were children and we used to

walk in the coulee several times each summer, with my mother. She always pointed out Gods wonderful creation!

Trip continues to Niagara ND Dad's 61st B-day

After we had been at Melissa's in Williston for a few days, we traveled East to my parents home. They still live alone on our farm. My brother and nephew do the farming but my dad still helps out when he can and even helped combine up to 5 hours a day. This is the farm land mark below. The big red barn with a fresh paint job. Jamie worked hard on this and it sure turned out nice. Thanks, we all appreciate the hard work!

This is my mother watering her African Violets that she has had for many years. They always seem to bloom so beautiful for her. This is also the picture window that she spends hours watching the humming birds she feeds and farming from the window!


My dad has a lot of pain in his legs but he sure can get around with a little help from his 4 wheeler. Here he is watching a load of wheat being unloaded into a bin. He also uses the 4 wheeler to get the mail every day and many trips to the garden. My husband and I had my parents to ourselves the first 4 days we were there. Our two daughters and family's came on Thursday. Tim could not be there since he had much work during harvest. He was there for July 4th so it hadn't been so long.

It had been 2 years since my parents had seen my oldest daughter and family. They had never gotten to meat the youngest Great Granddaughter who was about to turn 1 yr old.
Hear is Great Grandma getting acquainted with the 3 youngest. The 3 older Gr Grand Kids are on the couch in background.

This is My parents with our family minus our youngest daughters husband Tim. We will have to cut and paste a picture of him next to Melissa on the back right.

I was a little disappointed with the lighting of these pictures but at least we talked everyone into it! We were not dressed in our Sunday best either but we look natural!

This is my parents with all their grand children and great grand children.

This is Great Grandma and Great Grandpa with their seven Great grandchildren.

Great Grandpa holding 1 yr old Great Granddaughter and Great Grandma holding 5 mo old Great Grandson. He is almost the same size as his 1 yr old cousin.

My Mother with Great Granddaughter.

Great Grandpa having a little discussion with his Great Granddaughter.

They got well acquainted and had a lot of fun together. She was just laughing out loud.
We certainly enjoyed wishing my dad a happy 91st birthday.

Reading his cards!

The middle Granddaughter had the privilege of placing the 91 Birthday crown on him.

You can tell by the smile that My dad enjoyed his 91st Birthday.

We all ask Gods blessings on his new year of life and wish him many more.

The Great Grand kids getting to feed corn husks to the calves.

Watching the calves eat the husks. Most everyone got to pet the calves,

even the baby's of our family.

We made a quick visit to the local grave yard. My fist cousin past away about 13 months ago and her Grave stone is front row toward the left!
This picture is to show how close to the same height we are. Left is my oldest 11 yr old granddaughter, then my youngest daughter, then oldest daughter and me.
Dad on his 4 Wheeler in front of the house.

You can also almost see his faithful dog spot toward front of the 4 wheeler.
This is My mom in Yellow and her sister, my Aunt. It is always a joy to visit with both of them and I certainly can see how much they enjoy one another.
I can't forget the beautiful sun rise. This was about 6:30 AM

There just aren't beautiful sun rise and sun sets quite like those in ND especially around harvest time. Next post will include some of the fun activities we shared with our grandchildren while on the farm.

Fall colors in Spearfish Canyon

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The Bible Bee (part 1 of our vacation)

The next several blogs will be reviewing our 2 weeks of family visits, celebrations and fun. The first part of our trip was to NW North Dakota on Sept 11th.
This is our Grandson who lives in ND! He entered a very intense Bible Bee that was held on Sept 12th.


In the picture above, He was in His thinking mode. He had spent many hours in the previous 4 months studying and memorizing for this Bible Bee Competition. It certainly did pay off as He won the First Place for the Junior Division. We are very proud of him and we know all the Bible knowledge will be of great help to him in His future.

He was hoping to attend the National competition but missed that by hair. There is always next year and we will be rooting for him!
This is the house that our youngest daughter, son-in-law and grandson will be purchasing. We were pleased to see the home even though the sale will not be final until Oct 1st. Above our Grandson is sitting with his Grandfather visiting.

This is our daughter, husband and their son in front of their new home.

Here our grandson was spending some fun visit time with his Papa! I got to accompany him on his Sunday Morning Paper route and we enjoyed attending church service and Bible class with them.

Since we stayed an extra day, my daughter and I decided to take on a big project we had been planning to do for quite some time. Refinish their table.

It went very well and you can see we acquired some help from the men to sand and get ready for the finish.

Tim put on the first coat of stain/varnish. It was a big project for one day but was very rewarding when we saw the finished table.

It will look lovely in the new dining area of their new home. The two big table leaves have also been refinished. We are anxious for our next visit and see things in the new home.

We left for the Eastern part of ND on Monday the 14th to spend time with my parents.

TO BE CONTINUED ON NEXT BLOG UPDATE!

The Amazing Bulb

This spring when I saw these Gladiola on sale, I decided I would try them in my flower garden.

This is what the variety of bulbs looked like. Not a pretty sight. They look dried up and very dead. I once used Gladiola bulbs for our Church woman's group devotion. I had bagged up one bulb in each decorated bag and tied it with pretty ribbon. The Bulb reminds us of Jesus , Dead in the grave after that horrific Good Friday. Each was encouraged to plant the bulb that fall and watch for the life, the green to appear in spring. Finally to watch for the beautiful lively bud and flower that reminds us of the great joy of Jesus Resurrection on Easter Morning. The planting of the bulb was a simple of our telling someone about Jesus. Planting the Seed. in this case bulb. Through Gods work through His Spirit, cosing it to grow. Faith. I always wonder how many of those 55 bulbs grew.

This is the bottom of the bulb and you can see where the roots will start forming.


This is the top where you can already see a tiny sprout forming. I planted about 25 of the bulbs and gave a few to my cousin.

Most of them came up and got off to a great start.

Below you can see a few that actually bloomed. Yes they were very pretty.

Unfortunately, this was the year for grasshoppers and I would guess that Gladiolas are their favorite food! Most of the green leafy plants turned out looking more like dried army green lace for all the holes the grasshoppers had munched into the plants. Only about 5 bloomed but they sure were pretty and all were a different color.

The Fair

This is the vegetable collection that I entered in the fair Horticulture department. Some one ask about the ribbons I won so I thought I would tell you about a few of them. I got a red 2nd place on the veg collection. 4 blue, 5 red and 2 white at the horticulture department. I only got a red on the baptism romper from the 37 yr old pillow cases.


When I went to pick up my 6 photography entry's, I was expecting to pick them up in a regular paper bag like all the rest. But instead, this bag above is what they were packed up in.

This entry was the reason for the award bag. To my great surprise, this photo above of my daughter with her youngest daughter on her baptism day, won the people's choice award !

Because I won, I also won a year membership in the Black Hills Photography Society and a $25 Gift Certificate to a local store. It was a pleasant surprise!

These two photo entries I received red second place.

These are the other three photos I entered and did not ribbon on them!

These are the three beefsteak tomatoes that I entered, and they received the Blue ribbon. This picture was taken 10 days after I picked them and they sure have held up nice considering they hadn't even been refrigerated.

Today we used one of them for our BLT sandwiches.

You can tell how firm and meaty these tomatoes are, that's why they are

called beef steak tomatoes. Some other brands are filled with seeds and the softer part.

When the fair started this was a cut off tree. Every year for the past 4 years they have had a chainsaw wood artist at the fair and he did this during the fair. 10 days!

This was the creation he carved last year from another tree trunk not far from

this years creation tree trunk.


Below you will see pictures of some of the many rides.

NO, My husband and I did NOT ride on any of these. We did enjoy a walk around the fair and watching others enjoy the rides and games.

There was one Bungee ride that seemed to have a line and many

who enjoyed the very scary bouncy ride. It cost $35 for one and only $50 for two.

I would guess priority on how one spends money comes into play!

It's not for me!