Jacob's 7th Birthday

This was the first year Jacob had a friend birthday party. Most years we are traveling and we celebrate with family. This year we were home from our vacation and Jacob thought it would be fun to have friends join him to celebrate. We thought if he invited 8-10 friends maybe half would come and we'd have a nice small group of kids to celebrate Jacob's birthday. Well it turned out that he invited 15 kids and most of them were able to attend and several came with their families and younger siblings. So we had over 30 people at his party!!

Our sports fanatic wanted a football party. Daddy planned the games (a football toss and football kick, etc) and I planned the foods, prizes, cake, etc. We found a football shaped pinata at Target and sports prizes (ball-shaped whistles, little squishy footballs, soccer balls, basketballs and baseballs).
The day of the party there was a big storm brewing. We hosted Jacob's party at the public park to accommodate all the guests he wanted to invite. As we arrived at the pavilion, dark clouds were forming to the west. The wind was picking up and the storm was heading right towards our party. We started some games as the guests arrived. But soon we had to take cover as it was thundering and lightening and things were blowing everywhere. We rode out the storm in our cars for a 1/2 hour and then resumed the party. Several of Jacob's friends had to leave in the midst of the storm. But there was still a good bunch of kids left after the storm passed. Pat started grilling and we were still able to do the pinata and the water balloons in the rain under the shelter of the pavilion.The kids got muddy and wet but everyone had a good time!
Especially Sophia - who found a mud puddle to stomp in and sit down in...
I made a football field cake. It turned out pretty cute! It was so windy that we couldn't keep the candles lit. As soon as the candles were lit, Jacob blew them out. So I didn't get a picture of him blowing his candles out.
Jacob received 5 footballs! He loves playing with all of them! He also got a lot of football/sports cards. He has so much fun memorizing the facts on all the players! Maybe someday he'll be a quarterback or a sports statistician?!

I was so glad to have the help of friends to keep things from blowing away, help serve food and clean up! I never would have managed a party of this size on my own. Next year we'll scale things down a bit....

Happy Birthday, Jacob!
We love you!!

Luke's Dinosaur Birthday

We had the next door neighbors over for Luke's 3rd birthday (July 10). He requested a dinosaur cake. I found a cool book at the library and attempted to make a 3-D brontosaurus cake. The cake was too moist to hold together. So we improvised. Pat helped me design a T-Rex cake. It took 5 batches of homemade frosting to cover it -- mostly. There was still a bare spot on his back but I was tired of mixing up frosting to finish it. It still turned out cute despite the lack of frosting.

It took us 2 weeks to finish the cake! It was HUGE! (fork in bottom left corner for scale)
Luke had fun with his siblings and his friends and was a tired little boy at the end of the day.

Happy Birthday, sweet boy!
We love you Luker!

Discovering the Southern Hills

Angostura Reservoir

Only a 15 minute drive from our house we can swim, hike, bike and camp at Angostura State Park and Reservoir. It's a beautiful park! We've been swimming here and played at the beach. Jacob also participated in the summer nature programs once a month during the months of June, July and August. On those mornings I took the younger three to the beach while he had his program. We often had the whole beach to ourselves. It's beautiful sand and the water is pretty warm. Here are some pictures of our first visit to the Reservoir on the day they offered free admission to all South Dakota State Parks.
Pat made a whole family of sand ducks. And the kids all enjoyed playing in the sand. The water was a bit cold in May! We all waded in up to our knees.
We ended up picking up an annual pass when I started taking Jacob to his monthly nature program. We made a trip out to the reservoir while Lois was visiting over Labor Day weekend and the water level is down creating the world's largest beach to play on -- the kids loved that!

Angostura is also the location of the Southern Hills Triathlon which just took place earlier this month. I had my sights set on racing this year but didn't get in shape for the swimming portion. Hopefully next year I'll be able to compete!!

Coldbrook Reservoir
About three miles north of our house there is a lake that was built, and is maintained by the Army Corp of Engineers. It is a beautiful setting with red rocks and coniferous trees surrounding the lake. We took the kids here several times towards the end of the summer. We had been a few times earlier in the summer to swim and fish and there was quite a bit of riff-raff that hung out at the lake and so we decided to avoid it most of the summer. Sophie had fun watching the ducks at the lake.
The times we swam at the end of the summer were beautiful -- more families were at the beach and the water was a bit chilly but still nice for swimming. We will definitely have to swim here more next summer!
Mammoth SiteOne of the tourist attractions in Hot Springs is the Mammoth Site. Hannah chose to go to the Mammoth Site for her birthday activity. The whole family enjoyed it and we purchased a family membership so that we can go back a few more times before the end of this year. The kids were quiet and well behaved for the guided tour of the dig and they had fun exploring the artifacts in the museum after the tour. Their favorite was the house made out of mammoth skulls. Here they are exploring it.Custer State Park & Wind Cave National Park
Another treasure close by to us is Custer State Park . We love taking a drive up to the park and driving the Game Loop. We regularly see Buffalo, Pronghorn, Prairie Dogs, and Burros (they are so friendly you can reach your hand out to pet them.) And the awesome thing about heading up to Custer is that we start our scenic drive very early on as we drive through Wind Cave National Park on the way to Custer State Park. We often see more buffalo and pronghorn in the national park than on the Game Loop in Custer. I hope to eventually take the kids to Wind Cave -- but it will have to be when they get older and I can handle them alone because Pat is weary of going underground in a cave.

Hot Springs itself has the beautiful Fall River, a warm water river which runs through town, Evans Plunge, an indoor water park and four fun, silly and sweet kids to enjoy.

So come visit us in the beautiful Southern Hills of South Dakota!
We're working hard on creating a comfortable place for our guests to stay.