Fun on the Farm

So since the farmer opened in April, Abby has been talking about riding the horses. Only problem? You have to be three which, until this weekend, she was not. But, we promised her that we would go for her birthday. And, regardless of the fact that it was 2,000 degrees outside (heat index), we packed ourselves up at 9:00 in the morning and headed to the horses. Abby marched right up to the map to make sure we were headed in the right direction.Ladies first!
Mommy was mildly concerned that since she had never been on a horse before that she might not know what she was doing. She had no concerns, however.
Check out the face. She has the excitement of certain unnamed male relatives.
The big brothers were not about to let her be the only one with a ride.
Ah, finally someone who is not afraid to show he is having fun.
We decided to take advantage of having both daddy AND Grandpa with us to do a little fishing. Benjamin happened upon the lucky pole for the day. Every time he threw his pole out, he caught a fish. Sometimes before Grandpa even had the last one back in the water!
After about Benjamin's 5th fish (he probably caught 15), Noah gave up. He went back to the other side to sit with Grandma and Uncle Scott.
This was actually Abby's first try at fishing. She started out a little hesitant but quickly warmed up to the idea. She had a lot more fun when Grandpa traded her pole for Benjamin's. She had the same luck and caught 5 right in a row.
Some might say she looks like her mama fishing in this picture. (Didn't want to get fish on her pretty nails, I think...)
Got one!
Hooray for the farmer!!!

She's THREE!!

It's true! Our sweet baby is another year older. (Required photo with Eeyore.)A pink cupcake party is what she wanted. A pink cupcake party is what she got...
I think she was pleased with the setup.Noah helped make the the kiddos' gift bags. (Abby helped decorate Baby Andrew's. Can you guess which one that was?)New "picnic food" from Uncle Scott.Newest member of the Campbell bike gang.Ride the wind, Bullseye!!Finally time for the PINK CUPCAKES!!! Abby actually sang to herself along with everyone else. It is one of her favorite songs, after all, why wouldn't she?

She needs a little help for her air to actually blow out the candle. Daddy to the rescue!

Pink Lemonade. Mmm...

All our kind guests making themselves comfortable on the floor. Who needs furniture?Daddy helped her with her dessert.She chose a seat right next to the table. Closer to the candy that way, I would guess...The star of the party.Breaking in to all the new presents. Yes, it is a girl baby with long blonde hair. Yes, Abby says her name is baby Andrew. (All of her babies have become baby Andrews...)Abs and her "guest of honor", baby "And-a-woo" cuddling with Grandma.Love you, Sweet Girl!

The UnWelcome Home Party.

So, cell phone coverage in the Black Hills is shotty at best. Christopher's parents tried calling us Saturday. We didn't get the messages until Sunday. It took four tries but he finally got through. I guess it was a good thing. They wanted to tell us that a big thunderstorm had come through our neighborhood on Friday. It brought with it the largest hail they have ever seen. "Oh, and we think your house has been struck by lightning." Um, what? Yeah, it appeared half of our house was without electricity. Just half, mind you. It just happened to be the half that took care of our air conditioning AND our fridge. They had stopped by to water the plants [outside] and for some reason went inside. Only to find our fridge and freezer had defrosted and ran all over the kitchen floor. (Side note, I had actually managed to go grocery shopping before we left and had the freezer stocked with food for the coming week. Best laid plans, hunh?) Oh, and it was a thousand degrees inside our house. Not a whole lot we can do about that on vacation. On our way home, Christopher got ahold of the electric company. (Not to be confused with The Electric Company...) After having to work a little too hard to convince the nice phone lady that he was indeed the only account holder at this address, he was able to request that someone go to our house and check it out. In the 10 years we have lived here, three of our neighbors have had this happen and have had to fight with KCPL to get them to admit that the problem was theirs and that they should fix it. When he checked in a few hours later and was told a serviceman had been by but all looked good and we would be charged for a service visit. To say we were a little heated as we continued our 5 hour drive to who knows what would be an understatement. But we trucked on. Really, what else where we going to do? We pulled in to our driveway about 6:00PM. Christopher and I ran inside. We unloaded our dirty clothes, packed some new clothes and headed to the grandparents'. (Yet another blessing to having them live just down the street.) Fortunately, Grandma was taking care of dinner. Unfortunately, we would all be sleeping in the same room. (One of the best things about vacation is returning home all exhausted and knowing that everyone will be sleeping in for days to come - when they are all in their own rooms, that is.) After we got everyone to sleep, daddy and grandpa headed back over the house to do a little recon. Turns out it really wasn't the electricity. Our air conditioner was acting up. (Sorry for all the mean thoughts, KCPL.) Wednesday afternoon, we got someone to come and look at that. The compressor had blown. Air conditioner? 7 years old... That shouldn't happen. I stopped by the house to start some laundry. Got a load washed and tried putting it in the dryer. Nothing. The dryer turned on, mind you, it just wouldn't spin. So I loaded up all the wet clothes and headed BACK to grandma's with even more "stuff". Just keeps getting better, hunh? We did our best to stay out of grandma's house as we knew we would be back for dinner and the evening. I did leave the kids there for a while while I went back over to the house and cleaned out the fridge and freezer. Oh, fun times. Thursday, the repairman came. $700 later (for a part under warranty, mind you) and we were up and running. Of course, with it being 1,000 degrees outside and having been without air for so long, the house was not comfortable enough to be in until Friday night. SO, that was the air conditioning. Now, on to the fridge... All this time the fridge was plugged in with an extension cord running in to the living room. Sunday afternoon, Christopher and his dad undertook what was to be a simple outlet replacement. 20 minutes was the estimation. 8 hours later, they had restored electricity to that outlet BUT another random section of the house was now electricity-free. Monday an electrician came out and found the problem relatively quickly. Tuesday while we were having breakfast, I noticed the fridge was out again. I tried plugging the extension cord in to the other side of the kitchen. Nothing. So the cord went back in to the living room. After the kids went to bed, Christopher got to work - AGAIN. Being the smarty he is, he found the problem rather quickly and the kitchen was up and running again. So far, so good. But we are taking nothing for granted!!!

A Day in the Life of a Campbell Family Road Trip. Day Six.

11:00AM - Finally a bath for everyone! A good night's sleep and some breakfast in the morning and we are ready for the final stretch.

11:30AM - Bathroom break. Surprise. Surprise.

1:15PM - Shelby, IA. Lunch at DQ. We ran out of bread and this was all we could find. Noah and mommy had a nice, quiet lunch and talked about the trip. Noah's favorite things were volleyball, the Desert Dome (at the Omaha Zoo) and the bats. His least favorite thing was eating with the gnats. Mommy's favorite was camping with her family in the Black Hills. Her least favorite was when the kids got loud in the car - although Noah didn't like that choice and thought she should just go with the gnat dinner. Daddy's favorites were being in the Black Hills and seeing Mt. Rushmore. "Seeing Noah play with his baseball cards was pretty cool, too." His least favorite was how quickly it got hot at the campsite.

We opt for the posted detour this time and get around the flooding quite easily.

5:00PM - Rest stop in St. Joseph, MO. So close...

6:10PM - 9962 Ballentine. We arrive home to a house that has been without electricity to most of it for the last 4 days. No air conditioning. And that is just the beginning, but we will save that no another post.

We did, indeed, survive our 2nd official family road trip and I do believe it was a success! I know the kids might be a little young to remember having been to South Dakota (well, except Noah because the kid has a freakish-sort-of memory) but they will have pictures to remember the fun we had and they can pull them out some day and show their kids, "See? I went there when I was your size. And, yup! We had patch jackets, too."

A Day in the Life of a Campbell Family Road Trip. Day Five.

10:30AM - We're packed up and on the road with our first stop ahead - Bear Country, USA. Another nice, cold night for sleeping. Mommy and Abby were the first ones up and into their 4th of July clothes. Off to a pancake breakfast and then to break down the camp. While mommy packed the car, daddy took the kids for one last round of pillow jumping, mini golf, and volleyball. If only we had time for the water park and slide! It sure warms up quickly!

2:15PM - The tour through Bear Country, USA turned out to be about an hour. We saw elk,

reindeer,

mule deer,

mountain lions, big-horned goats (which Abby calls Corn goats),

and of course bears.

The bears really want you to stay! Sometimes they just sit in front of your car.

They had quite a few bears really - maybe as many as 50!

We took a quick look through Babyland to see some baby bears. They look pretty cute and were all enjoying a swim.

Some food from the grill and we are ready to make the long drive back to Sioux Falls.

2:25PM - Time for a potty break already. This could be a really long day! (And, in case you are wondering, YES! Mom did ask before we started out but everyone assured me they did not have to go...)

3:30PM - Arrive in Wall. Go to - yup, you guessed it - Wall Drug Store.

A drug store, you ask? Oh, not just any drug store. A city block deep and wide drug store. The kids had a blast running through and looking at everything. Abby had her arms so full of stuff she could barely walk. She was not happy when mommy told her she could not buy all that. She ended up with a pink horse she named Sarah. Noah picked some little pistols with a holster belt, and Benj picked a sling shot. (Yes, Grandpa Doug, he looks even more like Dennis the Menace with a sling shot in his hand.) Are we crazy, you ask? A sling shot for a four-yr-old? Yup, we are. We figured he didn't need to know what it was actually for. We stepped out of the store and he bent over to pick up the first stone he found. Luckily, he was not coordinated enough to get it all to work.

4:30 - Benjamin asleep.

8:00PM - we decide to pull through for some quick dinner. Agree on Arby's. Get to drive thru. Wait and wait. Finally daddy notices a sign that they closed at 7:00 for the holiday. Uh. Oh. Thankfully (or regretfully as some might look at it) McDonald's is open. Dinner is served.

9:30PM - We decide we will not make our intended stop in time for fireworks. Enter the beauty of the smartphone! We look up fireworks in Sioux Falls. They are at the fairgrounds. We touch the address and GPS comes up and gets us right there. Beautiful. We park on the side of the street next to the fairgrounds to watch the show.

**Side note - why did we not stay at Mt. Rushmore for the fireworks? Good question. That was the original intention of going up there this particular weekend. Luckily, in researching the trip I came across an article from Sept. '10 that said there would be no fireworks this year. (I cannot tell you how happy I am that I found that out before we got there to watch fireworks!!) Turns out some beetle has infected most of the pine trees in the Black Hills and they are dying out. They are afraid fireworks would cause a major forest fire. Christopher asked one of the park rangers and they have no guess as to when a 4th of July celebration might return to the area. So I spent the next two weeks trying to find some place along the route home that would offer some fun. Turns out it didn't matter because we arrived 4 hours later than we had planned and missed all the festivities - except for the most important part.

10:30PM - Fireworks turned out to be quite a nice show. We could also see a few competing shows in the distance.

10:50PM - Oldest and youngest asleep in the car.

11:45PM - arrive at hotel in Vermillion, SD. What a long day!