Ragbrai

Ragbrai came through our town this a.m. And can I just say Wow!! Our town normally has about 1400 people in it and today it had thousands more all on bicycles!! Wow! Very nice friendly people. One gentleman saw Emily and told her she should be riding. Next year he said. He had a nephew that was her age from Texas that she could hook up with!!

Al and his dad pulled tractors up town and strung a huge cable between them for a bike rack for the ragbraiers. I don't believe I've ever seen so many bicycles and people in one place at one time before.

This is the view the bikers had coming in to town....

This is hard to see but it was a "bike accident" kind of like the witches that "fly" into houses and trees at Halloween....

Just a cool bike and some relaxin...

Fun tatoo.. Don't know if he realized that I took his pic, but oh well,

It was hard to capture the largeness of it all, the wow!! but I tried. The last time Ragbrai was in our town was 10 years ago and I don't remember it being like this so I must have been there at the end of it all instead of the beginning.

The kids were amazed, walking around with their mouths hanging open. About got run over several times...

A day in the life of little ol me.

Mowing

So, you know that feeling of having to do something all the time? Like, if I sit too long at home I start to look around and see laundry, dishes, dust, etc....That's why I love vacation so much. I can relax without worrying about everything I'm not doing...Anyway, I decided today, that I'd do something outside and it might not feel so much like work and besides, the lawn needed mowing anyway and Max needed walking. So Emily and Carter walked Max for a 1/2 an hour while I mowed the lawn. He's afraid of the mower and I needed his cable out of the way so I could mow. Casey played on the porch with our neighbor girl.

Back to my story...As I went around the back of the house I noticed  a hummingbird moth on my flox. I thought "Cool, I should try and take a picture." Since he didn't seem to be bothered by the mower I went around to the front of the house and grabbed my camera while helping Casey get into his swim trunks. Lo and behold, he was still there when I mowed around the back again. So I stopped to take some pictures. He stayed so long I was able to play with  ISO settings and WB settings. Fun!! I like this first pic where his wings look like ghosts they are moving so fast and I like the others where I caught the wings at a stand still and you can see the colors. Check out his long tongue too!!! I took close to 100 pics of one little moth!! And it was in town by my own house! Cool!

The last picture is Casey and our neighbor girl waiting patiently for me to be done and help them get into the pool in our yard.

Ahh Summer!!

Boy Scout Intermission

Saturday, we went to a Boy Scout day camp about a 1/2 hour away. Siblings were invited so all of us went along. We got to ride pedal go carts, shoot bb guns, do crafts, play kickball, try our hands at bows and arrows and swim!! It was a very busy fun day!! The staff there was exceptional! We will definitely go again!! Carter's fav was archery, Ems was bb guns and Casey I think just liked it all!!!

One of the boys in Carter's scout troop has a sister just a little older than Casey and they both go to the same day care and have lots of fun playing together. Their family was at the day camp with us. While the big kids played kick ball I sat with Casey and his friend while they played at the little park there. The favorite thing was collecting rocks!
It was a beautiful day and a good time was had by all. Hope your Saturday was as nice as ours was.

Prairie Dogs...

After the corn palace, we made it to the edge of the Badlands and The Ranch Store. The Ranch Store has been there since I was a little girl. It is a fun memory of feeding the prairie dogs for me, so we stopped. Al tried to rest a little and Emily, Carter, and Casey and I tried to feed and of course I was taking pics!!!

Emily got pretty close, but there were some other kids that were quite excited that kept frustrating her so she didn't actually get a prairie dog to take the treat from her, but she got darn close.

What does this make you think of?? I kept expecting a prairie dog to pop out and bite their noses or something...

Al perked up at the end and took a stroll around with us.

Lastly, a picture by the giant prairie dog!!! I don't know how many times I did this and the prairie dog looks the same to me, but my parents said it has been painted.

V - A- C- A - T - I - O - N!!!!

We left on July 1st and drove all the way to Mitchell, South Dakota. Of course, we slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot! Kind of a tradition now. We got up and headed to the Corn Palace. We actually went inside this time because Carter wanted to and we had never done that with the kids before. Kind of fun and we bought some Brain Quest trivia for the rides in the car.

These hats were hilarious!

I loved the Boy Scouts of America panel! Me and my boy scout!!!

Al took this cool picture at a rest area in Chamberlain, SD. I love the reflection and that you can see the teepee inside too that was part of a mini museum of sorts.

Here's my artisitic vision of the teepee thingy!!



On the road again.....More vacation to follow!! We're only getting going!!

Saturday, July 10, 2010

This is what I was doing Saturday, July 10, 2010...What were you doing?

Last Library Program and other news...

Our small town library had their final summer library program this last Tuesday evening, a Wet and Wild Party!! There were several stations all with water themes, like a "soggy jog", a slip n' slide, a sprinkler, popsicles, and the big fun thing was the firemen's water ball game. You just got soaked!! It was so fun to watch! The rainbow was amazing!! One of Al's coworkers is actually a fireman and was helping the kids have fun and win the contest!!

I even joined in the fun clothes or not!!! It would have been fun to be in charge of the hose, but the kids were having too much fun and the evening was almost over.

On on side note, we were here having fun in the water when we should have been home packing! We leave today for Yellowstone!!! We will be gone for 12 days! Woo Hoo! I of course will have my computer and camera, but may not have time to post. We'll see...

Happy 4th of July!!! And happy summer vacation to us!!!*smile*