Fall Visit to South Dakota

The kids had their fall conferences at school in mid-October so we started our long weekend with some time at the Scholastic Book Fair following our teacher meetings.  This event is always such a treat - Lucy and Roman love selecting a new book or poster!

We left Eau Claire with our new books and headed to South Dakota. We arrived just in time for supper and some dress up - here are the children showing us their 'Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce' style. ;)

We woke up to a delicious breakfast on Friday morning - thanks, Mom!

We had a quiet morning of puzzling! This was a cool insect one that we got at the consignment sale. 

We took a field trip to Sioux Falls and visited the Lego re-sale store. 

These guys loved digging through the bins.

Next stop was Scheel's! 

Leo adores this ferris wheel.

We had some lunch followed by an ice cream dessert.  

Thanks for a fun afternoon, Grammy and Grandpa!

We went back to the ranch, met up with Baltic cousins, and finished our puzzle. Love this one!

These little guys are obsessed with bugs. 

Esther is the queen of puzzling! 

The weather outside was rotten so only a handful of us went to Paul's football game. These two opted to stay back and play.

Yikes - can you see all of that cold rain in the background? Jules and I got to hang out - the big girls were hiding out in the warm bathroom. Haha! 

Hot drinks for the win!

Nothing better than Friday night lights!

Here is the cheering section! Grandpa, Austin, and Mallory were at the game too but the official cousin count was definitely limited by the crappy weather.

Grandma sent me this picture of Leo and Elijah getting tucked in for their sleepover. 

The next morning we were up and at 'em - 9 kids at the Garrison Fall Festival.

Here's a pic with Grandpa and Grammy in the mix.

We checked out the pumpkins and crafts.

We tried some homemade flavored marshmallows - they actually got a resounding thumbs down from the kids.

The big kids did give a big thumbs up to their boba tea.

We grabbed a quick lunch ...

...And headed to the pumpkin patch.

Gotta love a good wagon ride on a crisp fall day.

Guess what - they had puppies!

We bounced around and had fun. 

We snuggled with these precious Bernese Mountain Dogs.

For an extra fee, you could buy a ride in this Cinderella pumpkin and get pulled around the property. 

You better believe that we teased Dan about bringing one or two of these critters home to Wisconsin! ;)

We picked out a few pumpkins...

And climbed some hay bales. It was a wonderful day.

We drove to Austin and Mallory's house for dinner + a very special birthday celebration for our favorite new 8 year old! Happy Birthday, Esther! This girl has the best facial expressions! 

The big girls had a slumber party at Grandma's house so they worked on some new artwork for their LAA room. 

They turned out so cute! 

We returned to Wisconsin on Sunday but the kids had another stay at home day on Monday. We ran a bunch of errands including an oil change. Roman always jokes about hosting one of his upcoming birthday parties at the Kia Kid's Club Lounge at the dealership. 

The Kia shop is just down the street from Tropic Waters so we went to say hello to the pets. 

Roman loved seeing all of the reptiles. He brought home some new 'smells' for Prince. :)

Yay for a long conference weekend! 

October Posts - Austin Edition

In October I took a work trip to Austin, Texas. I have been to the city before but it was many years ago when I was looking at graduate schools and considering UT-Austin. It was a beautiful day to touch down in the Texas Capital. 

I loved all of the street art! 

I had an open Sunday afternoon so I explored the Capitol area a bit - had to take a photo of this garbage can that really captures the essence of Texas. ;)

I stopped by a museum at the Capitol - always interesting to learn about the settlement stories of these spaces. 

I snapped a picture of an Austin Firetruck for Leo. 

I was waiting for my friend/co-worker to arrive and she kept having flight delays out of Chicago so you better believe that I popped into every free museum within walking distance! Haha! I visited O. Henry's house.

It was actually very cute and comfortable inside! 

Did you know that he spent time in prison for embezzlement? He had quite the interesting life story. 

Next up - the Susanna Dickinson-Hanning home. This gal and her baby daughter survived the Alamo and she was sent by the Mexican Army/Santa Anna to tell the tale of the siege to Sam Houston. 

I saw this t-shirt everywhere, I seriously thought about buying one for my brother Austin. ;)

Back in Wisconsin Lucy celebrated the end of Fall softball season with a big ol' pizza party. 

Sadly Jessica was trapped in Chicago so I went to dinner solo - no worries, I got myself a drink and brought my Pamela Anderson autobiography out to keep me company. ;)

The food was so good! Barbecue and TexMex for days. 

I have like zero pictures of the actual conference but we did get some fun new headshots. I had to laugh because we were headed to watch the Pack play on Monday night football so Jess was sporting her Packers gear. You can take the girls out of Wisconsin but you can't take Wisconsin out of the girls! Hah!

What a fun trip! Thanks again to Dan, Nola and Ken for holding down the fort during my absence.