Busy Monday, August 11 - Late Edition

Today's Yesterday's 'To-Do' List

•  Holiday World with the Family

Menu

After getting back from vacation and our refrigerator breaking down twice -- Yes twice... I kind of went overboard with shopping so this week other than little things like a loaf of bread, milk and things like that I will be trying to eat out of the house. You'll notice a lot of things from a few weeks ago because due to when the kids and I left for our trip, the fridge going out, etc. there was a lot of eating out. 

• Monday - Eat Out
• Pulled Pork
• Banquet Chicken, Potatoes & Biscuits
• Hamburger Helper
• Tacos
• Chicken, rice, stir fry veggies
• ??? - I'm sure I have more meals waiting around here that I can search out. 

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Today: Write this blog
• Today: Make menu
• Today: go in for B12 shot - This was due last week but I wasn't back in town yet. I started to think... hey maybe I don't need these any more (because they are costing me $80 every month after insurance) and this it's just been a downhill journey from there and I've been so tired and really useless so the house is in shambles. 
• Today: Fill out school forms
• Today: Make sure backpacks are ready (mostly Katherine's we still don't have a supply list for Brielle since High School is different) 
• Today: Find sunglasses & a picture for Katherine for the first day!! Putting this even on my calendar so I don't forget tonight!
• Today: Have kids pick out and lay out clothes for tomorrow. 
• Go to the gym at least twice. - This is a goal I'd really like to reach but it may be hard this week. I should be able to go at least once though since school starts tomorrow.  
•  Clean up around the house 
• Take van back down to the shop (yes it needs to go back in again the alternator is making sounds and has been for awhile so before it becomes a larger issue and locks up my engine which my dad was worried about I'm going to take the van back down Friday for more work at this new mechanic)

Last Week

Oh goodness I'm like 2 weeks... 3 weeks behind? I forget how behind I am! I've had a lot going on so much I'm going to have to pull up my calendar for this! I'm going to try and make it short because I need to be getting off to work. 


First off I made this little picture hanger. I took one of the free cabinet doors I got and painted it and put one of those wall stickers on it and then polyurethaned over that. I found the 6 picture hangers down at Goodwill for .50 a piece and I drilled holes into them to put the hooks. I have this hanging on my wall now all but one picture because while on vacation one of my hooks went missing and they are hard to replace. My phone is only at 15% charge otherwise I would have taken a picture of it on the wall with the kids pictures in it. 

A couple weeks ago we started our trek to South Dakota to see my grandpa but also because my other cousin was getting married.  After much debate I decided that 16 hours of driving was just too much for me and that I'm not as young as I used to be aka I don't travel as well so we stayed in the halfway point of St. Joseph, MO. Knowing we'd be there a little earlier in the day than when I was read to completely stop I decided to look into the area and find out what was available and found some very neat stuff out though sadly we did not have the time to do everything we did get to go to one museum and now we know about St. Joseph so if we stay there again and have time on our hands we know what is there! What did I find? Well there is a Pony Express Museum, Jesse James's home is there and the Patee Museum. We elected to go to the Patee Museum which was once a very nice hotel and during the civil war was turned into the operations base for the Pony Express. It was later a girls school, a factory and a couple other things! Lots of history in the huge building!
I took a lot of pictures so I'll just post a few. 

 I had nearly 200 pictures I took here! There were all sorts of rooms, there were wagons, cars, even a train! inside here! There were all these little 'shops' made to look like an older shop and you could go inside and see actual items and how these shops would have looked back from back then.
In each shop they had something that was out of place... out of time and you could pay a quarter (or was it 50 cents? it was cheap) and get a little sheet of paper and play along noting each thing. It sounds silly and I wasn't going to pay for it at first but the kids really did have a blast and it made them really explore the whole building but we had nearly 2 hours there and we were still rushed and unable to read everything! There was so much information about different things it was amazing!

 This is a stop I would recommend! I didn't think it would take the whole time and had hoped to go to the home of Jesse James but there just wasn't enough time to do that.

It just amazes me how huge that building really was and the truth is when you go up the spiral staircase you can see a few levels where they have not refinished and it has truly fallen apart but it is still a gorgeous building.

 So if you find yourself going through Missouri this is perhaps one of the towns you might want to stop by. It's right along I-29. Now to get over to these historical places it's a little odd so I do suggest getting directions in order or having your GPS setup.








If you are interested here is their website.

http://www.ponyexpressjessejames.com/patee/index.php

Right next door we saw this building and were sad it was closed but thought it would have been so cool had it been opened! 

We stayed at a Day's Inn there at St. Joseph and it had an outdoor pool. It's not a 5 star hotel but no one really minded that. The pool was the big thing. I could have gotten a room a little cheaper somewhere else but I wanted to make sure the kids could have fun. The staff was very friendly too so on our way back we stayed there again. 

We made it to South Dakota and to my grandpa's house with no problems. We spent some time trying to help him around the house and I even got Brielle on the riding lawnmower and she mowed part of his yard. It was very dry in South Dakota it really puts into perspective the drought they are having. 

We took a trip to Wyle Park which you've heard me talk about before. If you are ever near Aberdeen, SD this is another stop you just must take! It is a wonderful park they've put together which is completely free to get into. They do have a few rides and they are very cheap really to get on to compared to some places. Storybook Land is the kids favorite place to go and especially for younger children this is just great place to stop! 

 In the park area they also have other activities that you can pay to do. There is putt-putt which we did and of course Katherine won! Poor Brielle came in last place.

The also have a Euro Jump which the kids did and they have go-carts! The kids did the go-carts again this year but unlike other years Katherine was tall enough to drive her own go-cart for the first time!! She was so excited and had a wonderful time! We all had fun though!

Later in the week we went to the park and we rented bicycles and rode around the park for an hour and through the zoo they had and we stopped and watched the buffalo and then we stopped another time for the girls to go watch the prairie dogs.




Other things we did out there is we went clothing shopping. I needed a new swimsuit because I noticed mine had thinned in the rear and I didn't think that was quite right and also I really have been needing a new one anyways since losing weight. While there Katherine! actually found clothes she liked! She hates shopping and always just shrugs her shoulders at everything but this time she really got into it. Brielle had gotten a lot of clothes with her grandma while she was in Oregon but Katherine didn't want anything this time Katherine did. Oh the other reason for the shopping trip the girls decided when we got to my grandpa's house that it was time to inform me that their shoes were too small for them. So the kids got new shoes and new clothes for the school year for a scary price tag but it needed to be done and Katherine was just so excited to be picking out clothes it's the first time I've ever seen her like that so it was hard to stop her. We did shop the discount racks though so we got a lot of clothing.
After clothing shopping I decided it was time for lunch so I took the kids to Pizza Ranch. On our way to Pizza Ranch my temperature gauge goes on!! I call up my parents who were also at my grandpa's house for the wedding and they rushed to town for me. Apparently my radiator decided it was tired of living and it died! The nice folks at Pizza Ranch let me use a phone book to call around and I found a shop to bring the car into and then the folks there at the restaurant let me borrow a bucket and filled it with water so I could get some liquid in the radiator before driving it down to the shop. My parents followed me over and even though the cost was scary we had the radiator replaced because I wasn't left with many choices. My folks and I went to the park to let the kids play. It only took the shop 1 hour because they put two guys on it knowing that I was from out of town and that I had to get back on the road! I was highly impressed!! They found, got brought over the radiator and put 2 guys on it?! You just don't find places like that very often!


This was our last day out there in South Dakota before the wedding and I promised that we would go out to the lake that day so after I got my van back  we went back out to the park and rented a paddle boat. The lake was kind of icky (a lot more icky than I remember from my childhood)  but the kids had so much fun paddling the boat and we'd very carefully change places in it so we all took turns with two people peddling and one person sitting in the back. We went all over the lake for about half an hour and that really was enough time I think.

After the paddle boats I thought it'd be a good chance to go get some Ice Cream... never mind that we hadn't even had dinner yet!


It was a lovely wedding and then the kids played and we stayed at a room there where the wedding was held and then were planning to leave in the morning. I wanted to stick around long enough to have breakfast with my parents since the only time I see them is these rare occasions where there is either a funeral or a wedding in South Dakota. Well turns out one of the guys that farms some of my grandpa's land locked his keys in his car and then there was a fiasco so I did eventually get to have 'lunch' with my parents and then the kids and I left back on the road and stopped again in St. Joseph.
Here are some pictures I took at a rest stop in South Dakota though.

I probably looked pretty silly out there with my camera snapping pictures.

Okay I have to post this one! There are so many people that ney say Ethanol. I'm so glad to have a flex fuel van when I'm in areas with Ethanol!

Us stopped at a rest stop for lunch on the last day of the trip. We tried to take it slow and easy and not kill ourselves.

Katherine went off to Pokemon league this last Saturday for her very first Pre-Release event! She was so excited and Peter told me a very helpful gentleman helped her build a deck it was her first experience building and playing a deck instead of playing a pre-built deck.

Saturday night we went to a free event. It's normally Orchestra on the Lawn but there was a call for rain so they moved it inside of the college. It was 3 (or was it 4?) musical groups. They had even an operatic singer and a piano soloist. We packed sandwiches and chips and enjoyed our night listening to music.

I took Brielle to Jo-Ann's with me Saturday and we picked up some stuff to decorate her locker and then I got a white t-shirt and some fabric markers because Katherine has really been wanting to color on some clothes. Saturday Katherine started right into drawing and coloring her clothes. We printed out pictures and she traced over them and is making her shirt just how she wants.

That night we sat down as a family with japanese sodas and pizza ... and salad I was mean and made them have salad. We watched classic anime movies and enjoyed our family time. 

Monday we spent the day at Holiday World which is why I did not post that day. The weather report changed on us so we left about an hour late we were debating if we wanted to chance rain or not but Peter had already taken off of work and so had I and we wouldn't have another really good chance to go do it. We went off to the park and other than getting caught in a very large rain storm and being down hill so everyone's shoes got flooded we had a good time. The storm only messed up an hour or two really the rest of the time we got to go on rides and we got to do a lot of the water rides in the water park area because so many people had been scared off. Normally we never attempt these rides because of the lines because we aren't going to wait an hour and a half for a ride but other than one ride really (which was due to them not having enough floats and having malfunctions that popped floats) we didn't long lines at all. I'd have to say one of the biggest things was that we got to go on the rides together as a family! So many rides have a total weight limit of 600 lbs and had Peter and I not been dieting this year we wouldn't have made it! Peter and I high fived each other several times that day as the scales let us ride as a family!

Well there is a brief overview of the last couple weeks. Last week was just busy during the week due to all the different school events. There was STEM club for 4-H also but they held it at 1:30 in the afternoon so kind of impossible since I was at work.

Kids go back to school tomorrow! I'm hoping for the best school year ever!