Wish you were here

Well, we are over halfway through our big trip and Mom is realizing there is a lot to catch everyone up on...so here goes with lots of pictures and a few stories. We flew up to South Dakota and spent about 10 days visiting Grandma and Grandpa. It was such a fun trip. Mom and Dad spent a few days relaxing and then got to work looking at houses and jobs and all that good stuff. The best part of that was that we got lots of time with Grandma, who was more than happy to watch me and Harrison. Grandma found us pretty entertaining -- Harrison is on the go all the time now and you really have to watch him because he doesn't seem to have any fear or sense of danger and he loves electronics! I played all sorts of games with Grandma & Grandpa -- tea parties, cars, horsey, and (the one mom and dad found funniest:) Target! Apparently I would help Grandma make a shopping list (typically consisting of milk, grapes, cheese, chicken nuggets and toys/presents) and then we'd pretend to push a shopping cart around and buy all these items. Everyone thought I was pretty cute...

One highlight of my trip to South Dakota was when they took me fishing! When Grandma picked us up from the airport, we stopped on the way home and she told me to pick out my very own fishing pole. I, of course, picked out the princess one -- it is pink and purple and it came with stickers! When we got home, Grandpa gave me some lessons on the porch on how to cast my line and reel in the fish. Then we practiced fishing in the bird bath -- which led to us kids discovering the bird bath and wanting to play with it! Harrison tried it out as a wading pool and I got a spoon and started pretending like it was my big kettle of soup and I told everyone I was cooking! Everyone was very interested to see how I would react when there was an actual fish on the end of the hook... Turns out, I love to fish! And I'm pretty good at it too! My first time out and I was able to reel in the fish all by myself! And I didn't scream or squeal when the fish came out of the water either -- I was pretty proud and I even touched it! (but there was absolutely no chance that I was going to touch a worm!) We had a perfect afternoon fishing. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Aunt Christie came to town to visit us one night and she brought me an early birthday present. It's a very cute purse which happens to look like a puppy! She was trying to find one that looked like Bo, and this one was the closest she could get. So we took a picture of the two of us with our respective dogs. This is my favorite purse right now. I even took it with me to church that Sunday!

We enjoyed the great fall weather while we were up there and spent a lot of time at the park down the street from Grandma and Grandpa. I'm even starting to get the hang of the sliding bar!

Grandma's birthday is coming up at the end of the month, so we had a little early celebration while we were in town. All week I had been talking about chocolate cake (that was another make believe game I played -- Allison's birthday -- where we had to pretend to shop for presents and eat cake with Allison - can you tell I'm missing my best friend???). Anyhow, so I helped Mommy make a cake for Grandma. I picked out the flavors myself - chocolate cake and pink icing with sprinkles! I was very proud of my work and was kind enough to take a few licks of icing off the cake to make sure it turned out okay!

We were so sad to leave Grandma and Grandpa's house but excited to come see Pops and Gams next. We got here on Friday and had a great time on Saturday at my cousin Abbey's baptism. Isn't she beautiful????
Amy and Scott had everyone to their house afterwards to eat and watch ND football (let's just not talk about that part of the day, though!). Harrison and I loved playing with Abbey and with Bobby (who we somehow didn't get a picture of...probably because he and I were so fast running all over the place!).

Now Mommy and Daddy are busy again looking at houses and jobs. They came on this trip hoping to figure it all out and I think they're getting more torn and confused in the process! The good news is that there are lots of options for them wherever they end up. So we'll leave you with this final quote: "My future's so bright, I gotta wear shades..."