South Dakota

We managed to fit a lot of things into the past week. We sadly said goodbye to Denver and headed up to Rapid City, South Dakota. This was probably my favorite hotel stop of the trip. They had a GIGANTIC indoor waterpark. Despite my initial reaction evidenced in the photo below, I actually managed to have a fantastic time. Dad and I had a great time riding around on the lazy river and Mom was brave enough to take me down the waterslides after Dad tested them out for us. One of them had a huge funnel that we circled around several times before finally getting sucked down the hole (backwards) for the remainder of the ride. This will definitely be a really fun place to go back to in a few years!

We packed up and headed the rest of the way to Grandma and Grandpa's house. I was so excited to see them! We had such a fun visit with them. We got to go to a wedding and visit all the relatives and we even played Christmas! Uncle Ryan came to visit too and I had a fun time playing with him. My favorite game was deciding in the morning that he had slept long enough, so I'd take my flashlight into the basement to go "wake up the bear in the cave!" I'm not sure it was Ryan's favorite game, but he was a pretty good sport about it. They had snow on the ground up there and Grandpa and Grandma had bought me a new sled (I called it a boat). Ryan, Grandma and Daddy all took turns pulling me around in it. We gave Harrison a ride too, but as you can see he didn't see the fun in the whole thing...

To top off all the spoiling, Grandma even baked me a chocolate cake for breakfast on our last morning at her house! They even put candles in it for me to blow out. Boy, I'm really going to miss them!

We drove over to Sioux Falls to see Aunt Christie and she had a fun surprise planned for us. She took us to the Butterfly House (this was especially nice because it was 74 degrees inside!). I loved watching all the butterflies and pointing them all out to everyone.

We're supposed to be heading home tomorrow, but it sounds like Oklahoma is getting hit with a pretty bad ice storm and there's no power and some bad roads back there. So we may try to get about halfway home and then make it the rest of the way on Tuesday when it warms up a bit. I'm really looking forward to getting back to "Reagan's house." I keep talking about all my toys, my friends, my school and my room. Mom & Dad seem ready to get back home too. We'll let you know when we get there!