Storybook Land....Take 2

Pretty soon this is going to turn into a blog about Storybook Land, we have been going so often this summer! Our friends the Gants invited us to join them when they went for the weekend and we made an overnight adventure out of it complete with a stay at a hotel with a swimming pool. The only downside is that we picked quite possibly the HOTTEST day of the summer to walk around Storybook Land....ugh, just looking back at the pictures makes us feel how hot we were!

Kennedy (above) and Madison (below)

Harrison and Mallory took the train ride while the rest of us headed to the cars for
much needed A/C and headed to the hotel (the dads stayed to supervise)

The best part of the day though was that I gave the climbing wall another go and I MADE IT TO THE TOP! Hooray!

Storybook Land Festival

Sometimes Mommy has some pretty crazy ideas....take for example her logic that it would be far easier to load up all four of us kiddos and drive us to Aberdeen to enjoy the festival at Storybook Land than it would be to just spend a Saturday at home while Daddy is away for the weekend....

Luckily, we were all really good kids and we ended up having a great time!

We watched a play, got my face painted, rode the train and I finally got to try the climbing wall!



I got about halfway up which Mom says was really good for my first try....sure takes a lot of muscle power to do it!

The Palumbos Summer Trip to SD

Amy and I talked this trip about how we used to take so many pictures during one of her visits out here and how few we took this time around....seems we have our hands a little more full and we're visiting a few places we have been before, not to mention neither of us has much time to write anything on our blogs about our adventures anyway! :) But even without a ton of pictures to prove it, we have a wonderful time with Scott, Amy, Abbey and Casey. They got a fairly good taste of how crazy our household is these days, but I think they enjoyed themselves despite all that!
We made a trip up to Storybook Land in Aberdeen and did the typical run through (only this time Reagan and Abbey literally ran through the whole place, hitting their favorite spots and barely giving the rest of us a chance to catch up, let alone take a picture!). They did sit still for a second on the carousel, so here's a few pictures of that (notice that Harrison finds he is way too cool for riding on a carousel horse, so he chose the bench instead!)
And, the much anticipated train ride around the park....

At the end of the week, we loaded everyone (and everything) up and headed west to the Black Hills. We took the long, scenic route (which was worthwhile and gorgeous but added a few more hours of "are we there yet?" and restless babies....Amy gets children's entertainer of the year award for playing a solid 45 minute game of Peek a Boo to entertain Casey and the twins!). But the long, scenic route took us through the Badlands, which really are amazing to see....

We rented a cabin out in Deadwood which was surrounded by woods, which led to very frequent sightings of deer, much to the amazement of the kiddos
And we headed out for the typical tourist spot....Mt. Rushmore. Unfortunately, it was the hottest day we have had all summer long, but we cooled off with some ice cream and then headed on our way.
The big kids had a chance to search for gold and then we went on a half of a tour of a cave (only half because Kennedy threw such a fit that we were asked to leave!!!! Oops!).



We enjoyed the rest of our stay at the cabin and the Palumbos flew out the next day. It was a whirlwind of a vacation but we had a blast. And, now, we are counting down the days until we invade Washington, DC in August!

Reagan Lost her First Tooth!

Okay, so it looks like Daddy did some serious dental work here, but in all reality the tooth was so loose and he just used the pliers to help get it out....but it made for a fun picture! Mom and Dad bought me a special pillow to keep my tooth in for the tooth fairy and she came that night and brought me 3 gold dollar coins! (there were 2 coins in the pillow and I found one that might have fallen out of her sack or was a bonus for this being my first tooth, we're not sure which it was!)

Happy Birthday America!

Well, we hosted our (turns out we do this year every year) annual 4th of July BBQ. Never really occurred to us that we'd started a tradition but every year we seem to have small children and it just seems easier to have some friends and family come over to eat good food, put the babies to bed and shoot off some fireworks! And, as it has been every year, it was a fantastic time. Our good friends, the Gants, joined us for the afternoon as well and we turned out side yard into a little water park and were able to sit back and enjoy each other's company while our 7 combined children ran and played and had as much fun as we did. What a fantastic day!
And a fun night of watching and shooting fireworks
....and, speaking of fireworks, look at this little bit of young love blossoming between Harrison and Mallory. Adorable!



Happy 4th of July!