Faith's Monumental Visit to South Dakota

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When I received my niece, Sydnee's graduation announcement in the mail, I thought it might be the perfect opportunity to visit my brother and his family for the first time at their home in Spearfish. I also thought it would be the perfect opportunity to see Mount Rushmore, which I had never seen before!  My nephew in Nebraska was graduating that same weekend, and my sister Dawn and I tried to put together a plan where we could go to both of their graduation receptions. I knew though, that Faith would feel left out and would want to go, too. I also knew it was going to be difficult to find someone to look after Faith over Memorial Day weekend.  Our finalized plan involved Dawn traveling to South Dakota with me and Faith and then her flying to Nebraska by herself. Faith and I would then drive back to Bismarck by ourselves.  3 adventurous travelers  I must admit, as the trip got closer, I started to get a little anxious about how Faith was going to do with so much drivi...
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Happy Birthday Grandma!

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Since they moved to Bismarck three years ago, Faith has gotten to spend more time than ever with her grandparents and has especially enjoyed the times she gets to spend with her grandma. She loves her grandpa too, but he can be a little unpredictable with his sudden sneezes or coughs. Plus, he tends to talk a little loudly due to his slight loss of hearing from being around so many trucks and machinery throughout the years! 

Faith with one of her favorite people in the world - Grandma!

Faith really likes having Grandma over on Saturday afternoons to hang out with us. Usually, Grandma brings pizza and we have lunch (although Faith has already said this weekend when we see Grandma she wants to go to Perkins instead). After that, we hop into the van and take Grandma to the library with us, followed by a trip to Target or the grocery store. Once, Grandma even stayed with Faith for about 20 minutes while I went to get Rob at the office. 

Faith likes the comfort of being in her own place so it's a little harder getting her to go over to Grandma's. We're taking baby steps. Last weekend when Grandma was here, Faith decided we should go somewhere for pie. Grandma said she had some pumpkin pie at her house, so we drove to her place to get it. Grandpa happened to be outside tooling around in the yard when we arrived.

Grandma and Grandpa's place
Faith with Grandma and Grandpa

I rolled down the window and he had this squirt bottle of soap and water and he squirted me with it. Faith didn't know what to think about that and afterwards kept asking why Grandpa had squirted me. I tried to tell her it was just Grandpa teasing me. (See, he can be quite unpredictable!) Needless to say, Grandma grabbed the pumpkin pie and Cool Whip and we high-tailed it out of there back to safer quarters!

We're hoping this summer to have many more adventures with both of them but for now we'd just like to say:

Happy Birthday Grandma we hope your day is as special as you are to us!

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