Update since Monday, June 25...

Since I haven’t written since we first arrived back in RC, I’ll be filling in some gaps from then until now. (just the highlights, or the things I’m remembering now, a week (almost two) later; there’ll be many details I’ve forgotten, I’m sure) Oh, and the last time I wrote, was June 18, the day we arrived in RC. I kinda forgot to mention in that post, but on that special day, June 18th, John and I celebrated our 13th anniversary! xxx ooo We still really like each other...

My mom needed some clothes to wear to the Kilber family reunion, so she invited me along last Tuesday night. We had a great time, she chose some really cute, flattering things and then we went for a quick dinner at Red Lobster. It was pretty cool having my mom all to myself!

Stone, Sage and I did some crawdad fishing and turtle searching down at the little pond near our house. Saylor spent the day with Robert at Janice’s house (Robert’s Gma) which he always loves to do. Janice is one of those story book Grandma’s, whipping out the homemade play dough and all! John was busy all week doing his UA test and getting his haz-mat endorsement on his CDL, but we still had lots of time together. He brought a picnic down to the pond for us and we all sat under the shade of a big tree and ate lunch together.

We got together with some friends to celebrate the Summer Solstice on Thursday. We went up into the hills to a little roadside park that has a wide, shallow stream running through it. We picnicked and (of course) got very, very wet looking for minnows, crawdads and tad-poles. Boys…they never tire of it!

We headed to Pierre on Friday for the Kilber Family Reunion which was to be held Saturday. It was nice to see and catch up with some family members, and meet plenty of new ones. Stone thought it was pretty awesome that he was related to *every single person* in the room! The boys each bid on an item at the silent auction, and were highest bidders, so went home with something special to mark the occasion.

We left Pierre Sunday, traveling to Kennebec, SD to park at a friends farm for a couple of days. John set up the big Bonzai waterslide in some shade, and the boys spent lots of time on it. Mom and Dad even went down it a time or two. The boys did a bit of wood chopping and air-soft gun shooting, too. John M. (our friend) pulled out a little BB gun pistol thing and helped the kids shoot it.

On Tuesday, John got a call from someone wanting to rent some dirt bikes, so Wednesday morning, he dropped us off in Murdo to hang out with some friends and family there for the day, while he made a quick trip back to RC to get the bikes in order. While we were in Murdo, we got to see Wyatt and Chase again! Yay! Saylor caught a little tiny ‘pocket gopher’ while we were playing at the park. We all got to investigate it from a close up point of view, it’s tiny little teeth, and little hands. He was so cute, and so freaked out, so we put him back under the merry-go-round where he came from. I drove the boys past where John and I were married, past the high-school, the grade-school, the Drive-In (ice cream joint), and swimming pool where I used to work. We were even lucky enough to catch Wyatt’s baseball game Wed. evening.

We spent Wednesday night with Judy and Roy and their boys. They hadn’t seen John in a looong time, so they all enjoyed catching up with each other Thursday morning over a delicious, home-grown, free-range, succulent steak breakfast. Judy really felt the need to fatten John up; she thinks he looks quite skinny.

We headed out of Murdo Thursday morning for Sioux Falls to spent a day with Diana and Hayden. The boys set up a lemon-ade stand yesterday, and have been having fun hanging out with each other (well, mostly having fun, anyway) I got to see a good friend from SF briefly yesterday who I hadn’t seen since we moved from here, so that was wonderful!

And that brings us to Today. We will have our cup of coffee, something for breakfast, prepare the bus for take-off, and head to Minnesota. Shirley (john’s mom) flies in to Minneapolis tomorrow morning for 8 days, and we are all so excited to see her. It’s been great making our way slowly across the state, visiting people along the way, and always going to sleep in our own bed at the end of the day. Pretty cool to have your home parked just outside at the curb!