vacation 2013, part SD...

OK, we actually headed to MN first, but I only have one photo from the Monday evening and Tuesday when Steve was at the farm with us before he headed back home to work the rest of the week.  It was a lot of exploring the farm and the fields and seeing what was new on the farm, including these new big rocks which were great for climbing!  We will come back for more at the farm next, but head for SD on this post (at least there is photographic proof here that Steve was at the farm).

On Wednesday, the kids and I headed to Brookings to visit our dear friends Merlin and Avis, and Missy (honorary uncle and aunts for the kids!).

 We had just a couple hours with Uncle Merlin (in the back with their grandson Dylan) before he left for work.  This is one of the kids' favorite spots by their house, the tunnel under the road along the sidewalk to the park!  If only you could hear them hooting and hollering and whistling in this photo...

A photo by their tunnel...

After a yummy supper, we spent a beautiful evening outside in thier backyard.  Henry loved Auntie Missy pushing him in the swing.  (I think she liked it too! =)

Avis invited a number of friends from church over to visit with us.  It was so good to see them!  Their church was such a family for us the 4 years we lived in Brookings that we still keep up with a lot of them.

Bedtime stories with Auntie Avis!

The next day, Avis took off from work and we took the kids to the Children's Museum!  Brookings has a fabulous children's museum that has great outdoor exhibits as well as indoor.

We started outside with the life-size Momma and Baby T-Rex.  (this is the baby).  They both are animated and have sound effects too.  Very cool!

Their favorite outdoor exhibit by far was the fishing pond.  They have realistic looking fish with magnets that a staff member throws in the pond and then the kids try to catch them with magnetic fishing poles and nets.

"Look!  I caught one!"

All the outdoor exhibits have gorgeous landscaping around them with a lot of native prairie grasses and flowers.

One of the fun indoor exhibits was the TV station where they can pretend to be on TV and can see on the monitor the different images on the green screen.  Carsten was shocked here at the rainbows and castles that Grace picked.

We thought it was funny too that when Henry got in there, the images showed up on his belly because he was wearing green! =)

The cloud climbing maze is always great fun, and this year they were fearless climbing effortlessly up to the very top

All except Henry - this was as far as he got.

He preferred to stay on the ground with the building toys.

He did walk up the stair with Auntie Avis for a picture though!

After the museum we drove the kids by the small married student housing apartment that Steve and I lived in while we were at Brookings - 1618D (they painted since we were there, a good improvement!).

Auntie Avis said that if we would like to take a walk before we had to leave (in the opposite direction of the tunnel), there was an awesome climbing tree.  *cue all the kids' eyes lighting up!

They had so much fun climbing!

All too soon we had to pack up and get ready to go.  But we did squeeze in a quick FaceTime with Aunti Tamera (our other honorary auntie!) in New York before we left!

Thanks for the great stay Avis!  We are so blessed to keep up these great friendships and share them with our kids too.  Love you all and we will be back soon!  (And come visit us too! =)