Yes. We are in North Dakota again. My maternal grandmother and grandfather are both quite ill and I decided that I should make a trip to Dakota to pay them a visit. So, I quickly bought a couple of plane tickets and flew out the next day! Both grandparents are hanging in there, it was hard to see them both so sick and in pain, but I'm glad that we're here.
While we were visiting a certain sister-in-law, she expressed that she was getting tired of looking at Brutus. So, I stole my mom's camera (because I don't have my cord) and here I am updating the blog with all of the fun things that there are to do in North Dakota, visiting hospitals did not make the list.
My grandfather is in the hospital in Bismarck and my grandmother is in
Williston. So, we've put in a long road trip already.
My cousin who lives in
Williston, pictured on the right, (yes, I have a 6 year old cousin) happens to have some horses and she invited the kids to go meet them. They spent a lot of time feeding the horses and running around the ranch.
This is Disney (what else would a 6 year old name a horse?) As you can tell, he is quite large. Eli was a little frightened,
afterall he is afraid of his friend's greyhound, but he decided to be brave and ride the horse all by himself.
Sadie refused to get on the horse until I rode around with Eli. She finally decided it would be
ok to give it a try. Then, she didn't want to get off. By the way, I had a blast too.
When leaving
Williston we stopped in the little town of Alexander, ND. This is the area where my paternal grandmother grew up. My dad was
adamant that we stop and play in this spring as his grandparents did, as his mom did, and he did, and I did. That's five generations!
We stopped at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Look who else came and visited:
Eli spent some time meditating on the rocks.
We climbed some rocks while we were there.
Our next stop was Bismarck where I went to listen to my mother-in-law sing in the polka mass and the kids stayed and played with their favorite cousins, Emily and Ashley. (Sorry, Megan, I guess you're chopped liver.) Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of that.
Then, we headed to Napoleon to visit Eli and Sadie's other grandma and grandpa and Aunt Paula. Paula happens to have a very large hat collection so the kids tried on hats, hundreds of hats.
This past summer when we were visiting we saw a hawk's nest. We really wanted to go check it out close up, but the problem was that the mommy and daddy hawk wouldn't let us get too close because there were two babies that they were protecting. Well, when we got to the farm, the first thing Eli wanted to do was see the hawks. We saw the hawks, but they've abandoned the nest so I went up for a closer look. There wasn't much to see except for three gopher skulls!
I realize that the next couple of pictures might not be suitable for all viewers, but I'm going to post them anyways. Eli and Sadie took turns driving on the country road leading out to the farm. Sadie just laughed, Eli was kind of crazy.
I saved the best picture for last. In North Dakota, you get to visit grandmas and sometimes you get to see them both at the same time.
The kids had strict orders to only pick apples that were on the trees and that they should make sure that there weren't any black spots or holes.
Eli was very very picky about choosing the perfect apple. He even threw some of mine out because they had small brown spots!
Sadie wasn't so much into picking apples, just eating them. She ate one apple all day long. Eli kept taking one bite out of the apples and then he would tell me that he's going to "save this one for later" and then find another one to eat. We had to have a talk about being wasteful...
We ended the morning by going on a wagon ride pulled by a John Deere.
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Eli and his "best teachers in the whole wide world" Miss Molly and Miss Lucy..jpg)
This 
The artist was none other than "The Boss", 
It was totally awesome. It could have only been better if Obama would have been there himself (though American Hero, 
Sadie thought the whole thing was particularly loud. Either that or she was strongly disagreeing with what Bruce was singing about. Though she wore her Obama button with pride.
Reid Mitchell Zeman arrived on September 9 at 11:36am. He weighed 7 pounds and 5 ounces and is 20 inches long. Mommy, Daddy and baby are all doing great. They came home from the hospital today and we will be driving to Bemidji tomorrow to meet the little fellow. I was asked to be the Godmother and they are having the baptism on Sunday!
Green Brutus:
Tinman Brutus:
Super-Hero Brutus:
Astronaut Brutus:
Statue of Liberty Brutus:
Mime Brutus:
Peace and Luv Brutus:
That's a Spicy Pizza Brutus:
Van Gogh Brutus:
And some you might have to be from Columbus to appreciate.
Christopher Columbus Brutus:
Eli was particularly fond of the trucks:
Don't touch the car. Don't touch the car. Don't touch the car. It's a good mantra. Notice how Eli is leaning on the car...
Sadie got her face painted by the Shriner clowns. Eli was not interested in having some silly looking man paint on his face. He wouldn't even take a balloon animal.
