Once Upon a Time....

...we decided to take a spontaneous road trip up to Aberdeen -- 90 miles north of Huron -- for a visit to Storybook Land. While we enjoy living in Huron, it's completely and totally boring somewhat lacking in fun things to do with kids. So it was off to Storybook Land for us on Saturday! It's a free park filled with statues and play equipment based on fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Can you even imagine how excited Ellie was?!?!

Here she is with Cinderella's Coach and Snow White and Dopey.

And if you look veeeeeerrrrry closely, there's Ellie and Chris at the top of the castle (on the walkway above the entrance, between the turrets)!

The Little Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe -- there was a tiny skinny ladder inside the shoe that led up to the slide, and Ellie decided she didn't want to climb it alone.

So we braved the ladder together...

It wasn't until we got to the top that I stopped to realize "Maybe I should have thought this through before I climbed the ladder..."

But at that point, the only way out was down, so down the made only for a child's butt narrow slide we somehow made it.

We stopped to visit the Three Little Pigs cottages, where we let the boys out to explore and climb on stuff.

An attempt at a posed picture of the boys with the Wizard of Oz characters was a miserable failure. Maguire was not shy about letting us know he did not want his picture taken, while Alex seemed content to flash random passers-by.

A little break for some cotton candy...

And a little merry-go-round ride with Daddy...

Then it was off to ride the train -- a spin around the park to see some of the zoo animals and a little more of the Wizard of Oz section of the park. Did I mention this place is free (we only paid for the train and merry-go-round)?

We finished off our day with some playground time, a trip to Target, IHOP for supper, and home just in time for bed. A road trip success!

Alex, Meet Sidewalk

Sidewalk, meet Alex.

We don't recommend the two of you spend too much time together.

Our New Pool/Skating Rink

So a few weeks ago we decided to drag out the kiddy pool and let the kids bang around in it for the afternoon. It wasn't quite swimming weather yet, but they sure had fun climbing in and out of that thing. Simple pleasures, right? And doesn't Maguire just look like he's ready to hit the T-ball field? He found this hat and wouldn't take it off his head all afternoon.

Then a few days later it actually got hot out (crazy, right?) so we put a little H2O in the pool and let the little animals have a go at swimming. Ellie also did an excellent job of testing the soaking capacity of all our in-ground sprinklers.

The boys were a little hesitant at first, but Maguire warmed up to the idea pretty fast.

And in true Alex fashion (he's a bit of a scaredy cat), he promptly started crying and would barely stay in the pool long enough for me to take a picture.

It quickly became apparent that with three kids, we either needed a season pass to the city pool or a bigger one for ourselves. And while I am certainly brave about solo outings with all three kids (grocery shopping -- sure! Walmart -- why not? The park -- let's do it!), the pool is one place I know I can't handle a 1:3 ratio.

One trip to Walmart involving the plastic inflatables aisle and an electric air pump later, and we were the proud owners of this bad boy. It's got a slide and a sprinkler attachment....

A relaxation pool for Alex to do a little light reading...

"But wait, Mom, something about this doesn't seem quite right," ponders Maguire. "Oh, yeah, I'm still wearing winter pajamas. And we're inside."

Yes, as soon as we bought the new pool, the weather took a big turn for the October-like and we've had nothing but clouds, rain, and temperatures in the 50's and 60's for the last few weeks. The weatherman says it's supposed to hit the 80's again this week, so maybe we'll get to move the pool outside soon! Here's hoping. But for now these crazy animals of ours seem content to bounce around indoors in their fleece jammies and dream of seeing the sun again.

Future Hall of Famers

6 Under 4?

Never fear --- this is no big announcement that the Studers are expecting triplets! Can you seriously even imagine?!?!? Luckily, I am only referring to the number of small children we had in our house a few weeks ago when our friends Ryan and Kristi came through Huron on their trip from Washington to Minnesota. With some help from Kristi's mom, Karen, they drove across half the country with a 21 month old and two 7 week olds! Are they brave or what? We know the giant pheasant was the real reason they stopped in Huron, but we were so excited to meet all of their kids (Addyson, Easton, and Owen) and spend an evening together. Ryan and I have been friends since freshman year at Bemidji State University (Go Beavers!) in 1996 (wow, we're old), but we hadn't seen each other in at least 5 years. So it was so much fun to catch up with them -- I wish we lived closer to one another! Sadly, these two pictures are the only pictures anyone took the entire night. Their boys were just precious little peanuts -- I can hardly remember Alex and Maguire being that little -- and I must admit, holding them may have sparked a teeny tiny bit of baby fever. The whole 1:8 chance of having twins again does put a damper on the fever, though.

Alex basically didn't even acknowledge Easton and Owen, but Maguire was fascinated. He plopped right down in front of Kristi and checked those babies out. He was actually pretty gentle, too! Well, after he tried to "share" his ball by dropping it on Easton's head. Again, we're sorry about that, Gamradts! Hope you'll return to the home of the world's most giant pheasant on your next cross-country vacation!

Thanksgiving on Memorial Day

Hello again, it's Chris on the keyboard to tell you a little tale about our recent exciting trip to Minnesota that included a little adventure, a lot of fun, and a dead turkey. I'll get to that in a bit.

Like millions of Americans, the Studer family spent Memorial Day weekend on the open road. We headed to Minnesota for my niece Brianna's graduation party. She's 18, and that means I'm old.Bri's in the middle with Maguire. I can hardly stand it that she's graduated. Didn't I just graduate from high school? We had an awesome weekend hangin' with my big bro and his family. (My niece Alyssa's on the left, then my bro Tim, his wife Heidi, Bri, and my nephew T.J. who's taller than me now) We hadn't seen them in forever, so it was fun to go to Bri's party, and then enjoy a little bonfire, bright stars, and good company in the evening.This makes up pretty much my entire family, and it was great to see them all. We don't all get together very often, so it was nice to see everyone in one place again. My aunt and uncle even brought my grandma down from Hibbing. So it was awesome to get to see them.Uncle Tim and Alex got to hang out quite a bit too. The boys l-o-v-e-d playing outside at their house. And they were filthy when they were done... Alex ate his share of leaves and sticks and had a blast exploring Tim & Heidi's rock garden. Oh...and Alex got a kick out of my grandma's walker. He pushed that thing all over the driveway. Hilarious.Ellie spent the majority of the weekend on their tramp in the backyard. She did tricks for hours on that thing. Needless to say all three children were asleep before their heads hit the pillow that night.Carrie's mom (a.k.a. Grammie) came to Bri's party too, so Maguire got a little Carmex bath from all of Grammie's kisses. But you can never get enough of Grammie's smooches...So after spending the night at Tim & Heidi's...we decided to make a spontaneous trip to Brainerd. Here's Ellie with Papa's sleeping mask that he got on his European vacation. She loved that thing, and cried when we wouldn't let her actually sleep with it on. But she got a lot of pretend sleeping in.And here's Alex ticklin' the keys. He climbed up on the bench by himself and started playin' away.

So now to the whole dead turkey thing. This is all the evidence of that tragic moment left on our van's grill. Here's how it happened.

We were just driving along when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something running . I didn't think much of it because it was in a field off to the side of the road. It started getting closer though, so I slowed a bit. I thought it was a pheasant, and living in South Dakota for as long as I have now, it's not unusual to see one running along. People hit them now and then, but they're pretty good about flying away. But this was no pheasant...and we weren't in SoDak anymore.

All of a sudden, this massive bird runs right in front of the van. "Oh crap, that's a turkey..." I said, my heart pumping. Another car was coming in the other lane, so there was nowhere to swerve. That's when it happened. The turkey and my Honda Odessey were on a collision course that simply could not be avoided. His (or her, I didn't really see which) massive body slammed into the grill, flew up and hit the windshield, and flew over the van to the road below. It was over. Then from the backseat I hear a little girl's voice say, "Daddy, what just happened?"

Not knowing exactly what to say, or what Ellie saw, our conversation went something like this...

Chris: "Nothing honey, a bird just flew over the van."
Ellie: "Then what happened?"
Chris:"Then he flew away."
Ellie: "But then what?"
Carrie: "Well honey, what did you see?"
Ellie: "What I saw was that we hit that duck!"
Chris and Carrie: (Hysterical Laughter)
Chris: "It was actually a turkey, and Daddy couldn't get out of the way, so we accidentally hit it."

Moral of the story? Well, there are two. 1. Don't lie to your kid, she knew anyway. 2. Don't hit turkeys. Not that I tried to hit it, I truly couldn't get out of the way. So the turkey was at fault. I thought maybe we should've stopped and at least roasted the turkey that night. But Carrie declined. Then later in the trip Ellie says, "Daddy, next time when a turkey runs on the road, you should slow down and let him cross."

To that I said, "Next time I will honey, next time I will."