"Look who me sees!!" (as Christian would say)

I told you we were headed to find some sun. Turns out we really didn't have to travel very far... about 20 minutes from our house and over the mountain pass resulted in sun, glorious sun. But we decided to just keep on going. And going, and going and going...

2 days or 19 hours of driving through some really beautiful and unique landscape ... and finally, just look who we saw!!

Plus a whole bunch of other family in my hometown of Eureka, SD. My Grandma and Grandpa had moved into an assisted living home this past winter and decided to have an auction sale to really downsize all their stuff. It was a fun day of visiting with all my family and being at the sale. For those of you who've never been to a small town auction, it really is quite a bit of fun.

Trailer beds are piled full of boxes of stuff and the yard is laden with all the furniture and other big items. People rummage around looking for items that interest them. Then you wait until the auctioneer gets to your item. It is amazing what people buy, and sometimes amazing what they pay for it! It makes for a fun day of visiting with lots of people. Click over to Tammy's blog for more auction specifics.

The kids took a break from the sale and made it to the school park for some playing around.

Later that night, we even hit the town bowling alley. It was a first time for my kids to bowl, and based on the final score, it seems to have been Tammy's first time too! :-)

Then on Sunday, as if we hadn't quite had our fill of the mini-van... we drove another 5 hours to the Gallagher's in Minnesota. But first we made a stop at the my aunt and uncles ranch along with way.

The kids got to explore some of Richards machinery and Maddie and Will even got to feed a baby calf. Well, at least until the momma cow chased them down.

Now I don't know anything about cows, but that baby calf has to be bottle fed because there is something wrong with that momma cows utter. Do you see the size of that thing?? Something is definitely wrong!

And I just love this picture. It's like a great showdown... but I don't think I'd wager too much money on those city kids.

It was a fun stop at the Ranch. I think the kids would have loved to stay much, much longer.

Then it was further on to Minnesota.

There we got to meet up with our friends the Strangs. The kids play so well together - it's crazy how alike they are, especially these two big dudes.

It was so much fun to see the, even if for a short afternoon stop.

With the Gallagher's, we got to spend a few days relaxing and just enjoying our time together. The girls played alot of Barbie Dolls and the boys did "boy things" as Christian recalls.

Ahh, life is good, very, very good when you get to spend time with the people you love.

We had such a great trip - it was well worth the 52 total hours spent in the car. And really the kids were amazing travelers - they didn't seem to mind or complain at all. In fact, the only time anyone said anything was when we were about 2 hours from arriving in Eureka and Christian let out this huge sigh and said "this is just too far, maybe we should turn around!!" Ha!