We set out on a quest over Memorial Weekend to get in as much family time as possible. Friday night we made the long ride back to Becky’s hometown and survived with minimal crying or complaining from our back seat drivers. We didn’t make it in time to figure out the sleeping arrangements, so I nearly walked in on Becky’s sister, Heather, since she was asleep but I didn’t know which room.
When we got up, Becky and I headed off to her sister Jessica’s new business, Chiropractic Connections. We’d been doing some work on arranging computers and software and setting up her website. I picked up a all-in-one printer at Best Buy which was supposed to be $310 and they gave it to my for $110 for some reason. Bonus for Jess. So I set that up and just generally looked at the machines to make sure everything was working fine. Becky ended up spending her time with Jess putting up some quotes from Thomas Edison on the wall. While we were there, Jess’ husband Matt and his dad and brother-in-law were working on finishing up the construction.
After lunch we headed up to Becky’s cousin Tom’s wedding. We got there around 3:20 for the 4:00 wedding, so we had some time to kill coloring before the ceremony began – I was hoping to get all the activity out of them before the ceremony started. We sat down and just as Tom’s bride Ashley was walking down the aisle, Amelia spotted her cousin’s up in the balcony in the nursery which had a triangle window into the sanctuary, and she started yelling, "Zachie" and "Noah". Since Amelia really only has one volume, I had to rush her out of the sanctuary. We stayed in nearby Mobridge at the Wrangler Inn. They had a pool so after the reception the girls and I went swimming as Becky headed back for the dance. Katie did a great job of swimming by herself with her lifejacket on – she was all pumped that she could do it.
After a swim on Sunday morning, we headed made the long ride home. We stopped in some odd places as we were driving through northern South Dakota. We ate lunch in Oakes, ND where they used to have a Pizza buffet. Instead we made it to Cline’s Cafe. They had a buffet, but since it was 1:30 when we arrived, it was totally picked over. After some of the worst soup Becky’s ever had (the bottom of the bowl), we made our way to my mom’s home town of Gwinner, ND. We first drove by the house she grew up in which is for sale for about the third time since my grandma passed away in 2000. Then we went to the park in town which is named after my grandpa – the Orky Dahl park. It was an emotional experience to have my daughters play at his park. He would’ve loved to have met them, but unfortunately missed out by 9 years. The girls really enjoyed their time at the park, and I enjoyed showing Katie the veterans brick in honor of my grandparents, mom and uncle and running the bases at my grandpa’s park. After that, we wanted to leave some flowers at their grave sites, but the old SuperValu store that my grandpa sold in 1981 didn’t have any flowers. When we made it out to the grave site, we couldn’t find the graves right away. I asked someone where it was, and they pointed me to my great uncle and aunt, Stan and Betty, who were tending to my great grandpa’s grave. It was nice to catch up with them. I was trying to explain this whole death and grave thing to Katie, and we’ll have to explain that further later.
We finally made it to my parents house about 5 after leaving Mobridge at 10am. My brother Marc and his family was there, so it was good to catch up with them. My dad needed help putting the jetski in, so Marc and I helped out with that. Unfortunately, as I was backing up the car to put the jetski back, and I banged the trailer into the car and broke the plastic red light on the back corner. Not cool. Once I got over that, we were able to enjoy some ball and have a good time.
On Monday, we got to relax, which was good after the hectic pace of the first three days of the weekend.
Eric's space 