We didn't expect to take a "real" vacation this summer, but thanks to the blessing of an early wheat harvest, we were able to travel to Sioux Falls and Wisconsin Dells last weekend.
We began our journey at the opening of the Sioux Falls Diocese Legacy 125th Celebration.
Every east river Catholic parish, past and present, was represented with a banner at the opening ceremony. It was beautiful seeing all of these pieces of our Catholic heritage brought together.
As you know, I was looking forward to the Matt Maher concert since my friend Michelle first shared the news with me last spring! It was a great concert, made even more special by sharing it with our friends and David's aunt and uncle, too! He sang all of our Matt Maher favorites. Ahh . . . good music, good stuff.
After a night in Sioux Falls and a sub-par continental breakfast (hey, it was free!), we continued onto Wisconsin Dells. Nathan had seen the photo of the spiral "toilet" waterslide, and he was on a mission to ride it.
We stayed at Kalahari, which is right off I-90 if you ever find yourself in the area. It had both an indoor and outdoor water park. We just had to take a photo with the gorilla outside our elevator!
We all found something fun to do in the water parks. David and I took turns with the girls in the smaller pools and wave pool. The red and blue slide behind the turquoise and yellow slides is the "toilet." Even I went down the toilet! (There was an inside "toilet" as well, but that one just spit the rider out the bottom.)
The boys and I spent one afternoon together while the girls napped, and that was a fun time for all of us since Mom's time is usually dominated by the younger members of our family.
They got me out of my comfort zone a few times by trying out slides I otherwise wouldn't have (one lifeguard turned us backward--twice!).
On our last day, David went down the "Screaming Hyena" and another like it which dropped the rider straight down out of a capsule at the top. The rest of us passed on that experience!
We also went to the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory, which had something for all of the kids. It included several rooms of science experiments and the like, with a tour of the actual Russian MIR space station at the end.
David, I and the boys all rode bike on the high wire.
The boys rode this gyro sphere. Astronauts use something similar to train for living in space.
MIR space station
Before we left, they lifted a car with the giant lever!
And . . . on the top of the list of memories from the trip . . . having our food delivered to us by TRAIN at Buffalo Phil's restaurant!
And now, it's back home and back to work!
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