Tulips

I'm happy to report that my tulips have survived the harsh North Dakota spring!  So far anyway....we may get a little snow overnight this weekend.  They are so pretty, and really haven't even totally opened up yet.  We still don't even have open leaves here, if you can believe it!  Grace had her friend Carli over yesterday, and I got a cute pic of them in front of the tulips.  I took a couple of Grace by them today.

Mom and Ben weekend

Grandpa Jim offered to take the kids for the weekend (THANKS GRANDPA!!), so Tyler, Matt and Grace went over to Daglum.  Ben was planning on having a sleepover with his friend but that fell through, so he stayed home with me (Rich is working midnights so he's been sleeping during the day).  We decided to have a Mom and Ben weekend and do a few fun things just the two of us.  The first evening we went to "How To Train Your Dragon" and to McDonalds for dinner.  Then today we went for a drive to do a little research for Ben's North Dakota project.  He's going to build a reproduction of a keelboat, which is the type of boat Lewis & Clark rode up the Missouri River.  There is a big keelboat repro. down by the river you can climb on, so we started there.  Then we drove up north to the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center.  We didn't find any information on keelboats, but had fun looking at the other stuff!  We had a picnic at a table there too.  Then we decided to drive back to Bismarck and go to the library.  We rounded off the evening at Applebee's with Dad and a trip to Blockbuster.  I think Ben would like to be an only child :).  It was a nice weekend....the weather kind of stinks, but I'm happy to report that my tulips are coming out!  Rich said there's a chance of snow tonight, and I think I'll have to murder someone if that actually happens.  NO SNOW!

                                  Ben ordered the Big Breakfast with Hotcakes at McD's this am.
                              He ate almost the whole thing too :)!!

One more post today

I had to show off this cake that Matt made tonight, it was fabulous!!  Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting topped with strawberries.....probably his best yet!!

Sunday at the zoo

We took a little trip to the zoo today.  Some of the animals weren't in their enclosures, I'm sure it's still a little too chilly for them.  All the main ones were out though....the tigers, bears, and cougars.  No elephants or giraffes at this zoo, unfortunately.  My favorite little spider monkeys weren't there either, darn it.  Ben LOVED the goats!  He decided he wants to raise goats when he grows up :).  The kids fed them some corn, but the goats just liked licking Benny's hand...kind of like Lucy!

hello, Mr. Bear!

mmmm, goat slobber!

the miniature horses were so cute!

Nice weekend!

With fairly decent weather this weekend, we decided to do a little around town sightseeing!  Saturday we drove up the river road and stopped at a couple of parks, then found the Double Ditch Indian Village sight.  It's a bunch of mounds by the river with signs labeling the different parts of the village.  The Mandan tribe lived there from 1490- the late 1600's when the whole village was wiped out by smallpox.  Very pretty views!  Ben was out of sorts and decided to stay in the van, and Matt was sleeping after a long sleepover night at his friend's. 

a stone shelter built by the Civilian Conservation Corp. (CCC) in the 30's

I took this picture for Matt...this guy looked exactly like Napoleon Dynamite :)

Great visit from Grandma and Don!

Grandma and Don were at our house from Sunday to Wednesday.  We loved having them, but wish they could have stayed longer (and didn't have to drive so far!!)!  We went out to eat Sunday night at Buffalo Wild Wings, and probably won't be going there again for awhile.  It's expensive, skimpy, and our service was awful.  Monday Rich and I drove over to Grandpa Jim's house to check on things, since he's been in Arizona.  All was well there, except the ridiculous amount of snow still left in the front yard.  At least we could get in the driveway, that's progress!!  We spent the night there and came home the next day.  Grandma and Don got some bike riding in, but for the most part the weather kind of stunk.  I don't think they were impressed by the howling North Dakota winds :).  I'll post more pics from my mom's camera, but here is the snow over at Jim's!
Rich holding his hat on his head so it wouldn't blow over to Montana:

this is some sort of wave pattern in the clouds...Rich had the 'official' meteorological name for it.

you can see the waves better in this pic:

this is a house in South Heart we drive by on the way to Jim's.  Grace and I are in love with this lavender toilet that's been sitting by their basketball hoop for a couple of years now.  It's so pretty, I've never seen a purple potty before :).

And the soccer season begins!

Grace had her first soccer game this morning, in the chilly 43 degree Bismarck air.  The sun was shining bright, which helped a lot, but the wind was blowing which made it much worse.  Oh well, once you get these first few April games done with it gets better...right?  We really haven't ever encouraged our kids to do soccer...we never discouraged it and if they wanted to do it they could have.  Luckily noone ever wanted to ;).  Until Grace.  Her best friend Carli plays soccer and all of Carli's siblings play soccer, so Grace thinks she needs to also.  She doesn't really 'get' it yet...I don't think they get real deep into the rules in 1st grade.  She looked cute though :)!