It was like someone turned on her happy button - the day no more homework for third grade was announced, Ellie was a happy, happy girl. (It is seriously amazing to me how enjoyable, agreeable, and perfectly content Ellie is when there is no homework. I'm not sure I can express how much better life is at our house when there is no homework.) All of a sudden Ellie didn't want school to end, because when school is just a social event, school is pretty great.
We really struggled the last semester of school. And by we, I mean all of us. We got a bit lackadaisical correctly homework, we rarely encouraged reading, Ellie often missed turning in homework or turning it in late. We all really just did the minimum to get by, and to keep us sane.
At the end of the school year when it was time for the merit assembly, I hadn't heard if Ellie was going to get an award or not. When the school called the night before I was a bit surprised. I had fully been expecting Ellie to get her first B of her school-life, which I thought meant no award. The next morning when we were at the assembly they gave the Academic Achievement award, which I didn't recall seeing in prior years, but it was for A's AND B's. I thought, "Oh, this makes sense now, Ellie will get this one." Of course internally I was really hoping they wouldn't call her name but was surprised when they didn't. I really couldn't believe it - yet let me be clear - I know that Ellie is bright enough to get all A's every year and with just a tiny bit of effort I wouldn't have even questioned it. But her pure disinterest in school, when at home, is what I was questioning.
In fact, I asked Kevin to give me one word to describe how Ellie felt about homework, he said, "hatred". I asked for one that described her attitude towards it, he said, "disgust". I think you get the idea. I was so proud of Ellie for getting the Exceptional Academic Performance award (all A's) and I am really proud of the kind of student Ellie is in class. Yet even Ellie agrees the reason she got it is because in school, while in class, she does her best. Homework, on the other hand, will go down in history as her third grade nemesis.
This summer we are all trying to convince ourselves we will try harder next year and her attitude will be better. :D
Regardless, it's an amazing achievement (for the third year in a row) and I am still a very proud mother. She is also above the 90% percentile in the standardized testing. So after school, we went to the mall to get her teacher a gift and used to time for a little celebration. She chose pretzel bites as her prize and then we bought her a pair of red Toms.
I got to spend a couple of hours at the school on field day. I'm happy that Ellie still wants me to be there and it's fun that all of the kids seem to enjoy having me too. I'm the one constant mom at every school event and I'm really proud of that. I'm so thankful for a job that is flexible enough to allow for that to happen. I was chatting with one teacher and she said, "Oh, YOU'RE Ellie's mom, Mrs. Nielsen talks about how great you are." I know I'm not perfect, but it's nice to occasionally hear positive things about your parenting.
The kids had a great day with all of the fun activities that were planned and even Mrs Nielsen and I took a lap inside the bouncy house.
Like last year, we wasted no time getting right into our summer vacation. In fact, within thirty minutes of Ellie getting home from her last day of school, we were packed and on the road for our nine day adventure to South Dakota. Before I get into that, I better go backwards a bit.
The first Saturday in June was the last soccer game of the season. It was amazing to see how improved Ellie was from the first day of soccer to her last in the season. She was a true team player, she kept to her side and played her position. She went after the ball, she remained fast and until she got worn out, was one of the hardest working players on the field. I was again, so proud to be her mother. She was so incredibly awesome in the last few games of the season. The team ended the season with a win and with a winning record. Quite a change from fall ball, when the closest to a win they got was a tie. Not only did Ellie improve, the entire team improved and they really played so well together. It was a great season to watch and we hope many of the same girls will come back and play on the team again in the fall. Go Giant Pandas! (Ellie named the team!)
After soccer, Ellie I went to the Girls Scout Cookie Party. Ellie got in free for selling more than 500 cookies. When we arrived, Ellie wasn't quite sure that she wanted to stay or that it would be fun. We decided to eat lunch and then go to the store to spend the cookie money she had earned. She had a great time spending her money and left with a couple bags full. There were these little coin purses and one had a bike on it. She said I just had to have it and used her money to buy it for me. A couple of times I tried to get her to put it back, but she was adamant about getting it for me.
After shopping I convinced her to look at a few of the booths, and then I was able to convince her to play a few games and as the prizes started rolling in, she was happy to play them all! We had so much fun playing small carnival type games that I'm pretty sure that we will have the same people come (on a smaller scale) for her next birthday party.
As we were leaving she was carrying all of her goods and noticing a strain on her muscles. She said she had the weakest muscles in her class and decided to use the bags to try to build them up. It made me laugh.
The other noteworthy item on that same day is that Ellie finally lost that tooth that was literally hanging on by a tiny piece of skin. I just touched it and it was out. It was a bleeder because I think the gum tissue would have held onto that tooth forever, even though it no longer had roots.
So now back to our trip. For our first trip of summer we teamed up with the Vanderlinden family and headed East. We had been working on our agenda for over a year. Mainly because it was last year we decided to do this trip and we got some good ideas from Hugo's family that had been the summer prior. We left right after school and decided we drive as far as Casper, Wyoming. We told Ellie we would be camping overnight in the Walmart parking lot and that was all she could talk about. We decided to camp there because 1-we weren't 100% sure we would make it that far so we didn't want to book a spot and 2- it is free and 3- Walmart lists itself as a spot for exactly that. We rolled in just after midnight and settled down for the night.
It took a bit for me to settle with the noise of the cars outside. We didn't have the stabilizers down and so every time the trailer would move I thought someone was trying to break into the truck. I was a bit uneasy sleeping in the parking lot, but when morning came, I was amused. A motorcycle came first thing in the morning and parked right next to us, literally in the same stall we were using. I mean, we were using several, but there were PLENTY others he could have used. I think he was likely an employee that parks there every day and was pretty upset we were in his spot. It made me laugh.
I also got a kick out of being naked and showering in the Walmart parking lot. We took full advantage of being so close to the store. While I was naked and showering, Kevin and Ellie went into the store to get some items we needed. I admit I felt a bit like Griswold's cousin Eddie in my free, very public, parking space. Ellie thought it was awesome. In her words, "It was awesome, it was my first time staying at Walmart!" Personally, I hope it was the first and last, but really it was quick, easy, likely better than a truck stop, and definitely memorable.
We had a shorter drive the second day and arrived at The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs South Dakota around 12:30. The Mammoth Site is a working excavation site where there was at one time a 60 foot sinkhole. To date, the Mammoth Site has found 61 Mammoths (58 Colombian and 3 Woolly) along with 85 other species of animals, plants and several unidentified insects. They estimate the bones to be over 26,000 years old. It was truly amazing to see the fossilized bones, some of them in complete form.
The tour was short enough to keep the girls' interest and then they had fun running around the exhibits and browsing in the gift shop. It was a perfect first stop. Ellie said she loved the "pit" and enjoyed learning about it. She thought it was cool that they had found SO many mammoths. I have to agree.
From there we made our way to our first real camping site, Flintstones Village. We were pretty excited to stay there. Our spot backed right up to the woods and while we were there we saw several deer and a rock chuck. The girls quickly found the playground and spent some time there while we got the trailers settled. And as soon as we could get to the swimming suits, the girls had them on and we were at the pool. Ellie loves to swim and Kevin and I were glad she had other little girls to swim with on this trip. Sadly, this would be the only time on the trip Ellie would swim. Our other two camping locations had pools but we were either too late to swim or there was a storm.
Speaking of storms, it was this night we had a VERY close encounter with lightning. We decided to grill burgers at our trailer and then go for a walk around the park and explore a bit more. We found Dino, stopped to play some mini-golf, found the Drive In we would eat at the next night, found the amusement park and gift shop, found and hiked to an even larger Dino and then decided to make our way back.
The sky was getting dark, the clouds were rolling in and we could hear and see thunder and lightning in the distance.
The storm was beautiful in its own way and we tried to get a picture of it. Of course the delay in the camera missed it each time so Kevin decided to take video instead. In a total of 56 seconds, part of the storm moved and lightning struck literally in front of us. The ground shook, Kevin could feel electricity in his feet, I felt it in my hands and Ellie was horrified. I kept trying to assure Ellie that the lightning wouldn't hit us, but as we quickly walked back to our trailer and the storm got closer, she was not convinced. I could not console her, it was the worst feeling. We got back to our trailer and the girls in the other trailer asked Ellie if she could play. She responded that she couldn't and rushed in the door. That may be the only time Ellie has ever turned down playing. She was so frightened. I told Ellie that it would hit tall things and she reminded me that Kevin was the tallest thing in the field. I have to admit she was right and it was the closest any of us ever care to be near lightning.
On the video you can hear Ellie warning us, "You know I think we should really go, the clouds are coming over. We've been standing here for a while." I laugh and prompt Kevin not to give up because each time he had shut off his camera or video he missed it by seconds. A few seconds later I can sense Ellie's concern so I tell him Ellie and I are giving up and Ellie says, "Well, you can come back whenever you get shocked." At the time I thought she was joking, and we have had some good laughs about it since. But in that moment it was no joking matter to Ellie.
To try to calm her and to distract us from the storm we played Yahtzee. The dice were loud and they were a good distraction to muffle the outside sounds as we played.
The storm quickly passed, but we have now given Ellie a justifiable fear of storms. This is only the second time I've seen Ellie unconscionably frightened and sadly, we took her to the Tower of Terror also. :)
The next morning it was time to go caving! We explored both Wind Cave and Jewel cave on our third day. Each of them are over 145 miles of cave and each have unique formations. They were both discovered by wind blowing out of a small hole in the rock above ground. In fact that is how Wind Cave got its name. It was the first National park to be dedicated to a cave. We spent just over an hour in Wind Cave exploring its tunnels and admiring the boxwork type formations it is famous for.
On our way out of the park we saw this prairie dog eating a Twizzler.
After lunch we visited Jewel Cave, which is currently the third longest cave in the world. In both caves they mentioned that they are still exploring and discovering new length. Jewel Cave has many spar crystals that look like jewels and that is why the name was given. I think Ellie wanted to find real jewels in the cave, but was still happy with the crystal formations we saw.
That night, we considered a magic show, but found ourselves enjoying the Flintstones Village amusement park too much. Kevin pushed all the kids around on the merry go round, in fact some of the other kids in the park latched on and wanted him to push them there and on the swings. I am so glad we have Kevin to play. He is so fun and even though I wanted to tell those kids to go get their own lazy dad off his duff to push them - I'm glad I never have to think that with Kevin. And speaking of getting off our duffs - even the adults had fun playing at the park. I must have had slick shorts because I would fly down the slides and catch air. One time I caught air and landed on the side of the slide and had a nice big bruise as evidence that I was playing like a kid. Ellie wanted to trade shorts so she could go as fast. I have to admit between the slides and the 60 year old man giving rides in his Flintstones VW cruiser - I had as much fun playing as I think all of the kids did.
The next day was pretty monumental (pun intended). I don't know how many of our trips or experiences Ellie will remember in years to come. I don't even know that I will fully remember them, but hopefully we both remember the day we saw Mt Rushmore for the first time. We started the day in Custer State Park and we were thrilled with the all of the animals we were seeing. We turned into the park and within a couple of miles we had huge American Bison crossing the rode right in front of us. Ellie said, "Why did the bison cross the rode?" "To get a drink a water!" And that was exactly what they were doing. Kevin pulled forward a bit when one was crossing back after his drink and the bison stopped dead in the middle of the road and turned his enormous head to look at Kevin as if to say, "Really guy - I wouldn't come any closer if I were you." As then, after Kevin was at a complete stop, the bison slowly went on his way over the road. It was pretty obvious who was in charge in that situation!
We turned another corner to enter the Wildlife Loop and there was a small pack of wild burros. They call them begging burros because they come right up to you and beg for whatever you will give them. We didn't know how friendly they were until we got out of the cars to take a few pictures and they walked right up to us. We were cautious at first (I mean they are wild animals!) but they had no reservations with us. They loved the attention and we got to spend quite a bit of time petting them.
Around another bend we found a massive herd of bison with their calves. I think there were mostly female bison, as they weren't as large as others, but still massive and impressive to see so many with their babies. We did not get out of the car for this herd, but that didn't stop them from coming to us. We had one literally licking our tires and the side of the truck. Another one behind us was using a car hood as what appeared to be a scratching post for his head.
A few turns later and we found a herd of pronghorn. They were beautiful to see, but kept their distance. Our final stop on the Wildlife loop was to watch the prairie dogs. The girls thought it would be fun to see if this group also enjoyed Twizzlers so they found their way to one of the holes, placed the Twizzlers, but the little guy never came back up for it. I assume he eventually did, but not while we were there to enjoy it.
We stopped for lunch in the Summer White House. President Coolidge and Eisenhower both occupied the buildings in 1927 and 1953. It is now an inn and restaurant where we enjoyed one of probably only two decent restaurant meals we ate on the trip. I should mention that we arrived in South Dakota a few days before their summer season actually began so most of the staff was just getting
