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Badlands & Chico Again

How did I not know that our country is so beautiful? The badlands are incredible!!!! We’re making progress, but we’ve got hours and hours to go before we arrive home. My car-mates for this last leg of our journey are the best of buds,  cheap entertainment, and they happen to adore one another.  Makes the long hours fly by.

We’ve stopped at Chico again to soak away our worries and prepare for the second half of driving, driving, driving. Maggie accidentally took a tumble a couple days ago off the stairs of my grandmother’s schoolhouse. It was more traumatizing for me than her, but the scrape on her nose is a reminder of the scary moment. Boo.

Chico is full to the brim of families getting ready to celebrate the holiday weekend and we’re lucky enough to have a bed to sleep in tonight…..all three of us in one bed. Ha!! I’m pretty sure my mom and I won’t be taking up as much real estate as the little shrimp between us, but I secretly like the idea of us smooshed together, if just for one night.

After soaking for a few hours today we wandered the property: viewing the horses, avoiding the tumbleweeds and enjoying the lawn area as Maggie poked us with some broken sticks. My mom has taught Mags to smell flowers and now she insists on smelling anything that resembles a flower, which means we have to stop and smell the ‘roses’ frequently.

(On a total side note, the guy from Desperate Housewives is here too!!)

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Generational Shifts

My grandparents got married 60 years ago and they became newlyweds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They had a couple kids and they became parents.

Then their kids got married and had a some of their own kids, so they became grandparents.

Elvrum side of the family, missing Barry and Genevieve

And a month after 60 years of marriage, they became great grandparents!


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This Little Chicken….

We’re on the road again and this little chicken has been nothing short of perfect on this trip, making friends along the way.

Her language is rapidly developing and the list of words and sounds that she makes has increased ten-fold. Animal noises are her speciality and she has been the life of the party at each and every event, the lone member of her generation.

Some of my dad’s cousins have young kids and she wants to get right in and play with them, mimicking their every move. She has discovered the goodness of mud puddles, mashed potatoes, donuts, graham crackers, popsicles, flowers, swimming pools, and whatever else the mid west has offered her little soul.

The one thing that I forget about Maggie sometimes is that she is a people person through and through. At a fancy anniversary celebration with more than 50 family members, she was more than happy to clap, point and cheese-ball smile for anybody and everybody. This has made dining out easy because she loves to stare down anybody that interests her.

I can’t express how much she amazes me and how much love I’ve got for her. Her curly, curly hair and her huge eyes invite people to dote upon her.

As our car rambles back towards home, one of her favorite things to do is to look at the photos of her papa and Sydney, kissing the pages and make barking sounds.

I’m a bit fearful that by the time we arrive on the doorsteps of HBHQ, Barry might not recognize us because Maggie has absorbed so much new information.