The long drive home

The drive back home was uneventful, thankfully.
It took two days of driving, and this time I made an overnight stop at a motel in Alexandria, Minnesota. Thank goodness for audio books. We listened to two audio books on the way out west, and two more on the way back. On the trip westward, we listened to "Marley and Me", and a book called "Don't Know Much About Anything". Then we were entertained on the return trip by "What Really Happened" by Scott Mclellan, and "The Unthinkable" by Amanda Ripley. The Unthinkable was a really good book.
We stopped at Wisconsin Dells to eat at Paul Bunyan's again. While we were there, we decided to be nosy and take a look at that empty Lake Delton. We found it sure was empty, as reported on national news, and posed for a picture with it. You can see the picture above. If you look, you can even see the water ski ramps sitting out there in the mud.
Like I said in a previous entry, the whole lake emptied like a bathtub in 1.5 hours when it flooded and made a new path to a nearby river. Now it's just a big mudpile.

Sasha and my husband did not return home with us. They needed to stay out west for another week or two, then they will fly home. We were nervous about taking a 21 month old on a two day drive across the country anyways.

Vacation in pictures

Relaxing poolside
Sasha and her dad in a dozer.
Sasha checks out the dozer.
This was Sasha's bench. Whenever we went out on the porch, she had to sit there. And stare at the gnome, his bird, examine his bowl and it's contents.
Sasha sitting on a horsey.
Sasha and her grandma riding a four-wheeler.
Cassie getting ready to start firing a rifle for the first time.
Cassie firing a rifle for the first time. She did really well!
There are two sets of targets and you can see both of them in this picture. The first set is easier to see in the grass, and the second set is farther away behind the fence and to the left.
My daughter put a penny on the more distant targets and shot it. She shot Abraham Lincoln in the head on the penny from 100 yards. Not bad for a newbie :)
Throwing rocks in the horsey's water. This was one of her favorite activities. She loved to pick up rocks from the gravel driveway then throw them in one of the horse water containers.
I guess it was a real bear once, but now it's stuffed and posed in the foyer of my mother-in-law's house.

Whew, what a drive

The drive out to Montana was actually a scary one. The weather was very bad. I had researched the weather in the week before, but everything seemed to indicate that it would be best to leave on Sunday. There were storms 'scheduled' the day before, and storms the day after, but Sunday was supposed to be okay. At least that's what it said when I checked on Friday. Saturday was too busy for me to get online and check to make sure the weather hadn't changed.

We hit storms in Wisconsin. Bad rain storms. When I reached Madison, the rain was coming down so hard and fast that my windshield wipers couldn't keep up. I had no visibility, and I couldn't see the cars around me. It was dangerous and scary. I pulled over at the first exit I could to wait it out. The water was building up, so I found a hill to wait the storm out on. But the rain wouldn't let up. It was there to stay. I found some RainX in my car so I applied that to my windshield, which helped my visibility greatly. But the flooding situation was becoming worse. The bottom of the hill I was on was turning into a river with a strong current. But if I didn't go through it immediately, the continuing rain would make it worse and I would become trapped upon the hill. It was a situation where if I didn't leave now, I'd be stuck. I gathered my nerve and did the stupid thing. I drove through that flood, and the current grabbed the car for a moment. But fortunately my car eventually grabbed onto some pavement and I was free again. I headed back to the freeway.
I drove onwards because I realized that everything was flooding behind me. Waiting or delaying would mean being stuck in a flood. The rain was not letting up. Besides, I missed my baby daughter and couldn't wait to see her again.
Eventually when I reached Wisconsin Dells, the skies were clear again. We stopped for a breakfast at Paul Bunyan's, my favorite restauraunt. Little did I know that the lake that Wisconsin Dells, a popular tourist city, was build on would disappear completely later that day. (http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/11/lake.delton/index.html). The flooding caused the embankments to flood and the whole lake emptied into a nearby river. It took an hour and a half for the lake to drain empty like a bathtub. Weird.

We continued on, unaware of the impending doom of the lake town we just left. Storms plagued us the rest of the trip. We watched a tornado form in Fargo and worried whether our drive would take us too close to it. An empty gas tank forced me to stop and get gas when I was trying to outrun that storm and caused me much stress and adrenaline. We finally made our overnight stop in a small North Dakota town.

We woke up early the next morning and continued our drive. Fortunately day two of the drive was uneventful. We had clear skies, although it was cold and windy. It actually felt like winter, with temperatures in the 40s. I had not packed a winter jacket. At a rest stop in North Dakota, some travelers remarked on us. "Now those must be locals," a man quipped to his wife. "They don't have jackets. They must be used to the cold weather". I didn't have the heart to say that we were just traveling idiots who didn't think to bring jackets.
We finally arrived safe and sound at our destination in Montana in the afternoon.

Laser Tag Birthday Party

Cassie had a Laser tag birthday party! Her birthday isn't until next week, but it was supposed to be a birthday celebrating both my husband's and Cassie's birthdays, since they have birthdays a week apart. But my husband was still out visiting his family.
It was originally supposed to be a party of about 15 people, but the numbers slowly dwindled back down. My husband cancelled. My brother and his girlfriend and kids couldn't make it. Then some of Cassie's friends. Some of Cassie's friends did RSVP and said they'd be there but never showed up.
So the party was me, Cassie, my dad (yay!), and four of Cassie's friends. We still had fun. It was fun to run around and shoot her friends, haha. We had pizza and soda and cake. Cassie received some cool and thoughtful presents that she sincerely appreciated.

One of the highlights of the party was when the laser tag staff made Cassie stand on a small stage, and they had everyone sing Happy Birthday to her. But with a twist. They had everyone sing it like they were underwater by rubbing their lips as they sang. It was pretty funny. (2nd picture here is the Happy Birthday song)

Busy Day

Today was a crazy, hectic day, and I knew it would be.
Tomorrow, Cassie and I are driving out to Montana to join my husband and daughter as they visit his family. It will take us two days to drive out there. Gas prices are crazy lately, but they're still cheaper than airfare. My husband and the baby will be driving back home with us on the return trip, so it would be way too expensive to fly. I like a good road trip, but I hate the preparations.
Complicating matters is a work picnic, and Cassie's birthday party, both held today. And I work night shift, so I didn't get off work until the morning, so I had to operate on a short nap.

I dragged Cassie to my work picnic. It was a windy, sunny, hot day, with the promise of a good thunderstorm. Actually it was very windy. Cassie and I spent some time observing a mother and father bird fly about. The birds were collecting food for their baby birds in a nest in the rafters of the picnic gazebo. But the winds made it interesting. We stared amazed as one of the parent birds tried to fly against the wind. The bird was flapping it's wings and flying furiously, but it wasn't going anywhere. It looked like it was just flying in place, when finally the wind won and it threw the bird backwards. Cassie and I both gasped, and a co-worker speculated that the wind might have broken the bird's wings. I really hoped not! Fortunately I saw the birds return later with some food for their babies, so the bird was okay.
Anyways, after the work picnic, we had Cassie's birthday party. That deserves it's own post in itself, but it was fun. When the party was over at 8pm, I was exhausted. I had most of my stuff packed, but I had to finish packing for tomorrow's long road trip and I was tired.
I plan on hitting the road early in the morning. I hope to be driving by about 8 or 9AM so we'll have an early wake up.

Early Birthday Present

I have such a hard time waiting for a birthday once I have someone's birthday gift. I just have to give it to them right away.
Such was the case with my older daughter Cassie's birthday present. A new electric bass guitar, amp, case, and the whole kit. Which is exactly what she wanted.
She's been a skilled bass player (the big upright orchestra kind) for the last two years, and she's signed on for orchestra again next year in high school. But the bass she uses during the school year belongs to the school, so her teacher reclaimed it for the summer.
Then one day we visited a guitar store, and she fell in love with the electric bass guitars.
The strings on the bass guitars are same as the orchestral bass, so she can still play the same songs, read the sheet music, etc. She just has to get used to holding it different and playing without a bow. No big deal. She's got it mostly down already.
We have been making preparations for Cassie's birthday party, which is coming up very soon.
Cassie will be taking her new electric bass guitar with her on our trip out west to visit my husband's family. She even gave her guitar a name: Benjamin. Because he's a boy guitar, I guess, and Benjamin is a pun. Ben jamin. Get it?

A little more time

Today, Sasha and her Daddy would have been arriving home this evening. However, Sasha and my husband are doing so well out by his mother's house that they decided they wanted to stay out there a little longer.
So in a week, after Cassie is done with school and her birthday party, Cassie and I will head out that way to meet them. Then we'll have a two week vacation all together. And we will return home together. We were planning on having a family vacation together out west anyways so we just bumped it up a bit. That gives Sasha and my husband three more weeks to visit with his family and take care of family matters.
Sasha and my husband have both had chronic troubles with eating, weight, and lack of appetite. They both have increased appetites and have gained necessary weight while they've been gone. The trip has been good for their health. Therefore it's for their best interest that they stay out there a little longer. Although I know the environment has a lot to do with it, perhaps I can pick up a few tips and tricks on how to keep those two picky eaters fed.

I have missed my daughter and husband terribly. I know I should be trying to relax and maybe enjoy some down time, but I can't. I yearn to hold my baby again and can not relax until I am reunited with her. She is in my every thought and even in my dreams.