Trip to ND

We headed out to North Dakota on August 11th. Michael had to take his diagnostic tests for the starting of his doctoral program at NDSU (yes, he's finally starting the long process to completing his DMA in choral conducting!). We got as far as Fargo and stayed in a hotel. Eleanor now loves to stay in hotels and thinks the continental breakfast is so cool! On August 12th, Michael had about 4 hours of testing plus meeting with his advisor (and getting his student ID card!) so I had to occupy the girls for quite a while. We stayed in the hotel that morning and tried to swim, but it was a dinky-sized pool and it was cold. We then headed out to West Acres Mall which is a great mall to kill some time in. Michael finally called at about 3 pm and we headed to my parents' place in Bismarck & arrived just in time for dinner.

This is the view at the end of my parents' road. Gorgeous views! ND was absolutely beautiful because they've had a lot of rain and the weather was in the 70s.

The weather was pretty cool for swimming, but Eleanor wanted to try it anyway. My Mom has a little kiddie pool for them.

We let Miriam just swim naked because she had a diaper rash and we thought some good air time would be good for that. Plus, it was just too cute!

We celebrated Eleanor & Michael's September birthdays while we were there. A cake from DQ and presents! Eleanor thought that was pretty cool because she basically now gets 2 parties.

This is outside my Mom & Dad's front door.

Going for an evening walk to enjoy those glorious ND views!

A cute picture of Eleanor & Michael on the trail. This rock was in a neighbor's yard, but she had fun playing on it. Hope they didn't mind!

Another great view at the edge of the road.

The girls with Uncle Joe. Unfortunately, he had to work most of the time we were there. But, he had dinner with us the first night and stopped by before we left. Joe is a nurse and works at Medcenter One Hospital in Bismarck. He just passed his nursing boards this summer and we're very proud of him! He works the night shift from 6 pm to 6 am and so it was fairly easy for him to stop by and see us before we left. We had to leave at 8 am because we had to do the complete drive back in one day. It's a total of 9 hours.

A family shot the night before we left.

Thanks again for everything, Mom & Dad! We love you and so enjoy our time in Bismarck every time we come.

(I'll have a post soon about our trip to the Dakota Zoo!)