The Misadventures of Maddox, Maize and Fox

We left Minnesota on Thursday, 30 August (yes, almost a month ago now) and drove straight through to Camp Philip in Wautoma, WI. We have attended Fall Family Fest here for a few years now and were looking forward to seeing Jared's parents and brother there. We did a low ropes course, tried archery for the first time, Jared ran a 5K and Avery ran his first race ever, a 1K! Jared jumped up and hit the banner. I unfortunately caught his victory jump on the way down. Now let me take you back to the beginning of our trip. Do you remember all the issues we had with our tires? And how lucky we were that Ken was with us? Well if you've been reading along since then, you may have noticed that no other calamity has befallen us. But then we got back to Milwaukee. Literally, as soon as we got back within spitting distance of Ken, we got stuck in the mud. Apparently it had been raining constantly for over a week in southeastern Wisconsin. The seco...

Our last stop on our first loop was to the Twin Cities in Minnesota. We stayed at Lake Elmo Preserve (Which I would highly recommend) and this stop included a lot of family time as well as some sightseeing. It helped us start to wind down from our first loop and gave me some time to start planning our second loop to the Northeast. We enjoyed grilling out at my Uncle Jack's house and a few deliciously divine meals at my Aunt Linda's. We were also able to go to church with some friends we met this summer and enjoy brunch at their house while our kids played. Here are the few sightseeing things we did: Science Museum of Minnesota We met my friend Claudia here with her three boys first thing one morning. This museum was awesome (and was free because of our reciprocal membership with the Milwaukee Public Museum). There were so many interactive exhibits and things to do, we could have stayed there all day and come back every week. My favorite area was a giant room filled with thos...

Let me start out by saying that I wrote this post awhile ago. Maybe a week ago, maybe two. I spent 2 hours perfecting it, picking out the pictures, proof reading it, all while being constantly interrupted by children. And then, I lost everything. The page timed out and everything was gone. To say I was ragey doesn't quite do my feelings justice at that moment. I was so angry that I vowed to just stop trying to catch up on the blog and be done with it. So now that my emotions have mostly cooled...weeks later...I am going to give it another try. So here's the shorter version of our time in Rapid City, SD. Reptile Gardens This was probably our favorite thing we went to in Rapid City. While it was a lot smaller than a zoo, there was plenty to see and we spent almost an entire day there. The kids enjoyed the gator show where they got to hold a baby alligator, and the snake show where they got to hold a snake. Tortuga Falls was a gorgeous garden complete with a waterfall an...

Let me take you all the way back to August 16th. We left Livingston on Thursday and spent 2 days making our way across Montana. Saturday the 18th saw us arriving in Hulett, WY just north of Devil's Tower. Jared's friend Brice is the head groundskeeper at a gorgeous golf club here, creatively called The Golf Club at Devil's Tower. They recently built a few slabs for RVs with hookups and we were able to stay here for two nights. We got a private tour of the golf course which includes a hole going over a canyon. To say that this place was beautiful wouldn't be doing it justice. After being here a few hours, Jared and I were discussing how to make it back here sometime on our travels. Of course Jared enjoyed playing a few holes free of charge on this ultra private course and Ophelia was in heaven as we were parked right next to a stable housing three horses. She spent all of her down time feeding and petting the horses and dreaming of owning her own. Monday mor...