A Visit to Grandma Martha: Stop 3 - The Great Plains Zoo and Delbridge Museum of Natural History

We went to the zoo in Sioux Falls on Saturday morning. It was pretty neat. The front part had lots of exhibits that are similar to other zoos.






The rhino part was really neat. It was in a part of the zoo designed to mimic Africa. This is the Daddy rhino.


These are the Mama and the baby rhinos.



The next part of Africa was the giraffe and the zebra area. It was really cool.





The funny little bird below had just had babies and would make a loud sound when the giraffes came too close. The giraffes would take off running!


We ran into our cousins around the barnyard area. Ainsley tried to help Maisey and Emmitt milk a cow.


Dad captured two critters hatching out of giant eggs.



After seeing the zoo, we went inside to the Delbridge Museum. Essentially, it was a collection of stuffed and mounted animals from a local area hunter's collection. They also had a cute little play area for Ainsley.




Love,
Ainsley, Ben and Cameron

A Visit to Grandma Martha: Stop 2 - Sertoma Park

We were coming back from dinner on our first night in Sioux Falls and Dad saw a sign for Sertoma Park Butterfly House. While the butterfly house was closed, the park itself was amazing. It had a play area for each one of us. One of the neater features was a giant Eagle's Nest. Here is Ben on top of it.


Love,
Ainsley, Ben and Cameron

A Visit to Grandma Martha: Stop 1 - Blue Mounds State Park

We decided to head west to visit Grandma Martha. To break up the drive and make a weekend of it, we had a few stops along the way.

Our first stop was at Blue Mounds State Park. The park is named after a giant mound of Sioux quartzite, the second hardest rock known to man. The quartzite in the park forms a giant cliff, rising over 100 feet high in places. The park is also home to an amazing example of tall grass prairie. We are learning all about the tall grass prairies from the workbooks that we took home so that we can be junior rangers of the prairie parks in Minnesota.

We started out by visiting the bison viewing area.


We didn't see any, so we took the Cliff Line Trail up the mound.




You see a lot of the quartzite sticking up through the ground, like this.




After a while, we decided to loop back on a different trail. This meant sending Mom and Ainsley back the way we came, while the boys took a different route - down the cliff.






Finally, we made it to the bottom. This is what the far side of the cliff looks like, hidden amongst the trees and the prairie.




On the other side of the park, there is a visitor's center that used to be the home of a well known author. Inside, there were lots of neat exhibits, like this bison.




Love,
Ainsley, Ben, and Cameron

A Preview of Football Pictures

We had football pictures tonight and Dad snapped this with his camera.


Love,
Ben

Minneopa State Park

We had to take Grandma Jan back to Iowa today, so Grandpa Walter offered to meet us in Mankato, the halfway point. We decided to take a quick mini-trip and stop at Minneopa State Park as part of the deal.

Minneopa gets its name from the dual water falls in the park - it literally means "water falling twice" in Dakota. Here's the upper falls.






And here is the larger, lower falls. A lady we talked to said this was a trickle compared to what it was earlier in the summer when we had a lot of rain.


The other part of the park is a beautiful prairie and an old mill that was built by hand in the early 1860s. Here are some photos of it.



Behind the mill was a scenic overlook of the Minneopa Creek valley.




There also happened to be a bench at the scenic overlook, so we took these pictures of us.








Love,
Ainsley, Ben and Cameron

The Sculpture Garden

Some of you might remember when we last visited the sculpture garden here, but Mom and Dad were surprised to find out that we didn't really remember it. Then they realized that it had been more than six years since we were last there. So, we went!

Here we are in front of the cherry and spoon bridge!


Cameron took pictures of everything!


This is actually our reflection in the art!













Love,
Ainsley, Ben and Cameron

My Two Front Teeth!

I finally got my two front teeth out!


Love,
Cameron

Mall of America with My Daddy

My Daddy took me to Mall of America because we had to meet Aunt Michelle and Uncle Jayson to get some beef. We got there a little early and did some shopping.

The first place we visited was the American Girl Doll store. It was awesome.


I had my picture taken with Kanani!


We then went to the LEGO shop! But, we didn't find anything.


Eventually, I got a Minnie Mouse pillow at the Disney Store, which I carried all by myself through the whole mall!



Love,
Ainsley