We returned from our holiday trip to Jamestown, North Dakota on Monday the 6th. However, my camera battery died while we were there and I couldn't find it ANYWHERE! It turned up two days ago in Darren's car but we've been crazy busy with the impending arrival of our new niece, Alivia. Now that she's here and healthy, I've got the time to sit down and knock this out. It's gonna be a long one!
Our trip started later than we expected due to a delayed doctor appointment for me. We hoped that Ayla would fall asleep after a few hours and we could drive through the night. Just a few hours into our roadtrip, Ayla had required us to stop and potty 3-4 times. She was a little restless and getting tired. Yipee! It would be smooth sailing after she went to sleep!
"Pottying in the weeds" break as Ayla like to call them
By midnight, Ayla was still wide awake, cranky and restless. We were getting nowhere quickly (due to our every 45 minute potty breaks) and we were all tired. Has we not been stopping we'd be about 2 hours from our destination...we still had 4+ to go :( We decided to stop in a small town, get a hotel and sleep until 6am before we got back on the road. We found a Country Inn and Suites and made camp. The guy who checked us in was VERY nice and I'd guess that he'd done some traveling with a 2 year old previously, he totally seemed to get it. At no additional charge he upgraded us to a "special" room and said he hoped we'd like it.
We got SPONGEBOB! It was actually hilariously funny and totally overdone. Super cute though. We had Spongebob curtains, rug, wall murals, trash can, bedding, hamper, shower curtain, placemats...the works! Ayla knows who Spongebob is but isn't allowed to watch him because of the language and violence("dumb", "stupid", hitting etc). It was about 1am at this point and Ayla was terrified of Spongebob, she slept right between Darren and I in the regular bed, go figure!
After sleeping from 1:30 to 6am, we were on the road again. At about 8 am(2 hours Ayla had breakfast) we stopped for gas. She went potty and wanted a treat. Apparently because we were sleep deprived, we allowed her to pick Oreo Cakesters. She'd never had them before and doesn't reallyget those kinds of things from us. She does get sweets sometimes though...usually at Gigi and Papa's house! Well, that ended up not being a great idea. It was a mess, or so I thought....
I took a picture of her messy face and hands, thinking to myself 'why did we let her have these?' Hahahaha, joke was on us. Thirty minutes later she says 'uh-oh'.............
Yep, the Cakesters were a definite no-go. I'll have to write that down somewhere for future reference.
Here is little Miss Ayla getting cleaned up on the roadside. She traveled the rest of the way in her undies and shoes. He pj's were so disgusting that we buried them roadside.
We FINALLY made it to Jamestown, I never thought I'd be sooooo happy to be in a small North Dakota town...I considered kissing the ground when we emerged from our Husker red van in my Inlaws driveway. I decided against it considering the fact that they may already think I'm a little unbalanced and my daughter looked like a social service case.
We all showered, Ayla got a little nap and we headed out to the Richter's dairy farm! It was my first visit and I was super excited. I'm a big time animal lover(which probably explains why we have 2 dogs, a cat and two rabbits) and have never been to a real farm. It was a great time. The Richter family was very generous to us. They showed us around, allowed us to get up close and personal with some of their farming equipment and the cows!
Ayla found a little nest of kittens. They were about 10ish days old and just opening their eyes. She got to hold one that had it's little eyes open. They were the size of hamsters!
This is the milking process. I found it very interesting. The milk is always contained and never touches human hands. It flows into these huge 5 gallon clear balls and travels through a plumbing type system to a 1500 gallon tank! Now THAT is milk production. They have about 75 cows that they milk twice a day, it takes close to 4 hours each times....that's nearly eight hours of milking a day! One cow can produce up to 7 gallons of milk in about 5 minutes. They aren't all high producers like that but it blew me away.
This is a bottle for feeding the calves. It's one half gallon and Ayla could hardly carry it.
She sucked it down in about 2 minutes!!
After the farm, we headed back to the inlaw's house. Ayla flew a kite for the first time and uncle Nathan helped her get it up. Poor guy, he was running around in the field behind their house for a good 5 minutes to get that thing up.
On Saturday(the 4th), we headed up to THE buffalo. They have the Buffalo Museum, store, restaurant, and some little shops/old schoolrooms/jails etc. Ayla had a great time. She rode a pony named "Daisy" and thought that was pretty exciting.
We didn't go for a carriage ride but Ayla did like the big horses.
Family picture under the Buffalo. We have a picture of Darren and I under there, from when we were dating.
That evening, we did fireworks at John and Carol's house. Ayla had fun stomping on snappers and holding onto bamboo sparklers and morning glories
And then...my camera died! Depressing, huh? I didn't have my charger with me either. I'll post more pics when I get them from Lesley and Nathan.
Anyway, the rest of our trip was fun. We stayed up late and Ayla wasn't afraid of the fireworks at all. Arin liked them too, unless they were screeching.....I don't like those either!!
On Sunday, we went to Fargo to take Lesley, Nathan and Arin to the airport. I got close to tears saying good-bye. I feel like I've gotten closer to them and it's hard to be away. Especially with Arin because she's changing so fast. She's changed so much in the past month alone!
Afterwards, we went up to see Ron and Rosie. Ron's been in the hospital for a couple of weeks but is making great progress. He should be home before too long. We continue to pray for them.
We had dinner with John, Carol, Joey and Melisha. It was great to see Joey and Melisha too. We hadn't seen them since last summer. They are expecting a little boy, Brennan, in a few more months! Melisha looks adorable.
We said our good-byes and headed to Sioux Falls for the night. We're smart now. We're just going to plan on half-way marks. That way it won't get quite so ugly. We slept well. We took Ayla swimming in the morning and had a nice and short trip home!
Showing of her newly polished pearly whites
It was a great trip to our new dentist(I'd never seen this guy either, we switched to a place near our new house), we both got an "A" for healthy teeth and no cavities! 
Showing of her newly polished pearly whites
It was a great trip to our new dentist(I'd never seen this guy either, we switched to a place near our new house), we both got an "A" for healthy teeth and no cavities! 
