The first week in SD

The first week of South Dakota (SD) living was an adventure. The first thing Thomas noticed was that the toilets had water in them. It was an adventure the first time we used the toilets (which happen to be at the airport). A very loud and excited adventure. I think we had everyone in the place laughing. He had to flush it several times to watch it and then ran out to tell Grammy that the water 'goes round and round'.

It did snow a little, not enough to play in really, but it was snow. Sophie learned how to try to catch it on her tongue and Thomas was very good at finding the littlest bit accumulated to walk in to see his foot print. Sometimes his forages to find snow patches took him into the gardens, which didn't stop him, but made me have to ruin his fun by calling him out.


Living with Grandpa and Grammy is a learning curve for all of us. One new thing is the bathtub is just huge!. And Thomas is very good at turning the water on and off by himself, mostly on. There are some cute photos and a video of this below. There were new toys to find, cats to chase, horses to pet, and rules to learn. They have 8 or 9 cats running around here. Not tame, so the kids haven't yet been able to pet them, but they do enjoy trying. Thomas loves the horses, and thankfully, they don't seem to mind him.


My parents house has a loft that is shaped like an A, so the sides of each room the ceiling slant down till you have to duck in order to get back there. I'll try to get some photos as I don't think I'm explaining this very well. But the bunk beds in the kids room are situated so they make an isle from the door to a window and pretty much touch the ceiling on the other side, but you can go around the beds and find a little 'cubby' that adults have to duck into but it's great for the kids. One side is set up with all the kids toys and the other side is blocked off to be a 'safe' place for Blake. We are teaching the kids to knock before they go on Blake's side, but of course that means they want us to knock to go in on their side. Seems fair enough, until they 'won't' let me go in there to get their dirty laundry :). Ah well. It's one place they can have a mess and I don't see it so we are both happy.


The first week we mainly explored, shopped, organized, and researched. I'll get into everything we found on another post. Sorry for the lack of photos, it's hard taking photos when you are a single parent and have 3 children demanding your attention.


Thomas in the Bath