The end of June means a few free days for our family! We took full advantage of that and went down to the cabin at West Hawk Lake. Every day was good beach weather. Jump and splash! Sonnet loved playing in the sand. For hours at a time she would shovel, pick up sand and play with water. Phoebe digging a hole to put Sonnet in. Parenting hack: Don't want to worry about your kids running away? Put them in a pit. Works like a charm. When you can watch yourselves set up for a fami

So it is now a couple of weeks since we were at Mount Rushmore, but I can't post everything at once. Below is what it looked like when we arrived. You could really not even tell which way to look. But the fog was swept away a couple of times, revealing the tear stained faces, resolute in the damp. Washington was impassive as ever staring into the gloom. This mountain goat was hard at work clearing the brush from the side of a South Dakota highway. This is what you do when yo

There was some good stuff and some hard stuff today, but there is beauty in it all. The sun will rise and we'll do it all over again tomorrow. #MercerMondays #2017Trip #Travel

We are back from the trip. It was great, but I'm really tired, so no stories for now. But I took a bunch of pictures in the badlands, some of which capture the dramatic landscape. #2017Trip #Travel

The twin lakes feature prominently in the Laura and Almanzo's courtship story. She would stand in the doorway and watch him drive the buggy the mile and a half from town. He would pull up to the door; she would hop in and off they drove through the rolling prairie. It's a very romantic place, but there were less trees then, so maybe I'm just the one romanticizing. One of their favorite locations for them to go was the twin lakes. Henry and Thompson are divided by a thin str

De Smet, South Dakota ~ The home of Laura Ingalls Wilder. And boy this town is all about that. We got here this morning and spent the day at the homestead of Laura's childhood. Little of the buildings of that time remain on this site, but many examples have been restored. I found even just standing in the places that these stories have woven into our hearts to be an impactful and moving experience. It is a charming and beautiful country, with rolling hills, a lot more tree

We are going on a trip later this week. It's a short blitz through some sights, and then a conference. I'll try and blog about it a bit. Don't you just love it when people go on trips and post pics from the airport, pics from the plane, pics from the hotel, pics from the beach.... you get the idea. It's a real problem where people (especially young people) keenly feel when others lives feel more exciting. So I'll try and keep it under control. If you want more pre trip talk y

We have been out skiing/snowboarding two days so far. Depending on how keen you are, we will each do one or two more days of skiing. It's been a blast. I have had only one big fall. The crash was not so bad in this case. It was the slide afterwards that did not sit well with me. I had gotten rather warm, and in an attempt not to sweat I had just removed my mitts. Then I went down a steep run. As I went back and forth, I got going a bit too fast and crossed up my skis. So I t

I'm in BC! My family loaded into the van at 6 pm on Sunday and had made it deep into the Rockies by Monday at 2 pm. We drive without stopping. I like covering a huge amount of Canada in a short time. We are out here to ski. I'll get some pictures of that up soon. I am still in one piece. On our way to Radium where we are staying, we made a whistle stop at Lake Louise. My attempt at a selfie was quite bad. So we commandeered a gentlemen to take a decent shot. I thought that th

Right down the street from where we were staying, this ferris wheel gave a continual show. Stone, Security and Spectators. I think that sums up the Washington D.C. experience quite well. Security Security is absolutely everywhere; they search your vehicle to get into the parkade. They run you and everything you're carrying through x-ray machines to get back into the parkade. It was just as difficult to get into some museums as it was to get into Congress. The most difficult

I promised last month that I would tell about the Holy Land Experience in Orlando. We went there on a cool day (by Florida standards). It cost about $40 per person, which may sound expensive but in comparison to other parks and attractions it comes in on the cheaper end. Supposedly it was built to be similar to the true holy land, but it is difficult to make comparisons. I admit I have not been to Israel but it did not seem like these people had gone there either. Alright, be