We made it home yesterday. Overall the trip was pretty good. Cory enjoyed most of his conference, although he felt some parts of it were rather pointless. I have to say that spending two days in a motel room with two small children isn't something I want to do any time soon, but we all survived.

On Wednesday, we picked Cory up from work in Sioux Falls and drove to Mitchell to spend the night at our friend Sara's house in order to break up the drive a little. Accalia thought that was pretty fun to actually spend the night instead of just coming for a visit. Cole slept for about two hours after we took off Thursday morning, and we stopped at Kadoka for lunch after he woke up. Side note: Kadoka is where Cory and I spent our second night of wedded bliss on our way out to Spearfish Canyon. After lunch, we drove on to Wall Drug and stopped there so Accalia could run around. We picked up our requisite free bumper sticker (to put on Accalia's car) and then headed on to Rapid City. Before Cory started his conference, we had time for a dip in the pool. They had a really tiny kiddy pool separate from the big pool, so that was really nice. Cole loved it, and he actually scraped up the bottoms of his toes from jumping up and down so much in the pool. After Cory was finished listening to the keynote speaker, we headed out for supper at Outback (Cory's choice) then came back to the hotel where the kids crashed for the night.

The next day the kids and I visited Dinosaur Park. Accalia loved running up and down the hillside and seeing all of the huge concrete dinosaurs. I think the park was built back in 1939 (late 1930s for sure) by the Works Project Administration. After that, we made a trip to Toys R Us (one of two) so Accalia could become the proud owner of a tutu. She's gone through two since her ballet fascination began, so hopefully this one will last a while. We also stopped at Borders, and I saw a book there that caught my eye: Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breasts. I think that's another one to add to my wish list.

Over the course of the rest of the day, we managed to hang out at the hotel, take in a meal or two and once again relax. After supper at Applebee's, Cole fell asleep and Cory took Accalia to the pool, so I had a few minutes of peace in the hotel room and finished up the Jeffrey Deaver novel I'd been reading.

On Saturday, I took the kids to a park before we left Rapid City. The ride home went much better than expected. Cole slept nearly three hours until Chamberlain. An hour past that we were in Mitchell again where we stopped for supper. We headed home after that, with one brief stop to nurse a cranky boy. Cory's parents had stayed at our house while we were gone in order to dog sit Lucy. How nice was that!?! And Cory's mom cleaned our house. LOL! It's hard not to feel like a complete failure as a housekeeper coming home to a house that clean. It was definitely appreciated, though.

Today we haven't been doing much. Made a trip to the grocery and dollar stores and just hung out around home. Cory took both kids (my first time completely along since Cole was born!) to the library, but that only lasted about a half hour because Accalia was so out of sorts. I did manage to answer my online help forms for LLL during that time, so that was nice. Both kids have just falled asleep in the past half hour, so they were both going until past 10. Way beyond what they should have been! They were both so overtired, but I think they were both so happy to be home and have their stuff again.

This will be a short week at home. We're leaving Thursday for Mankato and won't be back until Monday. My mom is rather anxious to see the grandkids. It's been more than a month, and she hasn't seen Cole crawl yet and hasn't checked out his two teeth.