Bears and Caves

After 20 hours over two days, we arrived in South Dakota where we met my sister and her family.  We are staying at a campground with little cabins.  Our cabin has one room with bunk beds but is air conditioned!

We have to go to a common building for bathrooms and showers and we are cooking outdoors over a propane stove.

Rolly frying pancakes

Elizabeth and Beka read a book together

Today we visited Bear Country USA which is a drive-through park with wild animals that come up to the cars.  We saw elk...

reindeer...

wolves...

and the highlight - bears - black bears, brown bears and grizzly bears!

but not all the bears were so intimidating

Briana and Bear Country bear

Later in the day took a one hour hike through a huge cave.

It was a wonderful day of enjoying not only the unusual encounter with wildlife and caves but the equally unusual opportunity of being together with my sister and her family!

Arrival in USA

We made it!  We are in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA (or "America" as the kids call it).  We are starting to come out of the jet lag fog.  The busyness forces us to stay awake during the late afternoons and the early sunrise aids our awakening at 6am. 

We've been running errands like crazy.  The kids each have a well-child check-up at the doctors this week.  They also went to the eye doctor yesterday for a thorough check-up.  Matthew definitely needs glasses and they are rushing them so they will be ready before we leave on our vacation.  Abigail also needs glasses for astigmatism in her left eye.  Her vision is actually perfect in her right eye and accommodates for the left eye but she often complains “my eyes are sleepy” which equals “eye fatigue”.  She only needs to use her glasses for reading and she’s likely to outgrow this by age 11 or 12.  They picked out frames and we’ll send pictures when they have them! 

George is in Timothy Leadership Training all week.  On Saturday we leave on our 20 hour trip to South Dakota and then on to North Dakota (another 7 hours) for vacation with my sister and family.  We are all ready for some "down time". 

World Missions provides housing for their missionaries on home service.  There are 4 duplexes all together.  We are in 2955.  Here are pictures of our "home" for the year.

Driveway with 3 of the duplexes - ours is on the far right

Our half - 2955

Playground between two of the duplexes

Living room

Watching TV in the living room

Kitchen

Elizabeth and Matthew share upstairs bedroom

Our bedroom

Upstairs bathroom

Abigail gets her own bedroom downstairs

Downstairs family room - or should I say golf closet

Office for George to work in

Laundry room

Downstairs bathroom

Sunday we were invited down to a family's house on a lake.  It was a very good afternoon of relaxation and swimming!

Pleasant Lake

Swimming

Abigail spent most of the time in the paddle boat

Jumping from the dock

Finding shade under the porch