A trip to Bottanau

We started our afternoon with a picnic at the beginning of the bike trail. We had some little kitties watching us. 

It was a beautiful autumn day for a ride. 

We collected leaves along the way. We will be classifying later for our botany class. 

This leaf was so huge. We just had to take a picture. 

The gorgeous colorful leaves made for some pretty backgrounds for our pictures. 

Dezzi biking along the picturesque bike rout. 

Lucas enjoying the ride.

We even sawwan old truck hidden in the trees.

Here is lake Metigoshe. We rode around the entire thing about 13 miles. 

We also found some awesome looking mushrooms. 

We did not collect any as we did not know if they were poisonous. 

After our ride we stopped at a point of interest. Have I ever mentioned I love stopping at points of interest? You never know what you might see and learn. 

This time it was all about using the sun to determine the season of the year. 

And to determine the time. 

We even had a lesson on how to count with Roman numerals. 

This was the view. It was breathtaking. 

Another view.

Dezzi posing on this large rock.

Now my handsome little boy. 

Then it was time for some selfies.

My precious gifts from my Heavenly Father. 

Another selfie.

Finally we talked about different kinds of rocks. This one was sand stone. 

And a conglomerate rock.

I thought these were simular to granit but Tim disagreed. 

What are your thoughts? 

Overall it was anot her great family day. We love having daddy home for 6 days in a row so we can take fun day trips like this. 

My little chef.

Tonight Dezzi treated us to home made spaghetti.

She chopped the onion and green pepper.

Diced the tomatoes.

Cooked it all up.

Learned how to use a can opener. 

Mixed some more 

Cooked the little round noodles she chose.  

And even dished everyone's plates. She did a great job. 

Apple picking and a Gerber tool.

This afternoon we had our good friend Elizabeth come over to go apple picking with us. 

They were high up in the tree.

So dad got his ladder out.

And Elizabeth put Dezzi on her shoulders. 

Lucas climes the ladder to get closer to the apples.

Then they were both in the tree tops. 

Elizabeth was supervising.

Relaxing while the kids worked.

During a break time Tim showed Lucas how to use his new gerber.

He did pretty good. 

Time to clean the apples and to use the gerber to pull off the stems. 

Let the juicing begin. 

Field trip #2 Air Museum

Our second stop was to the Air museum.

We got to see lots of things from WWII.

This was a biplane replica. Sorry it got blury.

Lucas liked this yellow model.

There were old fire engins.

And best of all a cockpit that the kids could play in. 

It was a crazy ride. Our destination Rapid City to see the Dinosaurs. 

We went upside down.

And of course things had to be fixed.

There were lots of cool plains. 

Old cars.

This jeep was another favorite of Lucas's.

This was an ejection seat the kids coukd examin. 

Watching planes land and take off. The whole building rumbled. 

All of these planes were from WWII and they all run. We learned they painted swastikas on the plane each time they returned from a successful mission and shot down the enemy.  

We also learned about where the phrase  the whole 9 yards came from. That is how long the ammo would be if it were laid out in a strait row. When they returned from the mission they told the matinence crew they shot the whole nine yards so they knew they were out of ammo and needed to be restocked.