A Totus Tuus Family: August: a blessing and a blur

Friday, October 4, 2019

August: a blessing and a blur

I'm a bit behind in blogging again, but it's fun to upload these pictures and be reminded what a blessed and busy summer we had. August is our only month free of baseball, so that is always when we do our summer travels. This August was so much fun, but we packed in a lot of fun in a short period of time, so it went by like a blur! Here are the highlights...

Summer wouldn't be complete without doing outdoor chores :)

And this chore was actually fun for the boys. They went on a thistle-picking adventure and they picked over 100 of them in one day! They had fun counting them when they were finished and finding out which one was the tallest :)

I wish I had that much fun doing MY chores! :}

Nathanael had a very special event in August when he was installed as a altar server.

I love how our church takes this role seriously and trains the servers for a week or more.

Nathanael was happy to get trained with some of his best friends from school.

It was also very special that Joseph was one of the senior servers that got to train his little brother :)

I now have 4 out of 5 sons trained to serve at the Lord's holy altar,

and it makes my heart nearly burst with joy! :)

The next big event in August was our vacation to South Dakota.

First, we went to the Black Hills and stayed at beautiful Sylvan Lake with some of Paul's family.

Here are our boys with their Minnesota cousins.

We were on a hike to the highest peak in South Dakota,

although the name of the peak is now debatable :)

It used to be called Harney Peak,

but in recent years it was changed to Black Elk Peak,

which apparently caused some local controversy.

Our family at the highest point (7,244 feet about sea level) in South Dakota:

Harney Peak or Black Elk Peak :)

The hike was 7 miles round trip and was a lovely way to get some exercise

while getting amazing views of the Black Hills at the same time.

This is a beautiful shot of the Black Hills in the background.

In the foreground is a pole containing "prayer flags". I don't totally know what this tradition is all about, but I think the Lakota Sioux still come to this peak for religious ceremonies and prayers, and it must be part of their tradition to tie these flags on this pole and a few of the trees nearby. The Lakota call this peak Hinhan Kaga (Making of Owls), but it was officially renamed recently for a Lakota Holy Man named Black Elk, who received his "great vision" from this peak in 1872.

Our little boys and their cousins floating on Sylvan Lake,

while Michael (wearing red wayyyy in the distance) is fishing.

Another shot of having fun at Sylvan Lake.

A peaceful shot of Sylvan Lake in the evening.

We stayed at very nice cabins right by the lake,

which we highly recommend and hope to do again someday.

One big highlight of our vacation for the little boys was Reptile Gardens :)

This place is a zoo full of snakes, alligators, crocodiles, spiders, and other fascinating/scary reptiles

(all the creatures my boys love and most normal people hate!) :)

They really enjoyed watching this Alligator show...

After the show, they were able to touch a baby alligator named "Fluffy."

Isaiah picked a stuffed animal alligator from the gift shop and named it "Fluffy" too :)

This photo was taken during the snake show, which was also fascinating.

I don't remember what kind of snake this was (perhaps a Kingsnake?), but I remember it was very poisonous, and I was amazed at how calm the snake trainer was!