We're off......

After eight weeks without Allen we'd had enough and so decided to surprise him for his birthday. We arrived at his workplace at about 1130 am on May 28th. The day before his birthday. He was pleasantly surprised.
We are now about to begin week three of the dinosaur dig. We are a small group this year, just Allen, a grad student Wilma, Aljoe our native American employee, Phil our native American Security Guard, Laura our camp cook (yes, even getting paid a bit) and the dogs Marley and Bobasaurus and Jacob our volunteer digger and Jue and Joe the resident goofy girls and jr assistant grocery shoppers. So far so good. We've survived a couple of incredible storms with nonstop lighting and weirdly, no thunder, some high winds and all the joys of remote camping forty miles off the nearest paved road. We have a little motorhome that we are living in. It deserves it's own post all to itself so I will post on that later.
We are in northwestern South Dakota just south of the "town" Morristown. Our cellphones don't work in SD and we have no 3G or other service. So when no one hears from us, that is why. We have been coming to Bismarck every other weekend or so and try to make calls and email on those weekends.
House news. We have a closing date for our house on the 13th of August. Thanks for everyones prayers.
We have a P.O. Box here in ND

P.O. Box 486
Mandan, ND 58554

We still have our Pittsburgh Cell numbers but it is hit or miss on reaching us.

Just a little update, will post pictures later when they are available.

Funny kid things

A couple of funny things have happened in the last week or so.

Julia informed everyone that she has chosen a middle name. Her name is now Julia Rose Shaw. I never knew how important it was to her to have a middle name. I should have listened to you, Susan! Now if you see her, you all know to say "Hello, Julia Rose." Hey, she's making all of us do it!

Jora potty trained herself. She likes the first words I hear every morning to be "Mommy, I'm wearing my underwear, I'm a big geel." (That is not a spelling error, it is actually how she says it.) Allen brought home the Go Potty Go video for Joey a few weeks ago and Jo was hooked. She asked Allen to get it for her from the library two additional times and then last week, TAA DAA! Potty Trained. All I did was put the underwear in her drawer. That's what I call potty training!

Jacob is working on losing another tooth. He has broken the bank this year with his liberal tooth loosing policy. It's gotten to the point that I'm actually a little relieved to see new ones come in and fill some of the gaps.

More snow

A few more pictures of our winter wonderland!

This is after Allen uncovered the car and some sidewalk.

Do you remember when......

...there was nothing in life that could not be fixed by a new sparkley headband?

I do.

Snow Fun....?

Well, it lasted about an hour. Now we're done, had the hot cocoa and are cuddled on the couch, stripped down to underwear and snuggled in blankets with warm rice bags on the toes. A pictorial romp....

Still snowing

Some shots of our area today. I'm guessing we have received about 8 inches and it is still snowing. It is forecast to continue snowing until around 6 pm today. We haven't lost power, knock on wood, and the kids are thrilled. We will post more pictures later today of frolicking and the tears, frozen appendages and hot chocolate that inevitably follows.
Can you find our car in the pictures?

A pattern emerges

I know I should be cleaning and packing but I just thought of something after I read Allen's previous comment.

Allen says the shirt and the axe. I say, hmmmm, something VERY familiar here.

Pernell Roberts, Sean Connery, Allen Shaw.