Because our daughter Alissa Crandall and family live in South Dakota we don’t get to see them as often as we would like.  So we decided to take a short trip to visit over Mother’s Day week-end.  Alissa’s birthday was the next day (May 14), so there were two special days together.  We enjoyed our visit, but the travels were a little crazy.

We flew on May 11th from Orange County’s John Wayne Airport to Denver, but couldn’t land because of strong winds.  So we backtracked to Colorado Springs, refueled the jet, and returned to Denver – missing our connecting flight to Sioux Falls as a result of the delay.  So we spent a night in Denver, then cancelled our rescheduled flight on May 12th for a slightly earlier one on another airline – arriving in Sioux Falls late in the afternoon.

Our rental car was a brand new Hyundai Elantra (nice car) with just over 500 miles on the odometer.  But around 20 miles out of Sioux Falls the left front tire exploded – really!

Towed back to Sioux Falls, we started over in a new Toyota Corolla – arriving in Huron just in time to say good night to our four grandsons and eat a delicious warmed-up salmon dinner Alissa had prepared to welcome us to Huron.

Three of Andrew and Alissa’s four boys (L to R – Silas, Elijah, and Levi) were on kitchen duty on Mother’s Day – emptying the dishwasher to make room for another load after Sunday morning breakfast.

During morning worship at Huron’s First Presbyterian Church Pastor Andrew delivered his weekly children’s sermon – along with an excellent message on Christ’s ascension.

Grandma Jan enjoyed the opportunity to do some reading with the three older boys.

She also had fun playing with some light-weight flying disks in the Crandalls’ front yard.

The older boys (Levi and Elijah) spend many happy hours creating things, often with careful discussion and deliberation, with their many Legos.

A park just a block away from the Crandalls’ house is a fun place to get some exercise.

And bikes (Levi and Elijah), trikes (Silas) and a one-man car (Ephraim) are good for exercise on the sidewalks and driveways in the Crandalls’ nice neighborhood.

An unexpected surprise of the trip involved the opportunity to attend Elijah’s pre-kindergarten graduation at the James Valley Christian School he and Levi attend.

Tuesday’s return trip to Southern California came quickly – but the adventure was not over.  Our flight from Sioux Falls to Phoenix went smoothly, but our connecting flight to Orange County was delayed an hour and a half.  When we finally got there, our son Stephen picked us up and took us to our car (11:30 p.m.) and we headed for home on the 55 Freeway – coming to a stand-still on the freeway in just a few minutes because of an accident in the left lanes.  So we arrived home in the early hours of Wednesday, May 16th – happy to have had a nice visit with family, even if the travel was a little crazy.