a day in the city

One of the last days of summer vacation, Heather and I decided to take our kids for a little field trip to Sioux Falls.  We planned for a picnic at Falls Park and then a trolley ride downtown.  10 kids, 2 mom’s, a trolley, in downtown Sioux Falls sounds like a recipe for disaster.  It really was the opposite of that!  It was so much fun.  I think the best part was watching the peoples faces as we all loaded the trolley at each stop!  I sat next to an elderly man who after observing Heather and I file onto the trolley with all our kids, points at all the kids and says, “Sooo…what are you folks apart of?”  Apart of?  Oh, so many answers to that question ran through my head.  I didn’t want to confuse, fluster, or embarrass the poor man.  So, I decided to go with the most appropriate one and explain to him that it wasn’t any sort of childcare program, but rather two mom’s spending an afternoon with their kids. 

After our picnic at Falls Park we all boarded the trolley and headed downtown.  We viewed some of the Sioux Falls Sculpture Walk 2013 from the trolley and some on foot.  We also stopped at the diner on Philips Avenue and shared malts and floats.  We ended our day at Target! I still can’t believe that we took all 10 kids school supply shopping, but we did.  We had a plan going in, and it was executed pretty well.  The big kids helped supervise/entertain the little kids while we conquered one list at a time.  The day was completely free of any tears, melt-downs, or even complaints.  The only mishap was me leaving the stroller on the trolley at one of the stops.  Even that turned out fine.  The trolley driver spotted us sitting outside the Philips Diner and hand delivered it to us.  When I was thanking him for going out of his way to deliver it to me he said, “Not a problem, good thing you were easy to find with all those kids.”