ARRIVED IN SD

We made it safely to SD on Thursday the 12th, following an uneventful trip. We had good weather and good roads w/o road construction, and stayed in Des Moines overnight. We made it to Ken and Margie, our bed and breakfast hosts by dinner time and Dorothy joined us also. We got a few games of ripple in as well.
Friday was the beginning of the festivities, when we met at the King's Inn in Platte at 10 AM for the Vander Ley reunion. We had a nice time visiting with relatives, looking at pictures, and followed by a delicious lunch catered by some local women. There were more attending in the evening for the dinner at The Pizza Ranch (about 50).
Saturday we went to Sioux Falls for the Nettleton Reunion held at the Convention Center/Sheraton. It was a lovely evening with approximately 90 in attendance and organized by Sharon (Brunsting) Bultje and Diane (Nusz) Sauer. They served a wonderful dinner and there were great gifts and prizes, and we were the lucky ones that evening. Everyone received a bottle of wine made in Fargo, ND, Diane's hometown. Everett and Arlin Maas were each given a pen/pencil set for coming the fartherest, and Everett bought one raffle ticket and his name was drawn. We received a lovely counted cross stitch picture, matted and framed, that Sharon Bultje had done. We felt honored to have been chosen. We stayed overnight at Vern and Sharon Bultje for the evening and left early Sunday morning so we could pick up Mom and take her to church.
We had a great Sunday noon meal, at Margie and Ken, with Gloria , Jaylon and Duane, as well as Keith and Val, Clayton, Cody, Cassidy and Carly in attendance. It is so gracious of Margie to invite others to give us a chance to meet family. Carly is the newest member of the family born July 5 and is so cute and tiny. He brothers and sister love her to pieces.
We joined Ken and Margie for Sunday evening services in their church and had a chance to meet some other acquaintances. We also played more games of ripple!! Keith called early evening to say he was taking Val to emergency as she was hemmoraging. He called again about 11PM that she had stablized and would be coming home. We are grateful that after a Dr. app't this morning things look good and a D&C might not be necessary.
We picked up Mom at 8:30 this morning so we could take her to a chiropractor app't in Stickney. We did not understand that this Dr. was in Mitchell only on Monday. Thankfully they could get us in in Mitchell and we were headed that way so Mom had her treatment. Wow it made quite a difference to her. She had a fall a few weeks ago,down about 4-5 steps, and it made her sore in lots of places, so we are grateful she had this treatment.
We got most all of our shopping finished before lunch so got home on time so Mom could make the bingo game at 3!!
We are off to have dinner with Dorothy this evening.