Parental Visitation #2

Williston is a pretty cool place so the notable thing here is not that we've had two sets of visitors in two months, but why there haven't been MORE visitors :)  Tanner's mom had UEA break from school this last Thursday and Friday so they decided to make a quick trip up here.  It worked out perfectly because it was already a weekend I had off and Tanner had a day off this month to use.  His mom and dad and grandma drove up Thursday and we had dinner together that night.  Driving here in a day makes for an early morning and lots of tiredness.  So we ate and chatted and then they headed to their hotel.  The next morning was Williston tour day.  Tanner is a great tour guide so we drove all around.  Showed him a bunch of stuff about his work and how the oil gets shipped out, they saw plenty of oil rigs and basically all the greatness Williston has to offer.

Grandma Elaine only has 5 more states to visit now.  Good thing we gave her a great reason to come to North Dakota.  She says we need to move to Delaware next :)

We also drove out to the Yellowstone/Missouri River Confluence Center.  We wandered around there for a bit and then watched a video about the history of Fort Buford (right next to the confluence).  Apparently Sitting Bull surrendered there at the end of the Great Sioux War in 1881.  We learned some stuff.  They popped us popcorn and gave us beverages.  Elaine and I dozed off here and there.  It was a fun time.

After that we came home and played some games and watched some baseball and ate some food and laughed and talked and had a great time.  We taught them one of our favorite games, Mexican Train.  We played it both nights.  And I won, so that's always a bonus. 

The next day we did a little more driving around.  We showed them some man camps and some of the country with rigs all over the place.  They really loved it actually.  It's so different up here and it's fun seeing that newness through other people because it's starting to become sort of normal for us.  We also went out to Lewis and Clark State Park and did a little wandering around.  That's actually two things we'd never done before that we got to check off our list so it worked out nicely for everyone.

The "trail" was a mowed patch of grass.

 There were a couple sections that we walked through that were narrow and covered in trees and the colors were still a little lingering awesome and it was cool all the leaves on the ground and it smelled great and it felt like home for a minute.  It was really pretty. 

Detour around the flooded tunnel.  Grandma Elaine was killing it.

 After that we went out to eat at a new Williston restaurant - Williston Brewing Company.  My first time, but Tanner had been there a few times.  It was pretty sweet and delicious and we ate a ton of food and life was good.  Then it was back home for more games and baseball.  And that was it.  Then they had to go back to the hotel to get some sleep for their early departure the next morning.  Sad.  It was so much fun to have them here and let them get a better visual glimpse of our life and just to spend time with them.  We miss our family a lot.  Only one more month till we get to take another trip home.  Hooray!