Pictures from Sioux Falls, SD

Mom has wanted to go up to Sioux Falls for quite some time. We ended up going up there on July 5 and 6. I never would have thought Sioux Falls, South Dakota, would have been fun or interesting. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. A definitely worthwhile day trip from Omaha.
Our first stop was the Porter Sculpture Garden outside of Sioux Falls. The sculptures are made from metal and other materials, including railroad ties.

Most of the sculptures were quite large. You can tell from this broken fishbowl that Ian and Alex are standing next to.

Once we left the sculpture garden, we took the boys to the science museum. I couldn't believe how much fun they had while they were there. Their favorites were playing with the hangliding simulator...

building their own version of the St. Louis Arch, together none-the-less. :-)

and this table they could put their lego houses on to simulate an earthquake. They were both laughing so hard watching the houses shake. I just cannot get enough of their infectious laughter :-)

When we left the science museum, we headed to Sioux Falls Park. This picture was taken from the observation tower. The falls were quite beautiful.

Here's one of my favorites of the boys by the falls. You could climb on the rocks and get as close as possible to the water.

Alex was in a rare photographic mode this day.

We had a nice day hanging out at Sioux Falls Park. We walked around the entire park, had dinner in the overlook cafe, watched Ian and Alex play football, and watched the nightly light and laser show over the falls. It was interesting to hear the history of the falls and Sioux Falls.

We spent the night in Sioux Falls, so we could hit a couple of other places first thing in the morning.

Our first stop was at the Japanese Gardens. Very pretty and quite early in the morning. It must also be a pretty popular photographic site, as we we saw a couple doing engagement pics and a girl having her senior pics taken.

After the gardens, we headed to the Great Plains Zoo. While it's no Henry Doorly Zoo, it was still a nice place to go visit. The boys are always happy to go to any zoo.

We headed back to Omaha after a quick pitstop to a local scrapbook store for me and mom :-)