Sandhills of Nebraska

We have a friend at church who manages a golf resort in the sandhills of Nebraska, near Valentine. (A funny story about Valentine that has nothing to do with this post.  When Nathan and I were engaged, we attended Heartland Community Church where Nathan was the associate pastor.  One Sunday the senior pastor was away, preaching in Valentine.  Nathan was preaching at our church, and explained the senior pastor's absence by saying, "Jim is away doing pulpit supply in . . . um . . . somewhere in Nebraska, I think he's in Loveland."  The pastor's wife said, "No, he's in Valentine," and one of my favorite ladies from Heartland laughed out loud and called out to Nathan from the audience, "You're in Loveland!") So our friend very graciously invited us to spend several nights at the golf resort during my fall break, which we did.  We left Sioux Falls after school on Friday and stayed four nights.  The resort is basically closed for the season, so when we got there Friday night there was literally no one there!  Eden was a little creeped out, and I must admit that I did think about The Shining for a brief moment, but then we all realized how fun it was!  We had two rooms, plus the whole resort to ourselves!  Z was in his element.  He explored the whole place pretty much from top to bottom that night and the next day.  He and Eden loved the pool table, and Z even beat Nathan twice at pool!  The pure joy on Z's face the first game he won was fantastic.  We also found an official poker table with cards and chips, so Nathan taught Z how to play and then we had a family poker game.  It reminded me of being at Sally Lane Resort when I was a kid and Dad teaching Caleb, Micah, and me to play poker.

On Sunday afternoon a group of women arrived for a retreat, so we weren't alone anymore, but still fully enjoyed ourselves.  The sandhills are an odd little area of Nebraska.  Not fit for farming, they're mostly ranch land.  But the resort's property is cut through by a gorge which has a beautiful river at its bottom called the Snake River.  We hiked around the property and ventured out to Valentine and the surrounding areas.  Rest and relaxation was had by all.

Hiking down to the Snake River

The Snake River

A deer on the golf course.

A gorgeous moonrise which my camera couldn't do justice to.

Z feeling his oats.

Father and son.

Lots of windmills scattered around from old ranches.

Like a mirror.

Prairie dog town!  There's a prairie dog behind Eden.

A hike to a nearby waterfall (not on the resort)

Trying to take a selfie with Z.  Very difficult.

Success!  (Kind of)

Z imitating the Sand People from Star Wars: A New Hope

I hiked down to the Snake River by myself and laid on the bridge for awhile.  Lovely.

I came back up to the resort to find Nathan and the kids practicing their putting.

Eden took about 10 pictures of us in this heart shaped sand trap, but never quite managed to get her finger out of the picture!

Critical Thinking

The other day Z was telling me about his social studies class, in which they've been studying and discussing 9/11.  His teacher asked the class whether it was true or false that the American government had forced all Muslims to leave the country after 9/11.  The class responded that it was false.  She asked whether it would have been ok for the government to take such action, and the class responded that it would not have been.  To reinforce this she said that such an action would be like saying that everyone with blue eyes had to leave the country because a few people with blue eyes had done something bad.  After Z told me this, he said that even though, of course, kicking out people with blue eyes would be wrong, it was a bad analogy.  I asked him why he thought it was a bad analogy, and he said because the color of a person's eyes does not affect they way a person thinks or behaves, while, of course, a person's religious beliefs do have a profound affect on both of those things.

Good thinking, Z!

A great mind at work.