{small town heaven}

So maybe "heaven" is pushing it a little bit, but, I love my husband's hometown, Milbank, SD.  Milbank  is about an hour from North Dakota and 10 miles from Minnesota.  Just about as Northeast as you can get.  It is a small farming community of about 3,500 folks.  Though I'm not a huge fan of the snow and cold I even love it in the winter.  It is like a tiny Kalispell, the eastside to be exact, especially in the summer.  The huge trees shade the streets because they are so well established and huge that they grow over the smalltown streets so that they touch each other's leaves.  My inlaws backyard meets the city park where we can watch softball and baseball games from the backyard.  An elementary school is a block down with brand new play equipment that my children love.  In the summer I wake up kind of early, get dressed and walk five minutes downtown for a coffee.  Then I spend a half hour making my way back home.  Sometimes I go for a run and find I have to backtrack a lot in order to get my miles in.  Depending on how far I go a lap around the town isn't enough.  I also love a trip to the Milbank Mall.  Mall.  Don't let that word fool you. :)  The "mall" consists of Judy's Hallmark, the Mall Cafe, Leibe Drug and a ladies clothing store, but, I love it.  I always find some crap to buy at the Hallmark store and can usually find a Milbank Bulldogs shirt for one of the kids.  Maybe I love it, too, because I can finally sit around and be lazy without the guilt of not doing laundry, my own dishes or cleaning up some kid mess.  It always seems like a true vacation.  But, the very best part is the family.  Seeing the kids with their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins and Tony with his Dad.  I will never tire of spending time in Milbank.