There are lots of things to do with her here beyond the standard Chuck E Cheese or Playground play date as well. We, obviously don't have the amenities that a major U.S. city avails but Sioux Falls does have some unique offerings like: The Sertoma Butterfly House and SFSD’s own version of Philadelphia’s Please Touch Museum called The Kirby Science Discovery Center located at The Washington Pavilion which, incidentally, houses a café with food that’s actually good enough to forego needing to pack my own. Other fun things to do with the kids in downtown Sioux Falls include the opportunity to watch motion pictures and educational films on a 60-foot wide, four-story cinedome 4D screen if live performances like Seussical or The Russian Ballet aren't your cup of tea.
We really aren’t in the "middle of nowhere" here. We’re in the middle of The United States...where handshakes are binding agreements and integrity flourishes from a deep sense of personal responsibility. Unlike a majority of the country, where unemployment still averages 10+%, it’s not difficult to get a job in Sioux Falls, SD. The unemployment rate here is closer to 3%.
We are three mouse clicks away from Zappos, Zulilly and the highest-end fashion on the planet, three hours away from the nations’s second largest shopping mall and 10 minutes from the largest single story mall in the U.S.. Also a short 15 minute drive from our new digs is Great Bear Park and a few glacier-fed lake resorts, Lake Madison, Okaboji and The Black Hills / Badlands (Locations where “National Treasure” was filmed). We’ve been told by friends back in Bryn Mawr that the 4th of July fireworks display at Mt. Rushmore tops any pyrotechnics display they’ve ever seen… so that’s on our list of things to do as well.
The only real downside is missing the family and close friends to whom we lived so near. My family is still in the western suburbs just outside Philadelphia and even though we've already enjoyed a few visits here and there... it was nice to know they were only 5 minutes away. We miss them very much but my wife is home almost every night for dinner now and we're spending much more time together as a family. The distance from the rest of our family is made easier by seeing my daughter spend a lot more time with her mommy…and after a year of always missing her, I feel like I have my wife back too... and that’s a very very good thing.