Two Days In Minnesota

We finally arrived in Minnesota in the wee hours of the morning (a definite recurring event on this trip).  Allen went into Boyd and Sarise's house to figure out where we were sleeping before waking the rest of us up. We all sleepily made our way down to their basement and just before I slipped back to dreamland I worried that we had entered the wrong house and had to get up and look at the pictures on the walls to make sure we were not going to scare anyone in the morning.  Sure enough, there were their cute kids on the walls.  (What a relief!)

In the morning we took turns waking up and exploring the house and yard.  The kids spent a good amount of their day in the backyard catching tadpoles in the pond with their Minnesota cousins.

Here's a great view of their awesome backyard from the upstairs window of their home.  It was seriously a dream come true for the kids to have this little oasis to enjoy.

They wanted to bring the tadpoles home with them but had to settle for a picture of their cute little swimmy friends.  Little O told me, "Can you believe these are teeny baby frogs? They are so cuuuute!"

The older kids did what they are often found doing at home: All-a-Boy found a good book to escape into and Thumbelina wrote in one of her many journals to document every thought, observance and detail of the trip so far.

Little X was thrilled that everyone else was busy because he got to spend some one-on-one time with this super cool car track.

We enjoyed lunch on the back patio together before a pretty heavy downpour hit.

You might be thinking we were disappointed with all of the rain we had follow us on our trip so far.  Not so! We are rain-lovers in our family. And this storm did not disappoint!  There were almost immediate rivers down each side of the street as the rain fell in sheets outside.  The little kids cozied up to watch a movie together and that's when I remembered that All-a-Boy and Thumbelina had walked to the park just before the torrential rainstorm.

I looked out the window and saw them running toward the house, but they did not come inside.  They stayed in the street in front of the house and literally soaked in every bit of fun they could out there.  They kicked, splashed, laughed, screamed, twirled and even pretended to swim and be water-benders.

These two were soaked to the skin and loving it.

Even after the rain stopped pouring down they sat outside in the puddles and talked about who-knows-what. Teenager stuff, I guess.

Eventually they came inside and dried off.  Meanwhile, the little kids were playing games and having a blast with their Minnesota cousins.

It was so fantastic to have a day to just hang out and not drive anywhere.  We loved our time at Boyd and Sarise's and would have loved to have stayed longer!  It was great to spend some time with their three adorable kiddos and get to know them better.  The next morning we went to church with them before heading back out on the road.

Here's my sister-in-law Sarise with their sweet cuddlebug baby J.  I have the best sister-in-laws, no doubt about it! Anyone who can make a family of ten feel completely welcomed and loved in their home deserves... I don't know, something awesome.   

After we left the church we drove to the temple in St. Paul.  We tried to see as many temples as we could on our trip but didn't take the time to figure out where they all were until we got home.  Then we found that we'd driven close to quite a few which we missed.  But this one was beautiful.

The skies were clear as we drove on to our next destination(s): right on the borders of Iowa and Illinois.  I could not get enough of these clouds.  They were so gorgeous they looked fake!

South Dakota: The Mount Rushmore State

The whole fam (minus the photographer) on the Presidential Trail at Mount Rushmore

None of us had ever been to South Dakota before.  And now we wonder why! It's kind of funny that it's mostly known for Mount Rushmore because the Black Hills are seriously breathtaking!  

As we left our hotel and headed toward Mount Rushmore we passed herds of buffalo just grazing on the rolling hills off the sides of the road.  So of course we did the touristy thing and took a few pictures.

On the road to Rushmore we passed a sign for Custer State Park. Allen had read about a picturesque lake there and decided we should go check it out, so we did. And HOLY COW was it gorgeous!

We parked the car and braved the rain to snap a few photos of Sylvan Lake.  The thing is, the pictures just don't convey the true beauty of this place. I kept looking at the actual lake and its amazing rock formations, then looking at the picture I'd take of what I saw and the snapshots never seemed the same as what I saw in real life. (That was kind of a tongue twister but I'm not sure how else to say it.)

We continued to drive through Custer State Park just to marvel in the awesome scenery.  This place easily compares to Goblin Valley or Zion National Park.  I'm surprised we don't hear more about it.  Everywhere we looked these fingers of rock pointed heavenward.  (A quick Google search let me know that these rocks are known as The Needles.  I like Rock Fingers better.)

I must have taken at least 200 pictures from the window of the van. At one point we stopped and let those who didn't mind a little rain jump out and get a picture taken.

We eventually came to this cool little tunnel that only one vehicle can fit through at a time.  We all held our breath, sucked in, and the van barely squeezed through. 

The view from the other side of the tunnel

We probably took more time than we had allowed for in Custer State Park, but I think it was a good thing because the skies began to clear up as we headed toward Mount Rushmore.

My brother Chip told me that if we were going to be in South Dakota we might as well go check out the Crazy Horse Memorial, too.  It is a work in progress, but we went to take a look.  It cost $28 to get into the park there and we weren't planning to stay, so we were happy to just snap a photo from the van and head to Rushmore.

This was our first view of Mount Rushmore.  Pretty cool.

It only cost us $11 to park here, and it was well worth the money simply for the number of license plates in the parking lot that helped us get a whole bunch of states crossed off our list for the License Plate Game. We took quite a few group pictures in the park.

Of all the places we could travel that are east of our home state, Hubba's dream destination was Rushmore. I took individual pictures of each of the kids with the four stone-faced presidents in the background, but Hubba's was my favorite.  He can now cross 'pick George Washington's nose' off of his bucket list. (This was completely intentional. I am all about fulfilling dreams.)

We did the walk along the Presidential Trail, which loops around the park and gets you up a little closer to each of the faces carved into the mountain.  As we were headed back to the entrance I saw this great photo spot and was taking a picture of the family when a sweet older gentleman asked if he could take the picture for me, "because they wouldn't all be here if not for you!" So here's the whole crew.

Little X rode on Allen's shoulders a good amount of the time.  Isn't he a cutie?

Much later than planned we hit the road again and headed for Allen's brother's house in Minnesota.  Just as we left Rushmore the rain started again so we had the perfect window of opportunity during our visit.  As Allen drove I fell asleep, and after a while he woke me because he knows how much I love clouds and storms. Check out this beauty that was lingering over us... 

Awesome, right?

As it started to get dark that evening we were treated to yet another amazing lightning storm all around us.  I tried (in vain) to get a picture of the lightning as it would shoot across the sky and ended up with the following picture, which I think is one of my favorites from our trip.

You're probably wondering what's so fantastic about a blurry picture taken through the window of a moving vehicle.  The thing I love is those flecks of light in that funnel-ish cloud.  I would watch as the lightning would travel from the base of the funnel, up to the cloud, and then explode in a burst of light.  It was like Mother Nature was giving us a firework show and the way the lightning traveled up the funnel was just awesome, like watching a firework travel into the sky before exploding. It's probably one of those you-had-to-be-there kind of moments, but I'm glad I was able to capture a teensy bit of the magic.

On The Road: Day One

How we roll.

The first day into our grand adventure the goal was to reach our hotel in South Dakota.  We had quite a few miles to put behind us and the scenery made the drive even more enjoyable.  

We stopped for gas a couple of times and then again at the entrance to Martin's Cove in Wyoming to get a picture near Devil's Gate (the break in the rocks in the background) and to stretch our legs a bit.

One of our favorite things about Wyoming was the gorgeous sunset that just seemed to get better and better as the sun sank lower into the distance. I wish I could have taken a picture to match what we actually saw but the camera just couldn't do the colors justice.

As we traveled on we were treated to a brilliant lightning storm that continued to wow us throughout the night as it lit up various sections of the clouds or sky in flashes of white and blue.

We arrived at our hotel in the wee hours of the morning and were pleasantly surprised at the warm reception we received by the owner.  As I checked in he let me know that he has turned on the air conditioners in our rooms to cool them down before we had arrived.  He also noticed that there were 2 adults and 8 children and so, assuming we were all one family, we had adjoining rooms on the first floor.  After some excitement from the kids over having televisions and refrigerators in our rooms we all fell asleep within minutes.

As we slept, the storm that had surrounded us along our drive caught up to us and we woke the next morning to overcast skies and a gentle rain. 

Our Trip To Everywhere

Sometime around Christmas or so we decided to take a big family trip this summer.  We knew that Thumbelina would be leaving for college and that she could possibly be enrolled in summer semester, so we planned it for the first 3 weeks of the summer.  We put it on the family calendar so that nothing else would be planned during that time and told the kids to start researching places they would like to go located east of Utah so they could put in requests for stops.

We traveled through each of the colored-in states above, starting in Utah and going in rainbow color order until you end up in Utah again. For the most part, what a fantastic vacation it was!

Before leaving we came up with an itinerary which included the distance and amount of time we would be on the road on traveling days.

Before leaving I made each of the kids a travel bag filled with things to keep them busy, along with a few treats and a pair of dollar store sunglasses.  They got a blank copy of the map above so they could color in each state as we passed through it as well as one of various travel games that I printed off and laminated so they could write on them with dry-erase marker and then trade them with someone else once they were done.  Each bag had a dry-erase board and a travel journal (thank you dollar store!) so that each of them could have a place to write things down either temporarily or permanently along the way.

As a family we completed the license plate game once by the time we got to New York (thank you random driver with Hawaii plates in Palmyra!) and all but finished it again by the time we got home (still searching for Hawaii plates to finish out round two).

One of the best ideas I got (shout out to my friends Jes and Anita!) was to have a mini-version of our van inside the van, moving along a string to show how close we were to our destination. The kids NEVER ONCE asked "Are we there yet?"  The only thing they would say sometimes was, "Do you need to move the little van?" So I'd move it and they would all cheer and then they were content with having a visual reference of how much closer we were to arriving somewhere for the day.

The first picture is kind of like playing I-Spy, do you see our little van?

Here it is up close.

Once the van reached the end of the string we were done driving for the day. Totally brilliant.

Everyone's favorite game was what we called The List Game.  I found simple picture lists online for the smaller kids (find certain road signs, a tree, a dog, a flag, etc.) and made a super long, challenging list for the oldest kids:

Even Little X was able to complete the picture lists and he would get excited to cross things off as he spotted them.  Cowgirl was the first to finish the difficult list.  It required 3 days of constant searching. When the other kids saw that she got her own package of goldfish crackers for this task they were suddenly all much more interested in accomplishing it themselves.  (No one else ever completed it, but it was great to get them looking out their windows!)

Thumbelina graduated on a Wednesday and we started our trip the next morning. This meant that everyone missed the last two days of school, which, as we all know, was no big deal.

Rather than make this a way-too-long post, I plan to give each destination its own page over the next couple of weeks.

Our first stop?  South Dakota!

My Adorable Senior

Thumbelina graduated from high school on May 28th. We are so proud of our senior!  Prior to graduation we had my awesome and talented friend Trish take her senior pictures.  What do you think?

Cutest senior I ever saw!

She was so excited about this idea of making her senior pictures creative that we did a double-sided announcement.  One side was the photo above and the other was the photo below with all of her graduation details included.  Isn't she a beauty?

 

I let her choose the pictures for the announcement, and the sideways one was great for adding wording next to her cute mug, but these two are probably my favorites:

I can not believe this girl is old enough to be leaving home and starting college.  My babies are growing up faster than I can keep up with and it's a tough thing.  But man, oh man am I one proud mama when it comes to this girl and her talents and abilities!  She's going to do just fine.