Yellowstone!

We tried to get going early, but it was quite a drive to get anywhere in the park so it seemed like it was a slow start.  We took a hike around the Norris Geyser basin -- it was so pretty, and so hot!

After some lunch and a long break we decided to drive up to the north end of the park

 We snacked, the kids slept, we got out for little jaunts every now and again.  The park is so amazing as we went through forests, deserts, mountains, pastures -- it has it all!  We ended the day by visiting the waterfalls.  I didn't get any good pictures because I was quite certain that someone was going to fall of the cliff at any given moment -- fortunately, no one did.

a 48 hour day

It isn't really July 20th when I'm writing this, but I am going to back date the posts so that I can keep track of where we were when.

We are off on our adventure!  We left the house in pretty good time.  It is 14 hours from Bloomington to Mount Rushmore so instead of booking a hotel room in advance we decide to just see how far we get and stop somewhere in South Dakota.  It isn't that populated so surely we won't have any trouble finding a place to stay, right?  The kids were very good on the first day and we made it to Minnesota by lunch time.  I missed Iowa, but took this picture thinking I would catch all of the state lines on our trip.  Sadly, this is the only one.

Minnesota is so pretty and, as usual, we think, hey!  We could live here!  But the mosquitoes at the rest stop helped me to quickly change my tune, yikes!  By midafternoon we had made it to Mitchell so we pulled off to take a gander at the Corn Palace!

 It was had a big auditorium, and, most importantly, some nice bathrooms.  We also picked up a few corny snacks.

 The flavored popcorn was amazing -- seriously the best we'd ever had.  I had determined to not break my "no eating sugar" rule even during our trip, but after the white chocolate caramel popcorn was presented to me that resolution was thrown out the window for the duration.

 Aaah, the prairie -- it is quite pretty!

 By late afternoon we had made it to the badlands.  We got out of the car for a bit of hiking and determined that we would just stop in Wall for the night.

 It's never not a good time to check our texts...

 The Badlands were so cool!  We had never been there and realized we hadn't planned enough time there -- as a rule, we're chronically bad at planning out an itinerary.  We're better the second time around... Phin loved it so much we had to promise that we would return someday.  The whole rest of the trip he kept asking if we were in the Badlands again. 

 So we piled back in the car and drove into Wall.  Not a single vacancy!  And that place was chock full of motels!  So we stopped in the next town, and the next, and the next place that wasn't even a town, but had rooms rented out behind the convenience store... nothing!  It turns out that there was a music festival in Rapid City that weekend and that everything was booked within 100 miles.  We finally pulled into Mount Rushmore around 1 a.m.  We tried to get as comfortable as we could in the car and went to sleep.  As my head bobbed, and my body contorted to find a tolerable position, I couldn't help but say a prayer of thanks that my children are so wonderful!  Not a one of them complained about the situation, there was no one whining about how cramped and horrible it was.  They are really nice kids who just roll with the punches for the most part.  Aaaah.  

At 5 a.m. Matthew turns to me and asks if we should just get going.  Yes!  Definitely!  Let us not prolong this night one more minute, thank you very much!  So we drove up to Mount Rushmore to watch the sunrise.  Surprisingly enough, we had the whole place to ourselves!

 We then hobbled our way in and out of Montana and Wyoming to Yellowstone.  Matthew was such a good driver while everyone else drifted in and out of consciousness.  I drove one scary stretch through some very curvy mountain roads, but I think he took care of the rest of it.  We basically just drove through the park to get to our hotel in West Yellowstone, MT -- we had had the foresight to book something there, but that made more sense at the time.

We saw some buffalo

 And some elk... no bears, though.

kind of a dud

Happy Independence Day!  We were so excited because they were going to have the old fire truck to take the kids on rides again this year -- I think it has been several years since it has come -- but Phin woke up feeling very sick and started throwing up.  So, so, sad.  So the girls and I went and participated in the usual parade around the street, hot dogs, visiting, etc.  Archie was too nervous to get on the fire truck so we just stood on the sidelines and waved at the girls.  We were supposed to do some fun things in the afternoon, but we just stayed home because of the sick boy.  Our awesome neighbors took Ibby with them to see the fireworks and at the last minute I grabbed Lucy and we drove a couple of blocks over to the hospital parking deck and watched from the deck. I was surprised how many other people had had the same idea so it was quite a party up there.  I think that people who don't enjoy crowds (Matthew) and loud noises (Charles) would definitely like this arrangement, but I personally prefer to be closer to the action, as it were.  The fireworks simply didn't seem as out of this world from a few miles away.  When we got home, Phin was looking out his window and had seen a few over the treetops.  It is so sad to be sick on a holiday, why not any other day?

I got some super cute shoes in the mail yesterday.  One of my sweet "what the sheep" friends just sent them to me for the cost of shipping.  It makes me excited for cold weather (because heaven knows I'm not wearing anything close-toed until that time).

 And this is my harvest for the day...  It has been such a mild summer.  We haven't put in our window air conditioning units yet, and I don't think we will at this point since we're leaving so soon.

a day away

Matthew is always so nice and takes some time off for my birthday since he knows that I love adventures!  This year I was teaching a class that night so we decided to go a couple of days later up to Chicago.  He took the kids to a children's museum near the temple while I did a session and then I took them downtown to the Museum of Science and Industry while he did a couple of sessions.

I'm blind!

Ibby's glasses broke -- I cannot for the moment recall exactly how...-- but she cannot see very well without them and I hadn't gotten new glasses for about four years and my prescription had changed so we went in to get some new frames.  We were quite the sight (haha, sight... oh, I kill myself) the whole time with the boys trying on everything and rolling around in the middle of the floor as is their wont. 

 I'll show off our choices in the next post!

can't keep him contained

Archie loves being outside!  Here he is with our cute neighbor.  We love them so much!  They share food with us and watch our cat -- what more could you want in a neighbor, right?

activity day camp

So another thing that has been taking up my mental space is that I was semi in charge of a day camp for girls ages 8-12 at church.  I did it last year, too.  It was this past Thursday and Friday and turned out so well!  I guess the months of planning paid off.  Our theme was the Wizard of Oz -- Follow the Yellow Brick Road back to our Heavenly Father.  The last two years we've gotten tee shirts for all of the girls, but we decided to mix it up and make them all gingham aprons like Dorothy.  We started out with a class on Family History, had mini classes on having a brain (calligraphy), a heart (FHE kits), and courage (improvising scenarios).  We also had an original skit that was about "Dot" going on adventure and having some hard choices to make.  The second day they made a cute craft that said, "There's no place like home," played water games outside, practiced the skit some more, and finished up with a great talk about all the choices we make in life that lead us back "Home."  We all came back for a potluck dinner that night with all of the families and the girls performed their play.  Here are some pics:

::the checking in table

 ::somewhere under the rainbow!

 ::baskets for all of the girls with their aprons, place to put lunches, etc

 ::our craft

 ::all of the cute girls -- we combined the two wards in town

 ::gym set up for our dinner

 It was really great, but incredibly exhausting!  I'm afraid I offended one of the girls last night when I exclaimed how happy I was that it was over.  Not that I didn't want to be with them anymore, but there was the constant stress of what was going to go wrong!  Nothing did.  We were blessed.