Staying Cool

I tried to make last week less busy for us all so the girls could recooperate from their California trip and adjust to the time here. I did a pretty good job, but then we got some pool invitations we just couldn't pass up! So we ended up swimming many hours a couple of days last week which wore us all out! The good thing was that the weather was pretty hot and humid, so the pool time was much appreciated!

At our neighbor Bethany's house.

At the Vos pool (from our ward).

Teddy, Austin, Noah, Karissa, Erik

Erik finally got comfortable swimming with his life jacket on without me!

 After two days of swimming, Thursday was a bit of a let-down, but I finally convinced them all to come to the park for playgroup, even though it was crazy hot. It turned out that some of their really good friends were there, even the bigger kids. Before we left to go home, Erik found this little guy trapped in the garbage can. After we all admired it's cuteness, we tipped the can over and set it free.

Little Racoon

            

California Dreamin' Pics

 I learned how to put those California pictures on my blog!!

Grandpa's pool!

Beach day!

Slumber Party!

Karissa wanted Francesca to read to her every night!

Raiding the fridge

Little mermaid

Waffles for breakfast!

Crazy car girls

Really crazy car girls!

Last day!

They wore Grandpa out!

Vacation and Staycation

Victoria and Karissa got to go on one of the best vacations that they have ever been on. Why? Because they flew by themselves to Southern California to visit my dad and stepmom with the other girl cousins that are just older than them. Mary Lou and my dad have been having these "cousin reunions" for a long time now (some of their grandchildren are in their mid-20s) and I've always enjoyed hearing about the different groups of cousins that get together to be spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa Anderson. Well, my girls were finally old enough. They met Mariah 14 and Natalie 12 (my sister's kids) and Francesca 15 and Audrey 10 (daughters of two different step brothers of mine). Since I wasn't there, I don't have all the group shots on my phone, though I did save all the pics I was texted, but for some reason I can't get those in the right place to put on my computer. I have some that Victoria took with her phone, but an 11-year-old doesn't take too many group shots...

They went to the science center, the beach, tide pools, and swam in the pool, a lot! They also got to see the temple, pick fruit from the orchard, do facials, manis and pedis, water balloon fight, and eat lots of yummy food.

Excited to leave!

A familiar site to me

The Pacific Ocean!

Meanwhile, I got to experience life with just boys. Let me just say that halving the amount of children you're with for 5 days makes a big difference! I made sure to do many fun activities with the boys which was easy and so fun! Normally with the four of them, there's always someone who doesn't want to do what I have planned. With the younger boys, I had no complaining! We went to Jungle Java, got frozen yogurt, played at the park, went to the splash pad, rode our bikes, played with friends, went to the $ movie, went to the $ store, went to the hands on museum and enjoyed quiet times at home. Since I was able to dedicate a lot of time to the two of them, I also had more free time to myself and with Jason. We started to miss the girls by the end of the week, though. On Saturday Austin woke up and asked if they were back yet, it was cute. They came home that night.

Thanks Dad and Mary Lou for letting my girls experience that! We all benefitted from it!!

Correction

Correction from my last blog: I said Wind Cave was 90-95% discovered and I meant to say that's how much has not been discovered. That makes a big difference!

Iowa and South Dakota

We just came back from a 10-day trip using our camper. We got to see my cousin Celeste in Iowa City a little longer than we usually do when we pass through. They will be leaving Iowa City next summer so we had to spend a little more time before they move to Salt Lake City. It will be sad not having them there to break up our trips out west. There was a bonus this time. Celeste's mom, my Aunt Terry, and her husband and other daughter, Doug and Danielle, were there. So we had a nice reunion!

Splashing in the puddle after the rain with Celeste's kids.

Me, Aunt Terry, Celeste, Danielle

Doug and Celeste's youngest, Lennon.

After our visit in Iowa City we took a shorter drive to Sioux Falls to see some of the sites there. We enjoyed a show called Best Show on H2O. It was a very cool water skiing show that impressed us all! That was also the first night we got to use our camper as a hotel. We were able to put it up quickly and take it down really quickly the next day before we left. We stayed at a Fairground in Sioux Falls. It did kind of remind me of a redneck gathering with all the campers and trucks smooshed together, but it did the job and luckily we were in a less crowded area.

Enjoying the show.

Cool formations

and stunts

Sioux Falls

We found some ducklings with their mama trying to fight the current.

When we finally got to the Mount Rushmore KOA in South Dakota, we were excited to see Gramms and Abuelo. They met us there with their camper which was nice to have in addition to ours. Since we did travel a long ways and were planning to stay only in our camper, with the exception of Celeste's house, it was nice to have some extra space to spread out. Ours is very roomy with lots of sleeping space, but there's is better for food preparation. They also brought all of the food for the meals we ate at the campground. We ended up eating a lot of the meals at the campground inside the camper. It was very bright and sunny during the meal times and the awnings didn't help for breakfast or dinner. The sun was on the side of the awning shining very brightly on us. I can't complain about the weather though, it was very nice, just brighter than we're used to!

We stopped at Wall Drug on the way. It's this huge shopping are in the middle of no where. I guess they're known for their doughnuts, so we had to try one. I'm not a big doughnut fan, but I thought they were pretty good!

We saw Mount Rushmore, of course, and enjoyed hiking there. We saw the Badlands which were awesome and very hot. We swam a little and hiked around Sylvan Lake which was absolutely gorgeous! We also went to Deadwood to see a historical shootout. We enjoyed seeing many animals on the sides of the roads throughout many of our road trips to the various sites. We enjoyed the facilities at the KOA which included a pool/spa, a water slide, a giant chess and checker board, miniature golf, splash pad, playground, and basketball and volleyball. We also enjoyed playing with the outdoor toys we brought from our home like balls and jump ropes. I think the kids favorite thing to see in the area was Wind Cave that we saw on our final day there. The cave is an underground "spaghetti bowl" of tunnels. They have only discovered 90 or 95% of it so far! It's about 145 miles long!! We just went on a small tour through a few miles if it. On the way back to the campground we went to the wildlife loop at Custer State Park and saw many more animals including Buffalo walking right around our car!

Mt. Rushmore

Erik doesn't like group shots...

The Badlands are bad because the weather is so extreme there, at least that's what I think!

Badlands

Why did the pronghorn cross the road?

Sylvan Lake 

Fun at the campground...

We ate at Teddy's Deli one evening, as in Teddy Rosevelt.

Austin tried rock climbing at the camp ground.

Erik loved the water slide! He went down many times!

Goat jaw

We went down 200 feet in the Wind Cave.

Box formations are only found in Wind Cave. the picture doesn't even do it justice. 

Just passing by...

Making Juice Box buddies in the car on the way home. 

I think the area around Mount Rushmore is an underestimated vacation location. I recommend people go there and enjoy all of nature's beauties there. We had a great time visiting with family and seeing all of God's creations!