Family Vacation 2008 Part 9

While Hubby and Princess were bouncing along, taking a zillion pictures of Jeeps and talking Jeep talk with the other Jeep crazies, Belle and I had a great night of vegging out in the hotel room, ordering pizza and watching a chick flick. Good times were had by all!

Thursday, June 12th

Thursday was the day Hubby had been waiting for his entire life. I would love to say it involved time spent with me but no, it’s all about the Jeep these days. Here are some pictures from the day he and Princess spent Jeeping.

Keep in mind I have no idea who these people are. I have no idea whose Jeeps these are. I don’t even think there’s a picture of Hubby’s Jeep in them. But I suppose to be entirely fair I have to show them to you since it was a part of our family vacation.

Well, that was exciting!

While Hubby and Princess spent quality time with the Jeep, Belle and I hung out at the hotel and attempted to go on two walks. But every time we would venture out it would start to rain so then we’d run back in. The second time we actually got about 6 blocks from the hotel to an ice cream place before it started raining. You know me and ice cream – it was definitely worth getting wet!

This was the last real day of our vacation. Do you know what that means people? You no longer have to suffer through these updates. I hate to end on “part 9″ but I’m out of pictures and honestly out of things to say about our vacation so part 9 will just have to do!

On Friday morning we got up early, finished packing and hit the road. We arrived home late Friday night and it was so good to be home. We had an amazing week. We made some great memories. We laughed alot. All and all it was a wonderful family vacation – one we will forever be grateful for

Read the entire Family Vacation 2008 series

Family Vacation 2008 Part 8

The crazy herd of teenagers were starting to get crazy again so we decided to call it a day. We went back to our room, ordered pizza and did absolutely nothing for the rest of the night. Now that’s what I call vacation!

Wednesday, June 11th

Are we done yet? Are we there yet? Well if you’ve been waiting to hear about Jeep camp today is your day!

We woke up early Wednesday, had breakfast and loaded up the two tons of luggage and stuff we had brought and/or acquired. I was feeling really sick so I wasn’t looking forward to driving through the hills but didn’t really have a choice.

Oh but first, we got lost and got in a fight! We have this little tradition in our family that every Saturday morning we eat donuts for breakfast. Well I know it wasn’t Saturday but we were really craving donuts so decided before we left town we would get donuts. We look up what we thought was a donut shop, look up the address and Hubby attempts to lead us there. He got lost though and then I got mad (combined with feeling like throwing up) and then he got mad and we never even ended up having donuts. What a bummer way to start the day! Eventually I chilled out and he chilled out and even though I still felt like throwing up we found a bagel shop. I guess that’s the next best thing.

For the next hour we drove through hills and on curvy roads and it was not fun. Icky icky. I hate feeling nauseous, I’m SO thankful that is over with! We finally made it to Deadwood and to the hotel. Unloaded our two tons of luggage and other stuff we probably didn’t need. Our room was kinda small but the beds were amazing. They had these huge down comforters on them. I was so ready for bed by the time we got there!

Of course there are more important things to do than sleep. Like go find other crazy Jeepers and stand in the rain talking about Jeep stuff. The drive to the Jeep camp headquarters was about 30 minutes. Thankfully I wasn’t driving and I was feeling a little better by this time. We found Jeep camp and met some real nice people.

Here’s Jeep camp. Ya, we’re kinda wimpy. Almost everyone else actually camped at Jeep camp.

Hubby drove me and Belle back to the hotel and then he and Princess got ready to go out on a Jeep night drive. I almost decided to go instead of Princess. But I was real fearful that I would get sick again and we’d be in the middle of nowhere and that would be a major bummer. Although I’m not a Jeep crazy like Hubby I was pretty bummed I didn’t get to go.

There they go!

No, this isn’t anything Jeep related but isn’t it so beautiful!

Here’s some more Jeep pictures from their night drive. Hold on to your hats – the excitement is overflowing around here folks! (Sorry Hubby, I mean no disrespect).

While Hubby and Princess were bouncing along, taking a zillion pictures of Jeeps and talking Jeep talk with the other Jeep crazies, Belle and I had a great night of vegging out in the hotel room, ordering pizza and watching a chick flick. Good times were had by all!

Stay tuned. More Jeep camp pictures coming soon!

Read the entire Family Vacation 2008 series here.

Family Vacation 2008 Part 7

Almost done with our Family Vacation report! Whew, it’s been a long one!

Finally we had enough sight seeing and headed back to the hotel. Although we spent probably way too much money the memories we’ve created will last a lifetime and that’s priceless!

Tuesday, June 10th

Our adventures from Monday really wiped us out. We decided that we wouldn’t do anything too extravagant on Tuesday. Get rested up for Jeep camp later in the week. Yes, Jeep camp.

Anywho. We did find a mall and Princess and I assured Hubby that a trip to the mall was an important part of our family vacation. She found the CUTE-EST purple shoes.

I do believe Princess has every color of shoe imaginable. But she’s the cutest thing ever so we won’t give her a bad time. Last week she had her senior pictures and she wore these shoes with a zebra shirt (Why? Because she likes zebras of course!?) and jeans. Again… CUTE-EST thing in the world! Sorry I don’t have a picture of the actual shoes but this is real close to what they look like. Actually this is the shoe only hers are bright purple. Sweet, huh.

I know I bought a few things at the mall too but they obviously weren’t as cool as the purple shoes because I can’t remember what I got. I think a pair of maternity pants. Ya, cool.

We ate lunch at the mall (unfortunately it was not your normal tasty good mall food court variety) and then headed back over to the hotel for what I consider the best part of the day. Nap time! After nap time it was time to venture to the water park. The very large water park attached to our hotel that was filled with about 500 loud teenagers. Good thing we love to help out with our youth group, we know how to handle those crazy kids!

Here’s Princess and Belle getting ready to go swimming!

We rode down the lazy river a few times although it wasn’t really that lazy because like I said we were trying to fend off the teenagers from drowning us. Argh. Finally they all decided to go down the water slides and we had a few minutes of peaceful laziness. Belle loved the water. She loves bath time and anything that involves water. Her eyes get so big and she starts huffing and puffing like she’s going to explode. It’s so funny how excited she gets.

See, this girl’s having fun!

There was a smaller section of water slides with other games and stuff meant for little kiddies. Princess and Hubby were big chickens and wouldn’t take Belle down one of these little slides. So yours truly did and it was a blast. We went down a couple times and then Princess finally agreed to go down a little bigger slide (yet still “kiddie”) one with me. But we got stuck. Ya, that’s right. Not that we were too wide or anything. There wasn’t enough water or something and we couldn’t slide very good. So that one was a bust. We then read the sign that said the equipment was for people who weighed less than 100 pounds. Oops.

We decided to stick to the grown up slides. Hubby took Belle on the lazy river again and me and Princess walked 4 miles up the stairs to the big slides. Let me just stop there and say that if you have a teenager please make sure you know what type of clothing, or lack there of, they are wearing when they go to a water park or pool. I mean come on. And it’s not just the girls. If I would have had to ask one more boy to pull up his shorts, cause ya know I’m not into checking out 13 year old hineys, I think I would have screamed.

Ok, so Princess and I go down one of the big slides and it was AWESOME. And scary. And all that fun stuff the big slides are supposed to be. She convinced me to go down another one that was supposed to be really scary. But it wasn’t that scary, it was pretty lame. And then we went down the first real scary slide again. That’s when I saw it. The sign.

Attention pregnant ladies: Even though you do everything you normally would do at home like clean and laundry and windows and bathrooms and floors and cook and take care of your family you cannot go down this slide and have a little fun. Sorry.

Thankfully I didn’t even see the sign until our last time down and besides that it was ages ago and I wasn’t really showing yet. Princess wasn’t ready to be done with the slides yet so she convinced Hubby to go with. Here they are coming out of the slide.

Nice camera work, huh.

Here’s some more pictures of our water park time:

The crazy herd of teenagers were starting to get crazy again so we decided to call it a day. We went back to our room, ordered pizza and did absolutely nothing for the rest of the night. Now that’s what I call vacation!

Read the entire Family Vacation 2008 series

Family Vacation 2008 Part 6

Goodness gracious I can’t believe I haven’t finished our family vacation report for you. I also can’t believe how much I say “goodness gracious”. Ok, on with part six.

Monday, June 9th

After visiting Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse on Sunday we decided to finish off our sight seeing and hit as many sights today as we could. First we were off to Bear Country. Hubby was most looking forward to this and we weren’t disappointed.

Ok, considering we spent the equivalent of Princess’s college tuition for us all to get in maybe we should have been disappointed. But it was still fun and we laughed alot.

I’m not going to show you too many pictures from Bear Country because really, how interesting are pictures of animals with no people in them? Personally I don’t think they are very interesting. But Hubby did capture a few that are kinda funny and human like. Like this one – big ol’ bear scratching his back.

Or this one. Cute little bear taking a nap. Aren’t his feet just the cutest? They remind me of Belle’s!

We also stopped at the baby animal part of Bear Country and Princess and Belle were able to get their picture taken with a bear!

After Bear Country we were off to Old McDonald’s Farm.

We saw cows.

And goats. Notice Princess’s excitement. I think she’s trying to not fall asleep!

And we saw lambies. I grew up on a sheep farm so the lambs are my favorite part.

That’s my girl. They’re Belle’s favorite too!

And we saw a very big horsie. Not sure if Belle is staring at the big horse or the little horse’s rear! I suppose both very interesting to an 8 month old!

And last but not least, our family photo!

We had much more sight-seeing to do even though I was about ready to drop. We left Old McDonald’s Farm and went to The Cosmos. The Cosmos is this very strange place where the gravity is all messed up. Personally I did not enjoy this stop. I got very nauseous and had to leave and go back to the car. Eewww.

Here’s the family in one of the cabins. If you look closely you can see they are standing crooked.

And we still weren’t done. I think we went and had lunch next at Sonic (Yummo!) and then went to Reptile Gardens. Again we paid an arm and a leg but unfortunately we weren’t as happy with this stop as we were with Bear Country. And I only took two pictures. I was exhausted.

Here’s Belle on the giant turtle.

And another family photo.

Hee hee, that’s flattering.

Finally we had enough sight seeing and headed back to the hotel. Although we spent probably way too much money the memories we’ve created will last a lifetime and that’s priceless!

Read the entire Family Vacation 2008 series

Family Vacation 2008 Part 5

We were exhausted after the picture extravaganza and so went back to the cabin for a nap. We didn’t do much Saturday night. Visited around the fire, ate supper at the campground’s restaurant, endured Princess beating the tar out of us at cards, visited some more around the fire. It was a good day.

Sunday, June 8th

We woke early again Sunday morning. Not by choice but because Belle baby decided to wake up. Poor Princess and uncle Jim. They are definitely not early risers but with us all in the same room they didn’t have much of a choice.

Most of the family was packing up and heading out early so we decided to do the same. We weren’t sure what time we could check into our hotel – we had about an hour and 1/2 drive and so we thought we’d get up, pack, get on our way and if we could check in great, if not we’d do some sight seeing.

It ended up taking us a few hours to pack up, well because Belle’s mom Belle is a pack rat. We then had to make the rounds and say goodbye to everyone with promises to keep in touch and such. Thankfully most of us are on Facebook and keep in touch that way.

We were finally packed and headed out of Custer State Park. It’s so beautiful there. Peaceful. Quiet. I was wishing we could have a few more days. But we had silly tourist traps to waste our money on visit.

We probably should have planned in advance what to do about going to church on Sunday. On the way out of Custer State Park I remembered it was Sunday. I walkie talkied Hubby and reminded him. I wondered if we could find a Bible teaching church. I’m sure we could but in all honesty we were being a little lazy about it and were maybe a little chicken to go visit a church we’ve never been to. I know, that’s silly. Well we decided that as an act of worship for the day we wouldn’t use the computer. Any of us. All day or all night. Now that might not seem like a big deal. And really in the scheme of things it probably wasn’t. But up until that point every one of us were excited to get to the hotel because we knew it had wireless. Princess, who by the way is 17, hadn’t been online for 3 days and believe you me she was ready. (Ok Hubby and I were a little withdrawn too).

We finally make it to our hotel, after a few wrong turns and thankfully are able to check in. That process takes us another hour because remember Belle’s mom Belle is a pack rat. Instead of sleeping like I wanted to do we decided to go visit Crazy Horse and Mt Rushmore. Princess has a friend who lives right next to Crazy Horse and so we dropped her off there and drove into Custer, hoping to visit some shops. Unfortunately it was Sunday and most of the shops were closed. Plus it was about 40 degrees below zero and so our shopping trip didn’t last long.

Princess called and asked to go to Crazy Horse with her friend. We were hoping to all go together but decided to let her do her thing. We later found out that they got the “VIP tour” because her friend’s grandparents own Crazy Horse. Crazy, huh! Hubby, Belle and I went on our own, without a VIP tour, but it was still nice. We wimped out and didn’t make the climb up to the mountain…maybe next time.

After Crazy Horse we picked up Princess and then drove to Mt Rushmore.

I love this picture of the girls!

And this has nothing to do with Mt Rushmore. Although we were in the gift shop at Mt Rushmore. And of course Belle had to try on another raccoon hat. Silly girl!

We were wiped out, probably due to our lack of sleep, driving all over the Black Hills and because the wind was blowing about 100 miles an hour. Thankfully everyone was in favor of going back to the hotel and resting for the remainder of the day and evening.

Only Hubby isn’t much of a rester. He’d rather torture his children. Here he is attempting to catapult himself over Princess. She’s so brave.

Thankfully he only broke her ankles and nothing else! (Nice picture taking, don’t ya think!)

Later on we did decide to play cards and Belle baby was bound and determined to play too.

Little stinker won’t crawl when we want her to but when she wants something she’ll launch herself across the bed! Hubby was getting annoyed so put her in “card time-out”.

FINALLY it was time to go to bed.

Here’s our headless baby sound asleep. You don’t have to report us, we didn’t leave her like that! For some reason anytime we are on vacation or at Grama Susie’s and Papa Al’s or anywhere other than our house she sleeps like a baby – all night long! No wonder her nickname is Little Stinker!

Read the entire Family Vacation 2008 series