Family Closeness: Part 3-Mt. Rushmore

I have been really busy. Scratch that, I have been really overwhelmed and that is worse than being really busy because it tends to incapacitate me sometimes. But I have made a list and I feel like I have some control over my life again and I will persevere! (I'm really good at that). Anyway, time for blogging has been scarce, but I decided that I need to do some things to escape and give myself a break. So here you go!

I thought our Mt. Rushmore trip deserved a post of it's own. We stopped there on our way through S. Dakota. It is the third time I have been there (does that seem weird to anyone else?), but the last time we went was when Grace was a baby. By the way, the Mt. Rushmore KOA rocks, seriously, it does. Word to the wise, don't go to Mt. Rushmore after you have been driving all day! Naomi was a handful, to say the least, but can you blame her?

Happy to be out of the car?

There was a flag for every state.

There we are! I learned something new at Mt. Rushmore!

We *tried* to get a picture with all the kids, but Naomi wasn't having it-as you can clearly see.

But we got some cute ones with the other 3 :)

Wahington and Linclon, 2 of my very favorite presidents.

There they are again.

Truly amazing, really.

Uh-oh....

Can you see the frustration in her eyes? Poor girl!

As we were leaving the parking lot we saw the most awesome pack job, EVER! Those black containers with the handles, those are garbage cans! Genius! They were from Maine, they were a looong way from home! (and we scored a "Maine" for our license plate game!)

Keep scrolling down for part 2 :)

Family Closeness: Part 2

We got to spend some time, too short an amount!, with Ray's family in Minnesota. We visited his mom, dad, and brother in Lake Crystal for 2 days, and his other 2 brothers in Minneapolis for 2 days. I was terrible at taking pictures and am kicking myself for all the pictures I didn't get (like one of all the cousins together, and one of the kids with their grandma and grandpa). But I did get some fun ones.

We needed to make this a budget friendly trip so we camped at several KOA's along the way (and we only went out to eat twice, we totally rocked the PBJ's and cereal!!). This one in Billings is the first KOA ever! Not the best picture, but I was standing in the middle of the road and Ray was yelling at me about all the cars coming!

The kids FINALLY got to miniature golf at the Billings KOA when we stayed there for the second time on our way home.

At the park in Lake Crystal with Morgan!

Seth and Maggie had such a good time together, he helped her so much!

Anyone who watches Wipeout as religiously as we do knows what a dizzy dummy is. For those of you who don't know, it is an adult size contraption like the one above that the contestants get strapped to, spun around very fast, then they are released to complete the course. When we got to the park, Elliot stands up and says, "YES! DIZZY DUMMIES!!!!"

I *heart* swings, big trees and evening light.

Ray with his dad and grandma

Ray with his aunt Cheryl. These two are on completely separate ends of the political spectrum and have gotten in many heated facebook discussions (imagine that). It's good to see them getting along!

Naomi loved this piano in the common room at great grandma's apartment!

Great-grandma with the grand kids :)

Grandma talking to Naomi. I just love the expression on grandma's face :)

Grace and Morgan

Ray and his mom and dad

In Minneapolis, the girls played barbies.

Elliot played on the Wii

The only picture I got of Jade

And I didn't get any pictures of Jez and Trina's 4 other kids, or them. I know, I'm lame. We had such a good time visiting them, though! I only wish it could've been for longer!

Family Closeness: Part 1

As I previously mentioned, we recently took a semi-impromptu road trip to Minnesota to visit Ray's family and pick up a piece of equipment for Ray. So we all hopped in Ray's truck. It is a 4 door vehicle, but one of the older kids had to sit in the middle-front the.entire.trip. We were all about the family closeness.

So we were in the car for a LONG time, like around 48 hours total. It was about 5 total days. In the car. Wow. Anyhow, I didn't have a whole lot of time to take pictures so I took a bunch of shots out the window. Here you go, my passenger seat photo essay!

So it was a really long drive, but the whole time I just thought about how amazing the sky was. It was so big and blue and beautiful. Here is a shot of the beautiful clouds of eastern Wyoming.

Grace hanging out in the front seat. You get creative when you are in the car for a long time and do stuff like draw on your feet ;)

Does she look like she is in a stupor? You would be too if you had been strapped in a car seat for that long!

Eastern Montana

Somewhere in eastern Wyoming, just us and the cows.

Grace did a little bit of this, too.

Pit stop in Wyoming, you improvise when you are out in the middle of nowhere and besides, there were no construction workers in sight!

I loved this old truck.

We saw lots of corn!

Not Maggie's shining moment, but can you blame her?

Some cool tee pee structure at a rest area in South Dakota

Um, what can I say?

We saw lots of these.

I'm thinking Shasta ad! It was so windy in North Dakota. We got about 6 mpg, yikes!, pulling that trailer in the wind.

We saw lots of hay bales.

Quaint little barn in North Dakota.

North Dakota, who knew?

And holy cow, we saw a whole lot of these orange construction poles. Miles.and.miles. of them. Ugh.

Part 2 coming soon! Promise the next pics will actually have people in them!