Promises, promises

I know I said I would post during vacation, but I must admit that I turned my computer off, BlackBerry and had little to no phone service all weekend long, and it was GREAT!
We spent the weekend in the Black Hills of South Dakota and in and out of national forests and parks, all three of us had a blast.

Here is a play by play of the weekend....
Friday: Ella and I sleep in and then begin to slowly pack. I do two loads of laundry, sort out snacks, juice boxes, sippy cups, milk, clothes, pillows, DVDs and books for the car. I even help Kyle pack, something I protest about all the time!!!! We get everything loaded, with the amount of stuff we had in the truck, you would of thought we were going on a cross-country trip. We head into town for Ella's one year ear/tube check up and hear (hehe) great news. One tube is in tack and the other is in her ear drum and in the process of making a exit. Overall, things look great and we shouldn't have too much problem, unless we get half a dozen ear infections this fall and winter. I am praying for none, maybe one for good measure.

Next, we stop for lunch at Cracker Barrel, might as well get a good home cooked meal before we leave, right!!! We ran into our previous daycare provider and caught up with her, it was nice to see her and see how her family is doing. She was just a sweet lady and great with Ella. After we load our tummies, we take off. Ella and I take a nap for about a hour and continue to look at our surroundings. The landscape really changes we you cross the river into the western part of the state, a lot more cows and hay and fewer to no row crops. We only made two stops and made it into Rapid City before dinner time. We headed first to Storybook Island, a great FREE kid park with all kinds of outdoor slides, houses, swings, water and characters from Disney to great story book characters to play with. Ella loved it.


After a nice dinner, we scanned the brochures at the hotel and mapped out the next day. Ella was great in the room, we got a mini suite, with a her room consisting of a sleeper sofa and a door to close off our room. It worked out perfect and Dad and Mom didn't have to retire when the little one did! Kyle thought of this.

Saturday- We rose early and with the time difference it really worked to our advantage. We went to Bear COuntry USA first, and it was perfect timing as all the animals were eating the morning breakfast and we close to us. Ella got to drive with Dad and loved that. The bear cubs had loads of energy and were fun to watch play.

One heck of a big Elk!

Driving with Dad and pointing out animals to us!

Following Bear County we went to Mt.Rushmore. Wow, it was amazing and talk about making you feel proud to be a American! We hiked around Mt. Rushmore and got tons of pics of the "Four Dudes that Did" as I like to refer to them .



Next stop was driving through Needles Highway, which has lots of twists and turns, but great views and wildlife. We traveled into Custer State Park and had lunch at Legion Lake, pretty lake, not great food but that is ok. We got to feed the begging burros, which thanks to KMoss, I had marshmallows for them to eat, they loved us!!!!



From Custer we went and explored Sylvan Lake (not sure if spelled correct) and hiked around the famous lake, Katie J recommended this to us and I loved it, plus National Treasure 2 had some clips from this beautiful lake. We walked all around it and was a fun time.


Will have another post with the remainder of the weekend. Promise!