The Bunch Enjoy Summer

Wow. The past three weeks we have been super busy. We celebrated my in laws 40th anniversary, went to Nebraska for an Aunt's wedding and vacationed in South Dakota. I am going to make this several posts over the next few days to cover it all. 

  On May 25, we went out to Weatherford to celebrate my in-laws 40th anniversary. They held it at their church and had a nice reception. I pray my husband and I will be able to celebrate our 40th anniversary and be as happy as they are.

My in-laws on their wedding day... he looks just like my husband!

My sister-in-law, mother in-law, and myself.

My husband poses with his mom, dad, and sis.

May 30 the kids celebrated the completion of their yearly gymnastics classes before summer break. The girls have completed 2 years and are becoming quite good and T has completed his first year. We take the class with other homeschoolers so it is a great way for the kids to interact with other homeschoolers.

One of D's aunt's that we have become particularly close with over the years FINALLY announced a few months ago she was getting married. We were NOT going to miss this for the world. We had even already decided if D couldn't get off that he would just miss work and get written up for the first time in the 6 years he has been at this department. Luckily he was able to get off and at 4:30am on a Thurs. morning we set off for Kearney (pronounced CAR-KNEE though I have no idea why). We were all set for our 9.5 hour drive. By 9am we had already made it to OKC. That's when I noticed my feet were wet, which was weird since I was wearing athletic shoes. I also noticed the computer bag was wet. It was about 86 outside and NOT raining so I  figured something bad had probably happened. We quickly discovered the regulator gave out. This wasn't too bad since it went out on max a/c. At least we could be nice and cool until it could get fixed. I wouldn't want to be stuck in an un-airconditioned car in the summer on a 9.5 hour road trip! So on we continued. After about 10.5 hours we realized that the drive was taking a tad longer than google maps thought it would and after 11.5 hours we finally made it to the campground, which to my joy was bursting with blooming cottonwoods. If I hadn't know better I would have thought it was snowing. There was actual drifts of cottonwood.  I could imagine myself with red watery eyes, snot running from my nose, while I posed with the bride for wedding pictures.  We set up camp in the cotton snow . The next day went smoother, we visited Ft Kearney historical site and the kids had a blast dressing up like pioneers and taking pictures then we headed to the the public library, which was really nice, before we met the wedding party for the rehearsal dinner. My husband was giving her away and I was lighting the family candle.
The wedding the next day was lovely. They had a wonderful spread at the reception with hamburgers, brats, and hot links, not to mention numerous sides and lots of delicious cake. Okay, those of you that know me are aware that I am EXTREMELY strict with making the kids avoid sugar and grease. Today, however, no such restrictions were made. I wanted them to enjoy the day and allowed them to indulge since they had behaved so well and they are never allowed to indulge. That said when your body is used to never having sugar and then you allow your kids free reign, lets just say that 6 cups of punch and 3 pieces of cake later they had enough sugar. We helped clean up and then met the other out of towners for pizza party. This was not your national pizza place. This was a yummy mom and pop pizzeria that was FANTASTIC, but had HUGE slices(think 3 normal slices) and of course we added one more piece of the melt in your mouth fantastic leftover wedding cake. Later that night our youngest succumbed to his sugar and grease overload and got sick, in his sleep mind you, completely covering not only his pillow, but eyes and face. The kicker was he didn't even wake up! I had to wake him to get up to go take a shower. Oh, did I forget to mention the showers at this camp ground only take quarters and there was NO water hook ups! I am trying to dig for a $1.50 in quarters in the bottom of my purse in the dark of night while he is screaming because his eyes are on fire. Needless to say, the pillow and its contents were promptly disposed of and after a shower and clean set of sheets we were ready for the next campsite.

Kids enjoying pioneer clothes.

They wanted to NOT smile so the pic was more "authentic".

Everyone thought L's baby was real and wondered why we left it perched on a pew!

Groom and Bride lighting the unity candle from the family candle I lit. :)

Apparently, they do not make layer cakes, underneath is plastic that is frosted to look cute. The real cake was in sheets.

Kids enjoy  a wedding dance, complete with bubbles.

After, what we now refer to as THAT INCIDENT, we woke up at headed out for South Dakota at 7am. Google Maps said it would be 6.5 hours. Let's hope they are correct this time. About 3 hours into the trip it started raining and became DRASTICALLY cooler. Remember how I thought I was glad the regulator was stuck on max a/c. Well, in 48 degree weather, it wasn't so nice. We literally had to pull over and dig in the trailer for our heavy winter coats AND blankets. We joked about turning the car off so we could warm up. We made it to Custer State Park in South Dakota in about 7 hours. At least google got that right. Unfortunately , it was still cold and rainy while we set up camp.  The place was gorgeous, albeit cold and wet. The first adventure we set off on was the wildlife loop where all kinds of wild animals roam free. We encountered wild burros. Okay, I am not sure if they really count as wild since they were abandoned when a tourist business closed and now reside in the park, but the park counts them as wild so I guess I will too. The prairie dogs were out of control. I'm thinking the coyote/ferret  population needs a little help. The buffalo just meandered around regardless of cars. I can't tell you how many people had their KIDS get out of their cars to get closer to the buffalo! Hello, People! It is a wild animal that weighs a ton and has horns. STAY IN THE CAR! We also saw two kit foxes and a coyote. The coyotes up there are not the miniature starving ones I see frequently see in our Texas neighborhood, but more like a very large dog, like a rott. or german shepherd. The tunnels that were blasted through the mountain were lots of fun.

Lake our campsite was next to

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Our campsite, please note the HEAVY coats in June!

The wild donkeys that everyone feed with whatever they had in the car, chips, graham crackers, marshmallows, it didn't matter.

One of the 5,000,000 prairie dogs.

We quickly got use to buffalo being the road. They were everywhere. What was hard to find? Believe it or not a bird!





The next day we toured Wind Cave National Park. It is nothing like Carlsbad. In fact, they could not be more different. The is no stalactites or stalagmites in this cave and the walkway is very narrow and steep. It is also about 50 degrees year round with about 97% humidity, which was warmer than outside so it felt pretty good .  The kids were not too excited about touring another cave, but this was for me so...too bad for them.

 

The cave has enough wind blow out of  it that it can blow your hat off. it's how it got its name.

The next stop on our South Dakota adventure was Mount Rushmore.  We have read about it in the girls history books and now we want to see it in person. It was really neat. It was not as big as the history book pics make it seem, but the trail was neat and so were all the flags. The whole area is gorgeous and completely covered in beautiful pine trees, which until this vacation I never realized I was HIGHLY allergic to. One Zyrtec, One Claritin, a little afrin, and whatever else I could find and I still had itchy watery red eyes and kept sneezing every few minutes. So much for being Claritin clear. The best part of Mt Rushmore was the adorable town of Keystone. We had a blast shopping for my father in laws bow-low tie. We ended up buying several pieces of jewelry, not to mention homemade jams and candy. My husband and I plan on returning by ourselves one day just to enjoy Keystone.

The entrance to Mt Rushmore.

The final day in South Dakota we worked on earning the kids jr naturalist patches. T managed to earn his and the girls earned their  certificates, but were a couple of classes short of the patch because of a thunder storm, which by the way knocked the heater out in the tent so we froze the last night, it's not like we could get warm in the truck. :) We decided the resting point on the 18 hour journey home would be Kearney again. We decided to just sleep for a few short hours in the cab and then get on the road again. Ever try to sleep sitting up in a truck with your head on the dash? Don't....it's not pleasant. Needless to say we were back on the road by 3:40am and luckily the kids slept until about 6am, which is when we stopped to get gas and overload on caffeine. Once we made it back into OK the a/c finally started feeling good again and not freezing cold. A short 10.5 hours later we made it home. We have now decided a pop up camper is a must. I will not sleep in the truck ever again. It is taking a while to adjust to the heat and humidity here after 10 days in the cool dry air. High here today 96 Low 74. South Dakota High 56 Low 38.  The grass is always greener I guess.