Wild West Trip II: Badlands

 This time around we decided to spend more time in the Yellowstone area, so we cut the Badlands a little short. In hindsight I wish we could've stayed longer-the boys really loved this area and we managed to hit it when it wasn't super hot which was a blessing!

We arrived to the Badlands around lunchtime, snagged a year pass to the park system, then headed for a hike! We explored the Door/Window area and did a couple of hikes here. The boys loved climbing all over the rocks and freaking me out in the process.

We continued around the loop to the Fossil Exhibit Trail then stopped at I think the Yellow Mounds Overlook pictured below. 

Pinnacles Overlook is another beautiful place to stop and here we saw some bighorn sheep which was fun!

We finished the loop seeing our first buffalo of the trip, a bald eagle and a cute little owl. Then our cabin was ready!

We ate a premade dinner-Chicken Tetrazzini and the kids swam while we did a quick load of laundry. 

Back out after dinner to watch the sunset. We started closer to the entrance of the park but then raced a little bit further in when we realized it wasn't going to be very great there. It was worth it!

We drove through the park again on our way to Rapid City and stopped to do one more hike in the morning. This was Cliff Shelf Trail which was a nice walk with pretty views. 

Dave was using his range finder to judge the distance to basically everything during the trip. 

Wild West Trip II: Getting There

 The first leg of our trip was a bit of a struggle this time around. Our plan was to get to South Dakota as quickly as possible but we had some run-ins with flooding that slowed us down and a bit of bad weather that held us up in Sioux Falls. We also had to deal with our credit card getting compromised about an hour into our drive! Thankfully we didn't have many other hiccups along the way after the start :)

We started off on Thursday, June 20th and made it as far as Coralville, IA. The kids of course had to swim so they burned off some energy while Josh got our stuff for the night situated. 

Up bright and early on Friday planning to make it to Kadoka, SD but things changed along the way. We ran into some bad flooding on the interstate causing us to detour about an hour. 

We stopped in Sioux Falls to regroup and then realized a really bad storm was coming in and would hit us while we were driving. I was able to cancel our hotel in Kadoka and found a place to stay there. After we got that all figured out we walked around the falls for a bit-which was crazy flooded, then headed to our hotel before the storm hit. 

Ike and I climbed the observation tower. It was so pretty from up there. 

The boys swam in the pool and my mom helped us secure some food with her doordash :) We got Pizza Cheeks and it was delicious. 

Up early again on Saturday and we hit a bit of weather but finally left the rain behind us as we entered into the Badlands!

Quaker Haven Camp and Getting Ready for Yellowstone

The boys were able to all go to camp together again this year! We had to finagle it a bit but they all went to the junior high camp in mid June. They had an absolute blast, it's so fun to hear their stories when we go pick them up!

While they were gone Josh and I made some delicious dinners like this one-chicken cutlet with a caesar salad on top. So good!

And I walked with Josh while he played 9 one day, Etna is so pretty!

Once the kids were home we were in vacation getting ready mode. And they took a ride on the giant golf cart Josh uses for campus tours. 

I had piles of stuff all over the living room!

 

Trip to Evansville and Holiday World

At the end of May/beginning of June we picked up the Smith boys and went to Evansville for a trip, but mostly to take advantage of my dad's company picnic at Holiday World. Dad was able to score some extra tickets so we all got to go which was so awesome!

On our way!

Living it up at Gamma's house.

Swimming at Tony and Ben's.

Before swimming at Grandma and Grandpa's. Ha, so much swimming!

My nephews and niece were visiting too so we got to hang out with Liam, Gavin and Morrison some. 

Cute photo of Gamma and the boys. 

Then we were off to Holiday World. It was a miserable day, but that led to lower wait times. It felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.

We did the regular park first, ate lunch, then went to the water park. I about froze to death there but we survived!

While Josh went to get the van, Tony and I took the kids to do one last ride. Dave and I chose the much tamer Good Gravy while the rest hit the Thunderbird again. 

Such a fun trip, the kids kept asking when we could go back but we couldn't make it work this summer. Hopefully next year!