South Dakota Anniversary Vacation

We went to South Dakota for a long weekend to celebrate our 5 year anniversary and our last vacation just the 2 (3!) of us. We were so excited to take the new van and couldn't believe how much room we had. Leia didn't enjoy the extra room and decided to climb under the dash in front of my seat! We stayed in a cabin in Custer. It was so nice, it had a kitchenette, a fold out sofa, full bathroom, and a loft with 2 queen beds.

Behind the cabins were lots of rocks and trees to run around and climb on.
We had an amazing view of Custer and the hills off our balcony.
We ate breakfast out there every morning.
Driving around South Dakota was beautiful. Doyle really wanted to drive through some tunnels, so we took a scenic way home one day and found this amazing tunel with Mt. Rushmore on the other side!
The first wild buffalo we saw. Yes, he's peeing, we tried to take about 5 pictures and he's peeing in all of them!

I know, it's just deer, we have deer in Colorado and lots in Iowa, but I've never seen so many deer at one time before. We drove for about 5 miles outside Custer and saw hundreds of deer. They were all up close to the road and in people's yards and mingling with the cows, horses and even dogs.
In Custer State Park we had to stop for a buffalo crossing.
At the mammoth site. This was pretty cool, there used to be a big sink hole that the mammoths would come to so they could eat and then they'd fall in and drown. Someone was building a housing development and found a bone and now they've uncovered 56 mammoths.

Crazy Horse memorial. Not nearly finished but HUGE! They refuse to take any money from the government, they want it all to be built because of people who want to see it, not the government. Mt. Rushmore could fit inside Crazy Horse's head. We got to watch a light show after dark that they project onto the side.

We took a long walk down from the observation deck at Mt. Rushmore to the bottom of the mountain.

All the state flags.
At Rushmore cave. Some of it was a very tight squeeze! Christy Spence certainly couldn't have made it through!

At Cosmos mystery area.

At Bear Country you could drive through 200 acres of natural habitat. The animals roam free and you have to stay in your vehicle with your windows up! Here we saw Elk, arctic wolves, big horn sheep, rocky mt goats, mountain lions, bears, buffalo. This bear in the picture was in a fenced in area, but most weren't.

They have these grates all over (the state actually) to keep the animals from walking on the road to where they don't want them to go. Tires can drive over it fine, but if an animal tries to cross their leg will fall in and so they can't get across. We saw tons of these, even in people's driveways.
This bear was walking right along side our van and then finally turned to pose for a picture.

We went to Wall Drug on our last day in South Dakota and got souvenirs and took some fun pictures.

More Vacation Pictures

Just thought I would share a few more pictures of our trip. The one where all the kids are sitting at an outdoor table is at Hellbrunn Castle. The man who built it loved water and he had trick fountains all over the grounds. He had a weird sense of humor! And all the kids were soaked by the end of the tour. The one of the boys is at an outside cafe in Vienna. There are tons of them everywhere and they love to people watch. The view of the church is in Prague. Architecture there was amazing. The high view is of Salzburg, easily our favorite place to be. And the picture of the guard is also in Prague at the castle.

Austria & Czech Republic!

We spent 8 days on a Disney Adventures trip exploring Austria (Vienna and Salzburg) and the Czech Republic (mostly Prague). It was a fantastic trip and we all had so much fun! We learned a lot about the history of each country, Mozart and The Sound of Music. Coffee houses were fantastic there....it may be where we need to live! It was so hard to come home. But here are a few pictures to share.

Something New

We bought a van! Driving back to Iowa in July with the car packed to the brim, Doyle said "How are we going to make it at Christmas with the baby and all his stuff and presents?" So, we decided we needed more room. You may think it's silly to get a mini-van when we only have one kid, on the way, but Leia kind of is another kid with all her stuff she needs! Plus, when you make a trip that long and stay for a long period of time, you end up needing a lot of stuff! It's a 2004 Honda Odyssey. It has power sliding doors, a DVD system, the rear seats fold flat into the floor so there is lots of storage room. We also really like the heating/cooling system, you just set the temp you want and the car adjusts the fan temp and speed as needed! Doyle's driving it to work and back now since we're pretty sure it gets better gas mileage than the truck (we're checking on that now). When Tucker is born he'll get to drive his truck to work and I'll keep the van at home. Yes, we traded in the car, as Doyle says, "Duh!" We were joking a lot about it, but I could never ask him to get rid of that truck. Plus, we couldn't have traded in the truck because we still owe more on it than the car is worth! I'm pretty sure it's exactly like Kris and Nicole's only a different color, maybe a few small things are different. We are very happy and even though it's a mini-van Doyle seems to be enjoying it. He's been showing it off anyway!

Dog Days at the Evans Pool

Every year the Evans pool has a special day at the end of the season for dogs to come swim. It is $2 per dog and they can fit up to 70 dogs in at a time. They have contest like farthest jump, fastest retrieval, cutest wet dog. There were so many dogs that wanted in, some had to wait outside until others left. We really wanted to take Leia even though she doesn't enjoy water that much. She does ok if she can touch, but she won't go in and swim. First we tried her out in the kiddie pool that was only 1 ft deep. It took some coaxing, but she finally got in and seemed to do ok. So, we decided to try her in the big pool. She would walk down a couple steps but that was it. Doyle held her for a while in the water and she liked that. Then we let her swim to the steps and when she got out her tail was wagging! We had to drag her in but then we'd let her swim over to the steps and get out and each time she was wagging her tail. We let her off the leash and she ran around and sniffed a bunch of other dogs and got lots of attention. We got a free frisbee and a bunch of treats for Leia. We decided to leave a little early so that other dogs could come in a swim that got there late. We had a great time and we think she actually did too. She was exhausted by the time we got home!