Buckets

Background for this conversation that took me a while to remember –

I had a dream quite a while ago that I told Keian about - we lived at our old house and Keian kept trying to run across the street with a bucket on his head and he almost got hit by a car. . . .

Tonight while we were having dessert at the table Keian
says to Scott and me –

“When we go to Disneyland. . . .I will have a bucket on my head.”

We were perplexed at this comment and tried
asking questions to understand why he thought that.

He said, “I saw it on TV” and Scott said,
“You saw a kid with a bucket on his head?”

Keian said, “No the TV said Disneyland is the
place where dreams come true!”

Homeward Bound

We arrived fairly late into Cheyenne where we had reserved a room with Hilton points - a bit of an upgrade from our RV in South Dakota. The kids were thrilled to find out the pool wasn't closed and they had a late night swim with Daddy.  It didn't take them very long to fall asleep!

American Girl store in Denver.

Here is Kirra with Saige - American Girl of the Year for 2013 from Albuquerque no less!

Keian was a little cold and he's always kind of a character - he put his legs in the sleeves of Kirra's jacket and then fell asleep.

We spent a lot of time in Denver shopping so our arrival home was much later than we had anticipated.  What an amazing vacation!  We'd certainly do it again!

Chimney Rock

Driving in the midwest, Nebraska to be exact - fields that go on forever!

Chimney Rock

Perhaps the most significant landmark on the overland trail, Chimney Rock is a finger of Brule clay jutting nearly 500 feet into the western Nebraska sky. Emigrants were constantly amazed that it appeared so close, while the distance from first sighting to actual arrival seemed to take so long. Not only did emigrants write about it in their journals, but many painted or sketched it, and often they would carve their names and dates of passage in its soft flanks.

We arrived just after the Visitors Center had closed so we weren't able to go in and learn more about this historical landmark.

Wildlife Loop - Custer State Park

We were so incredibly lucky to come across two different herds of buffalo along the Wildlife loop.

Such amazing creatures!

We really were mesmerized and stayed watching these huge guys for a LONG time!

We watched the buffalo from the sunroof!  Worked out really well - unlike some dummies along the road that were getting out of their cars.  I think people have no brains sometimes.  

These are massively huge wild animals people that are known to have violent tempers!  

Especially those with babies!

Big Daddy!  This guy was the ring leader - he would bellow and everyone else would do what he said.  It was pretty awesome to watch.

Iron Mountain Road - Custer State Park

Family picture outside our home for our South Dakota stay.

Good-bye Mallard!

Back to Custer State Park for us for our last day in the Black Hills. 

Such great drives throughout the whole park. 

These tunnels were carved out specifically to be able to see Mount Rushmore.

I'm that speck down at our picnic table - 

there was no way my body would have let me make that hike!

A distant view of Mount Rushmore

Wild West Photoshoot!

My souvenir from our South Dakota trip!

This was a lot of fun - though it was 95 degrees outside the kids did the best they've ever done for pictures since they could scowl in some of them!  We got a DVD with 100 pictures on it and I cannot narrow them down and not share all of them!  So here are a few teasers and then if you want to see them all you can click HERE to see the rest.

The funniest part was the Keian kept having to "load" his gun before every picture.  He couldn't have his picture taken without his pretend bullets in the chamber.  There was quite a bit of feuding over the guns because some were better than others.