Vacation - Day Three

Mount Rushmore

She did ALL of the steps by herself.

Custer State Park

Buffalo!
Some of them got really close to the truck, yikes!

Lake at Custer State Park

Campground/Bunkhouse

Cooking campfire pizzas!
We used english muffins w/butter and parmesan on the outside and pizza toppings on the inside, they were SO good!!!

Family Picture

Vandewater Family

Fall 2011

We had pictures taken a couple weeks ago (before Lee went back to work). The kids (and Lee) weren't having the best time, so our photographer has agreed to a re-do. This is the best one we got from the first photo shoot, still waiting to get the do-over scheduled!




Vandewater Family
Spring 2010

This is the last family photo we had done, it was OBVIOUSLY time for a new picture.

*Just realized B and I wore purple for both pictures :)

Brynna started gymnastics!

**** This post is out of order and plopped right in the middle of our vacation pictures, but I just had to share because she was SO stinkin' cute this morning***

We signed Brynna up for the "Baby Bears" class at Winterset Gym. It's a 30 minute, once/week class that her and I go to together. They did some music movement activities, did stretches, jumped on the trampolines, climbed on huge padded blocks, and "practiced" cartwheels. She had a blast!!! Her favorite was jumping off the trampoline (it probably has a more technical name) onto the pads below...she would stick her legs out and land right on her bottom. :)

Too cute!!!

Vacation - Day Two

Good Morning!

Um, yeah, this guy was hanging out at our campsite...thankfully, we didn't see him until AFTER we packed up the tent. However, I did feel something brush up against the tent overnight, after seeing this, I'm almost positive it was a snake, EEEWWW!!!!

We drove through the Badlands as we continued west toward the Black Hills.
Again, amazing scenery!!! It's just crazy how different it is than anything around it.

Wall Drug!
I think EVERYONE that goes to Wall Drug takes this same picture.

Bear Country, USA!
They have elk (which were Grant's favorite), wolves, mule deer, mountain goats, reindeer, mountain lions, and a few other animals in a drive through park. We had our hitch hauler on the back with a large box of dry/canned food...I was a little worried driving through a herd (is that what a group of bears is called???) of bears with food on the back, but they must be well fed, because other than one bear sniffing it, they didn't really seem interested.

I think the kids were almost as excited to sit in front as they were to see the animals.

Daddy's baby bear :)
B had said during the weeks leading up to vacation, that she wanted to kiss a baby bear. Well, we did see baby bears and she wanted NOTHING to do with kissing them :) Big talker!!!

We were all pretty tired on Day 2 after camping, driving through the Badlands, driving on to Rapid City, seeing Bear Country and then heading south toward Custer, where we were staying the rest of the trip, but we just HAD to drive past Mount Rushmore!!!!! Grant thought it was SO cool, and we "let" him be the first one to see it :)

We settled into our bunkhouse at Broken Arrow Campground, thankful for beds, private bathroom, COFFEE maker, microwave and fridge!

Vacation - Day One

We left at 5:15am!!!!

We drove all the way to Mitchell, SD with only a couple quick potty/gas breaks. We stopped at Cabela's (of course) in Mitchell to cook breakfast and walk around for a bit.

The kids then napped on the way to the Badlands (exactly as planned)!

This was a little scary as the kids and I all had on flip flops, oops! Thankfully, we didn't see any rattlesnakes! It was extremely hot and we had been driving all day, so we didn't do too much walking around.

Amazing scenery!

We stayed at the KOA campground outside of the Badlands the first night...in a TENT!


We were thankful for the pool, just bummed Lee and I forgot our swim suits.

We let them run around in their swim stuff, because I forgot towels, they had to air dry :) We packed SO much stuff only to realize we forgot our swim suits and towels. We had small hand towels, but no bath towels. Showers were interesting at the campground...

Lee cooked the first night.

B brushing her teeth outside :)

It was a little tough trying to get the kids settled down to sleep in the tent. Once they were asleep, it went okay. They slept all night, the weather cooled off nicely, and there were no mosquitos in the tent. They woke up early and it warmed up quickly, so packing up was quite a chore, and keeping them entertained while we were packing up and trying to shower, was not very fun either. I think it will be a few years before try tent camping again.

KINDERGARTEN!!!!

I'm not sure what to think right now, my little guy is at SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm thankful, sad, nervous, excited, proud...and a million other feelings. I think right now, I'm mostly thankful that Grace Christian Academy is in Winterset and that we are able to send him there. He has a small class (7 kids) and is at school with teachers and other students that love God and will reinforce what we are teaching at home. What a blessing!

Counting down the hours until 12:00 (yes, he only goes 1/2 days).

I'm back!!!!

Okay, so I'm a LITTLE behind on the blog!!!

I have some good excuses; deployment, birthdays, R&R leave, computer crash,
END OF DEPLOYMENT, summer craziness, vacation, and school preparations....but I will TRY to catch up eventually...bear with me!