Mt. Rushmore

Are you ready for a slew of pictures?  We went to Mt. Rushmore last week with our friends the Craigs and had a fabulous time.  It was nice to have built in friends for my girls and we parents enjoyed hanging out together as well, whether it was in the house we rented on a little lake outside of Rapid City, South Dakota or on our many daily adventures.

Day 1: Mt. Rushmore & Bear Country

Since the purpose of our trip was to visit the Mt. Rushmore monument and it might not be the most exciting thing for the kids, we thought it appropriate to make it our first stop.

All the kids after the "strenuous" route of stairs, man are we Americans lazy.

Family Picture

After we were done with the monument which is an incredible thing to learn about we ate a picnic lunch and then headed over to Bear Country.  I'm only posting pictures of the bears there as they did have lots of other animals but how often do you get to see so many bears up close?  Granted, our windows were rolled up as we drove through the park but the bear cubs at the end were the best.

This one looks dead but was just laying on the side of the road fast asleep with the tongue lolling out.

Taking a Bath

The cute bear cubs climbing the tree.

The cubs know who feeds them.

One thing not on our list of things to do was go to the doctors.  Rachel was swinging at the playground and didn't stick a landing resulting in a hurt elbow and a trip to the urgent care for x-rays.  They said it wasn't broken, only bruised but we'll see for sure tomorrow when we have a follow-up with the orthopedic surgeon here in town. UPDATE: The doctor here didn't see a fracture on the x-ray either but since it was still swollen and hurting in spots he said it was fractured and casted it for an additional two weeks.

Day 2: Reptile Gardens & Chuckwagon Dinner
Where else can you go to see men wrangle alligators in South Dakota?  We learned how to close an alligator's mouth and all about snakes.  We even got to see a very large python eat a rabbit, so gross but you have to watch!

Posing for a photo op at Reptile Gardens

In the evening we put our cowboy on and enjoyed meat & beans with all the fixins at a good ole chuckwagon complete with song.

I don't know how many cowboys had root beer but this one is cute.

Day 4: Cosmos Mystery & Alpine Slides

We had some recommendations from people of where to go in the Black Hills area and one of them was the tourist attraction Cosmos Mystery place.  While the girls thought it was cool all the "tricks" they did, Eric's scientific mind was busy at work disproving the illusions like the house that made your head spin.

Who doesn't love going down the hill on a cart?  The girls loved the alpine slides, even if one car with a child may have overturned on a run.

Day 5: World Cup Soccer, Paddleboating, river fun, Old McDonald Farm

The kids and parents needed a down morning so we hung out at the house and cheered on USA during their World Cup game with Germany.  Even though we lost it was still a victory in that we still advanced to the round of 16.  After the game we went on the lake by the house we rented and got some paddleboats. The kids loved switching places out on the lake and were tired by the end.  They cooled off in the lake afterwards (no pictures) but it was freezing and Elizabeth was our adventurous one as she jumped in.

We went to Old McDonald's farm and got to play with the baby goats, ride the ponies, and watch the pigs run for Kool-Aid.

Unfortunately, our allergies got the best of us so we had to cut our trip to the petting farm short and get back to the house.

Day 6: On the Road back Home

As all good things do, our trip drew to a close but we took a slight detour on the way home and drove a very pretty highway right by Mt. Rushmore through the Black Hills  filled with pig tail curves and one-laned tunnels that all seemed to face Mt. Rushmore.

We also drove through Custer State park and fed the burros some carrots.

We came, we saw, we conquered and I hope made some good memories in the process.  Thanks again Craig family for joining us in this adventure to Mt. Rushmore.

Swan Lake

Evelyn loves to be the ballerina in the family as she dances all over the place.  While we were in Utah she used Rachel to practice her ballet routine for Swan Lake.  On recital day when I did her hair in a bun and put makeup on she looked so grown up and beautiful.

  

One note I feel to put in, Evelyn didn't get flowers as I really don't do flowers but she was excited instead to have a big ice cream cone. 

Last Day of School Means FREE

No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks.  The older girls' last day of school was June 3, about three weeks earlier than previous years since we are no longer on a year-round schedule.  We celebrated by using some free coupons received for, ironically enough, purchasing summer school workbooks.  So free is my kid's time and free for this accountant is a free meal and dessert!

Dessert at Jamba Juice

Lunch at Noodles & Co.

Elizabeth's end-of-year brunch.

Any bets on when I'll be ready to send them back to school?  I really think it will be long before August 18th but hopefully we'll still have tons of fun together.

Our other Utah Adventures

Our family trip to Utah was mainly for Stuart's wedding but it was fun to visit with some friends, enjoy Utah's beautiful scenery, and eat at our favorite places so we'll go in that order for this post.

We spent Thursday night with our friends the Christians who used to live in our ward in Colorado and moved back to Orem last year.  The kids had a great time playing together and it was fun catching up.

I forget how lucky we were as students at BYU to have Provo Canyon just minutes from our door.  We went on a drive up the canyon and stopped at Bridal Veil Falls.  We also drove up to Aspen Grove where Eric proposed to me and I absolutely loved the view of Mt. Timpanagos but failed to get a picture.  I have fond memories of hiking it once with my dad and another time with Eric when we were dating.

We stayed in Layton two nights and got to feed the ducks at the park downtown.

We also spent two days up at Bear Lake and went for a little walk and enjoyed being in nature.

We saw a ton of these cocoons with caterpillars

Don't let the faces fool you, they did enjoy themselves.

Last but not least, our favorite food places.  Our first stop was to In-N-Out of course.  Eric is still upset that they decided to go to Texas before Colorado, we're still petitioning headquarters.  Our stop the next day was to Nielsen's Frozen Custard with the creamiest custard I've ever tasted.  The favorite up in Bear Lake is La Beau's of course even though they've built many more food establishments that we haven't tried yet.

Oh They Say When you Marry in June. . .

Anyone know the reference for this blog post title?  A few weeks ago I sat down with the girls and watched "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and they will sing the songs with me now.  This is the second June in a row we've been able go to weddings for a family member and the girls have gotten to dress up as flower girls and be great at their duties.  We traveled to Utah for the wedding of Eric's nephew Stuart and the weather was beautiful for an outdoor ceremony.

Here are the girls after the wedding practice.

 Being dutiful flower girls walking down the aisle

 I tried to snap some pictures behind the official photographers to get all these cute flower girls together.

 With the beautiful bride

 Individual photo shoot, this is such an Evelyn pose.

 Rachel, I love actually like how they're looking off camera to the real photographer.

 Can Elizabeth look much more on the brink of becoming a young woman?

 The reception was held right afterward and there was a lot of dancing involved which was great fun for the girls.  They got a lot of cousin time in.  Here's Rachel with the groom Stuart.

 Evelyn with the only girl cousin Carissa.

 Rachel and Elizabeth insist on tormenting Sam.

 All the Carlsen cousins together.

 Rachel sneaking into the manly shot.

 A family picture.  It seemed like I was the only one taking pictures but thankfully my family was obliging.

 Evelyn had some fun with dad.

 

 I doubt we'll have a wedding again next June but who knows what the future may bring.  All I know is that my girls love being flower girls and dressing up for their official capacity so if you need to borrow them, they are available :)