Memorial Day Weekend in South Dakota

I have been trying to convince Derek for years that we should make a trip to Mt. Rushmore mostly because I had a good college friend, Alissa, living in the area. Well, now that Alissa has moved Derek decided it was time to take our kids to Mt. Rushmore. The boys were recently watching National Treasure two with Derek and some of it is filmed in Mt. Rushmore so that was what roused excitement. We left quite late on Thursday (the last day of school) because Liv didn’t want to miss her undefeated softball team’s game. We got on the road at 7:30 pm and drove to Rawlings Wyoming arriving about midnight. Liv and Carter fell as sleep soon after dark, but Camden is always our hold out on driving trips and didn’t fall asleep until the last 30 minutes of the drive. 

 The next morning, we got up and drove the rest of the way to Mt. Rushmore. 

 We parked the car and wandered around the grounds, watched the video, and had some food at the café which had glass windows looking towards Mt. Rushmore. 

 Then we headed to our hotel in Rapid Ciy. We stayed at the Farifield Inn Marriot in Rapid City and told the kids that when we got to the hotel we had a surprise for them. Somewhere along the drive one of the kids asked if the hotel had a pool and we told them a small one. To their surprise, a whole waterpark was attached to the hotel. After checking in, we went to downtown Rapid City. Downtown Rapid City has statues of all the US Presidents, some got some ice cream and wondered around looking at all the statues. The next morning, we drove out to Badlands National Park. Along the way we saw a sign about every mile for Wall Drug advertising free ice water and so much more. We decided it deserved our stop. It was a whole little city square of souvenir shops. Our free ice water turned into more like $100 ice water by the time we got out of there, but we found some cool finds. Liv got a cute So Dak (South Dakota) sweatshirt which she used the whole trip, we bought some games, some hand towels for the camper, Derek got some books, and fresh fudge. The kids got a picture on a Jackolpe. 

 Badlands National Park was actually really pretty we did 3 short ¼-1/2 mile hikes. We saw mountain goats all over.

 Camden snapped this picture of Derek and I before we were ready and looking at the camera. Then, I remembered that it was our anniversary. So this picture commemorates our 17th anniversary. 

 Then, we took the kids back to the hotel and the swam at the water park for 3 hours at least. 

That evening we took them to a chuckwagon dinner on the film shoot site of Dances with Wolves. They learned how to make tin dinner plates and we bough one for each kid. 

 These have actually come in handy too serving as great snack holders in the car. The kids also learned how to make rope and helped make rope out of toilet paper. 

 We then tied them up with said rope and put them in jail. 

 The chuckwagon dinner was kind of fun. I bought each of the kids some Sioux City Sarsparilla.  They gave everyone dinner in a tin plate and then they had a band sing and play country songs, but also a ton of sing a long songs. They would tell jokes. The boys got a little bored, but I think particularly the sing a long portion was fun for all the kids.

 The next day, the kids swam for another hour or two and then we drove to Custer state park. We drove in up the Iron Mountain road which was so pretty. You would get views of Mt. Rushmore all through the drive. They had these gorgeous wood bridges you drove and wound over and so many one lane rodes and tunnels through the rocks of the Black Hills. 

 We had a picnic lunch at the Custer State visitor center. The visitor’s center was so nice. It had the nicest movie theater with the comfiest seats. We all really enjoyed the movie abut the park. We then drove the Wildlife loop and saw pronghorn deer, huge herds of buffalo, prairie dogs, and wild burrows. 

 Really beautiful and fun. Then, we drove up Needled highway to hike to the cathedral spires (which was quite steep).  At the top we had a little Sunday devotional. 

Then, we drove through the eye of the needle tunnel to Sylvan lake which was just so so pretty. 

 We ate dinner at Red Lobster with the kids for the first time. It was going well until maybe Camden’s stomach didn’t agree with his smoothie and he threw it all back up on the table and hallway. Felt terrible about that. Everyone was exhausted so back to the hotel one more time. All 3 of the kids shared a pull out couch. It was quite incredible how well they slept all snuggled together on that couch all weekend. The next morning Derek got us all up early to start the long drive home. Though it added about an hour to our drive, we decided to detour a little and go to Devil’s Tour. 

 I’m glad we did and we did the little 1 mile loop trail around the bottom. It was really so pretty up there with the pine trees overlooking the green rolling back of the black hills. And Devil’s Tower was pretty spectacular. We saw people rock climbing it. So beautiful and peaceful, there were Indian prayer cloths tied to several of the trees and bushes. The last stop of the trip was to Martin’s Cove on the way home. The kids got a kick out of pulling some handcarts around. 

 We saw an old bunkhouse and washroom, and a super neat fireplace made from rocks in the area which included fossilized wholly mammoth tusks. We watched a movie about the Martin Cove pioneer rescue, and then headed home. It was a great Memorial Day weekend and kick off to our summer.

Misc. Spring Happenings

Foothill had a very low key Art Gala. I quite liked it. They hung all the art outside the classrooms and for the school wide projects they made a hand mural on one of the ball walls that needed repainting. I think it turned out quite nice. 

 The boys had fun taking D and I around and showing us all the art things (Liv was at a dance recital, but the boys found her art to show us).

 Derek played softball this spring which was fun, but busy. The kids love going down to the field in the evening to watch him play. One night Camden spent more time watching this ipad than his Dad. 

 The Cooks moved away to Boston. We had a little neighborhood farewell for them.  

Ariel and I made sure to get one last therapeutic run in before she left and now we keep in contact over Marco Polo which is fun. 

 One Sunday while Liv was practicing her piano, Derek fell asleep on the couch and Carter fell asleep on him. 

 I made it out to the kids end of the year dance festival and even though they weren’t having the traditional picnic on the grass this year, I still brought lunch and the kids and I sat and ate for a little bit. 

 Mrs. Rockwood took a pic of Camden at field day and sent it to me because she thought he was so cute all wrapped up in his towel. Our house is finally finally after 3 months started to be put back together.

Liv End of Year Recitals and Happenings

Dr. Gill’s wife asked Liv to sing a song she had written from their ward talent show and then invited her to come sing it in their single’s ward sacrament meeting. It was fun for all the kids to attend a singles ward. Sister Gill an Olive Garden gift card to say thank you for the time she spent learning and sharing her song.

 Liv was quite excited about that. Liv and Bentley have become good friends this year. Almost every Friday night they want to hang together either at our place or hers. One night the spent forever in the bathrooms, wandered around the house in masks and then at dinner unveiled the mustaches they had drawn on their faces. 

 Bentley’s family invited Liv to go to a jazz game with them. They had suite tickets and and bought Liv a jersey. She had a blast. 

 Liv did a fantastic job at her last solo showcase at COPA. She sang Goodship Lollipop and performed a monologue about how She does not like boys! 

Last year with Delaynne Dayton in Prodigy.

 She also got the opportunity to participate in a fun Mother’s day music video. Someone posted that they needed a little girl for the shoot week of (because the original soloist got COVID). They asked people to tag their favorite singers. Oen of Liv’s rise up friends tagged her, we sent in a video of her singing her Goodship Lollipop solo and they picked it her! I was in awe watching he record in this studio with ease she even puts one ear in the headphones and keeps one ear out which I guess is the real way to do it (I had no clue). 

 I got so many texts about how great she did at her music video shoot. 

 It was super fun for her. I was so impressed with her dance recital. She has really improved in dance this year. Nonetheless, she did not move up to the next company. Her directors sat down individually with me to let me know they see potential in her, but that she is lacking of the basic dance technique skills that a lot of the other girls have from taking years of dance before this, so they are keeping her back to really hammer in those skills. Liv learned my Grand Plan from the Lightning Thief and fell in love with this song. She sang this for her voice recital at the HCTO and did a fabulous job. She also used it for her MDT company audition at COPA. Liv also scored  another gig for a church focused music video. The song is titled the Priesthood of God. This one was a paid gig. The song writer, Alaina Larsen, had a very specific vision and wanted all the soloists to have coordinating dresses, so Liv and I got to go shopping one day to find the right dress that complimented the other soloists.  We would try on a dress and shoot pictures to Alaina to see if she would say yea or no.  It was a fun day.

The video was so so much work several days practices, several days recording and several days filming, but the video turned out beautiful. 

 I helped hold words for the kiddos on recording day mostly so they were all focused in the right place.

I love the message of the song sung by all these amazingly talented kids about God's priesthood power has been restored to guild, bless, and uplift, men, women and all God's children equally as one.

They needed extras for the final shoot and Olivia invited Hallie to join her.  And at the end the writer, Alaina Larsen gave each of the kids temple cookies.