We are back after being gone for a week to South Dakota. Jay's cousin got married and Joshua was a ring bearer and Anastasia was a junior bridesmaid. What a wonderful trip we had! It was great seeing extended family under happy circumstances. The kids were so good the entire trip and that made it really enjoyable!. I put together 4 slide shows of pictures below to highlight some of our trip. It's a good thing I learned how to do slide shows and I tried to limit the pics but it was hard!
The first slide show is of our flight and trip to Mount Rushmore. We flew with Jay's sister (Jutem) and her daughter Jocelyn. Ooh the stories I could tell about people staring at all of us trying to figure out the connection. I told Jutem my kids could just call her mommy 2. You know they all thought we were from Northern Arizona near the border to Utah. Anyways....The kids loved the plane ride and were super. They were so excited to open their backpacks to see what awaited them. The packs were full of books, treats crayons and coloring books. (It was a good thing I packed treats because gone are the days of free soda and pretzels they charge for everything.) As soon as we landed and got our rental van we went to Mt. Rushmore. It was only 30 minutes from the airport. However, we were staying in Pierre for the week and that was 3 hours in the opposite direction. There were no hotels available in the Rapid City area because of Sturgis. We didn't want to be that close to Mt. Rushmore and not see it. It was incredible. I think even Savannah and Alexa were impressed. We could have stayed in that area around it for a couple of days there is so much to do. We spent about 2 hours there and then headed to Pierre.
Our hotel was actually in Fort Pierre which is just across the river from Pierre and in a different time zone. However they follow Pierre which is central time (so we lost 2 hours going there) If they didn't follow Pierre then we would literally gain or lose an hour everytime we crossed the bridge. LOL. Aunt Teri thought of everything and was quite the hostess! She is the Deputy Secretary of State so on Thursday morning we got our own tour of the Capitol building. It is a beautiful old building that is celebrating it's 100th year this year. Afterwards we all went for lunch and then us girls went to a bead shop to make bracelets. The evening was spent at EliAnn's (the bride) making mints, eating pizza and watching movies. I was really thrown off not only by the time difference but the fact that it is still completely light out at 9:00pm. That was strange. Friday morning us girls went to get pedicures and our nails done. (Not to worry the guys were not left out during any of this. Joshua got to ride one of Uncle Bret's cows and him and daddy went swimming in the hotel pool.) The biggest event was Anastasia getting her eyebrows waxed. She unfortunatly has a combo of her daddy and I's eyebrows that grow half way down her eyelid. She was a trooper and they look fabulous. Of course she was beautiful even with her eyebrows before. In the evening was the rehersal and dinner.
Saturday was the big day. Jutem spent the morning doing all the girls (including the bride) hair and makeup. The kids and I just relaxed at the hotel. Daddy took Joshua to the church to get ready. The wedding was beautiful and Joshua did awesome. I was a little nervous as he was holding the real rings. He was so proud of himself and loved wearing the tux. When we got to the recption Savannah thought she was in princess heaven! When we got to our table she asked if we were at a princess tea party. She absoultely loved everything and was mesmerized. Joshua loved the shaking bells that he rang every chance he got in order to make the bride and groom kiss. It was a wonderful day!
The next days were spent sight seeing and relaxing. Sunday morning we went to church with Uncle Brett and Aunt Teri. They were having a special service down by the river as they were going to do baptisms. Arrangements were also made a head of time for Jay to do special music so he sang "I Can Only Imagine". After the pastor introduced all those getting baptized he asked if anyone else wanted to. Well Uncle Brett had never been baptized by submersion and said if he was going to he wanted it to be in a river like Jesus. So he suprised us all espically Aunt Teri and went forward to be baptized and Jay was honored to help. How cool is that!!!
After church we got to go on a 2 hr. boat tour up (or down?) the Missouri river and learn about its history and Lewis and Clark. It was a great relaxing time. The girls all fell asleep. The next few nights were spent relaxing at Brett and Teri's and sight seeing around town. We got to see the spot that is exactly the middle of North America. During this whole trip Savannah kept forgetting EliAnn's name and finally one time she asked "who got married?" I said "EliAnn" and she said "that's right EliAnn and what is his name? Isn't it Prince Charming" She was serious it was so cute. So we called Patrick, Prince Charming the rest of the day! What an amazing trip with so much to see and do and for our kids to get the chance to connect with extended familyit was great and we were blessed.
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