The Hills (no, not the show....the Black Hills)

There are a lot of pictures here, but we saw so many fun and beautiful things when we took Jen, Kevin & Bobby out to Rapid City for a few days before they flew home. We stayed at a hotel connected to the largest indoor waterpark in South Dakota (or so the billboard claims!). We didn't end up with a lot of time to play in the water with all the things we wanted to see, but we managed to get in there a few times and got Bobby to LOVE the water by the time he left! Harrison took a big interest in reading the paper one morning because there were pictures of race cars all over the front page of the sports section - just had to share the picture because he looked so cute and serious reading the paper (and watching TV and chiming in to the Little Einsteins when appropriate -- he's just like Pops with his multitasking skills!)
Of course, the first thing we went to see was Mt. Rushmore (or as I call it...the mountain with the faces). The adults stood in awe and took all their pictures -- us kids are a bit too young to probably appreciate it, but we decided we loved the place when we found out they had ice cream! We enjoyed our treat under the watchful eyes of the Presidents and then headed on our way to next stop...


Our next stop was Flintstone Park - a theme park designed after a cartoon that none of us kids have or may never hear of or see (how sad!) But it was still fun for us. They had all the houses of the characters, statues of the characters, Flintstone mobiles to ride, a robot animated music show of Fred, Wilma and Dino and a chance to meet Fred (Harrison and Bobby weren't too sure of that guy!). And of course a great big park that we ran out all our energy on! (basically if traveling with kiddos, the parents have learned to include parks and ice cream and all the normal treats we like in a given day at home!)





After wearing us kids outs, we spent the rest of the day in the car driving around the Black Hills. We drove through Custer State Park's wildlife loop and made friends with a burro....he found out we had food and wanted to hop right in our car for the rest of the trip!




Then we came across a herd of buffalo crossing the street and stopped and watched them for a while (not like we had any other choice in the matter)....it was amazing to watch them though (even though I said they were "peeuwy") and I loved the little baby ones!
We drove back to the hotel via the Needles Highway and saw some absolutely beautiful scenery (granted us kids watched a lot of the movie on the DVD player but Mom & Dad kept stopping to look, enjoy and take pictures of all the views)....


DAY 2:

We woke up on Day 2, headed out for breakfast (a feat with 3 toddlers, but we managed) and then drove down to Reptile Gardens. We saw an alligator show, some HUGE tortoises (Daddy actually rode on one of these when he was a kid, but they stopped letting people ride them several years ago because they're about 126 years old and can't really tolerate it as well....we liked saying it was Daddy's fault!), a bald eagle, and a very large collection of venomous snakes (which Harrison and I LOVED -- go figure -- Harrison thought they were funny and kept slapping the window of the one which happened to have a sign in front of it stating it was the "world's deadliest" -- good job, Harrison!). I even got to pet a baby alligator!




After all the reptiles, we decided to go see some of the cute, furry variety and went to a drive thru wildlife park called Bear Country USA. After the drive through part, you can park and get out to see the Babyland section where all the little ones are. The lady working there let me feed a racoon (by throwing food over the fence, of course). Mom & Dad aren't so sure this trip was a good idea....Harrison and I now think it's perfectly normal to walk up to alligators, racoons, snakes and other deadly and dangerous animals and pet them, feed them, taunt them....


We were pretty warn out after two days of tons of touristy stops and no naps, so we headed back to the hotel from here and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the waterpark. Mommy & Daddy sent Jen & Kevin out for a date night to have dinner (they don't get to do that very much at home) and had a fun night babysitting Bobby -- it involved a lot of wrestling and pig piles on top of Daddy. Bobby sure does love his Uncle Corey. Daddy even got Bobby to go from fearing the waterpark to laying on his back with Daddy on the tube through the lazy river, splashing water and trying to dive in head first! We didn't get any pictures of the waterpark -- 3 toddlers and 2 adults and thousands of gallons of water doesn't really leave any hands available for a camera....but we did include a picture of the place from the last time we were there...



On Sunday, we sadly had to take Jen, Kevin & Bobby to the airport in Rapid City so they could fly home. I rode along with Mommy and sobbed the whole ride back to the hotel. I was so sad to say goodbye to Bobby. We will miss you all!