Look! Snow!

We met up with Nana and Bopa, Uncle Andrew's family, and Ninnie in Midway, Utah for skiing, sledding, snowshoeing, doing puzzles, visiting the Y, listening to the Tabernacle choir, playing board games, drinking hot chocolate, cheering on the Ducks, and swimming in a natural hot springs!

So yes, we traveled long and far to get excited to play in the snow! Ha. That doesn't make a lot of sense, now does it? I mean, we're covered in it for 1/3 - 1/2 of the year. Though to be fair, it's usually too cold to enjoy it much, and the snow is too dry to pack much, and the terrain is too flat to ski much. So I guess there were reasons to be excited. 

We don't have this back home!

Other attractions

Jewel cave was pretty awesome. Even if it was freezing, launched a 2 1/2 hour quest to become Jr park rangers, and led us through tons of traffic on treacherous canyon roads. We were only able to do the shortest tour, much to M's eternal disappointment. She wanted to explore, of course. But the website's not kidding when it says they sell out daily! We luckily got the last tickets available for the day for anything!

Outside the "fancy" restaurant where we ate breakfast. My dad ordered an omelette. The waiter then asked, "how would you like your eggs?" Not joking. It was fine dining.

The house we stayed in was great though. Everybody slept decently, although if I was rating it online, I would mention that the scenic helicopter rides that take off in the next driveway up the road every 20 minutes from 8 - 8 are noisy enough to shake the house. It's cool the first time.

Ice cream's always good!

Storybook Island in Rapid City. Apparently it was all everyone had hoped it would be!

Bear Country USA

We had been told this was a "must see." I gotta say, them bears was BIG!! I gave my phone to J to take pictures of the wildlife. I'd say she did a pretty good job:

On the other hand, next time I think I'll retain the picture taking privileges.

Thanks to Uncle Rick, we did get a few non-selfie shots. We find buffalo, or bison, everywhere we go:

 There we go. That's much better:

Adrenaline junkies unite!

Dude LOVED the Alpine slide!! He was nothing like the girl who I heard tell her mom, "there was something wrong with my slide. It was slow or something." The mom responded, "the slide was just fine. The problem was you had a death grip on your break."

Because he wasn't tall enough to do the ropes course, he got to go a bunch of times. But surprisingly, the girls were! Mostly. More on that later. We honestly weren't sure it was going to work because M could barely walk with the weight of her gear. And she got distracted and missed most of the demo given by an underpaid teenager who didn't care one whit whether we knew how to stay safe 30 feet in the air or not. Thanks man. Throwing caution to the wind, we forged onward. Luckily J had listened. No honestly, there came a time when the other 3 of us didn't have a clue how to work something pretty vital to my life, and J told me how I was supposed to do it. The worrier pulls through!

It was SUCH a blast!!

It did take a little bit of getting used to but I was so incredibly proud of how the girls dealt with the challenge. They really rose to the occasion, screwed on their courage (whatever that means), and just went for it. The longer we went, the more confident they became, which was AWESOME for me to see. Really a neat experience as a mom to do this alongside them. It was a fantastic hour and a half, even if we had worn Uncle Rick out after the first hour :)

There were times, honestly, when the girls' smaller sizes made things easier on them. There were a few awkward situations for us older, bigger folk. But back to that too small issue as promised? With 3 obstacles to go at the very end of our 3rd and final course, M got completely stranded 15 feet from a tree in either direction. Poor thing. She just plumb couldn't reach and got in a position where she couldn't move forward or backwards and still reach. A quick rescue from an observant worker that had been stationed not too far away (there was an oddly limited number of them, by the way), and we finished with flare.

 

When asked later, this ropes course was their favorite thing of their trip. It was totally worth the money my dad spent on it! :) Thanks Bopa.

Rushmore or bust

On a gorgeous sunny day that still had a bit of a chill in the shade, we headed over to see the Big Heads on the hill. Before we got closer, we saw the real guys in person!

"Which one is Mr. Washington," Dude asks now. At the time, he clearly had no interest in being anywhere near the old guys.

We had plenty of time to enjoy the beautiful hike with Nana, Bopa, and Uncle Rick! It wasn't open the last time we visited so we broke out the shades and explored in style. The backpack was supposed to be for G, but you can only contain that child for so long. However Dude was more than happy to catch a free ride that allowed him to be as social (or anti-social) as he pleased.

Also typical for G, she finds the one place she's not supposed to be and goes straight there. She likes to wave at those types of places as she passes them by.

Then we headed into the Visitors Center to work and sweat at becoming a Jr. Park Ranger, for the second time in two days. It's like a game show. Where can we become one next? Again, Dude didn't want anything to do with that real park ranger. He's like that sometimes. That's why we put that hat on him. When he's too grumpy, he lowers his head and grunts - totally unwilling to make eye contact. But the hat has eyes on it anyway, so it's almost like he's still looking! Or something.

This time the kids also got to go back and see a laser-light show at night. Pretty sweet!