South Deekota

Well, yesterday was our longest day on the road. 12 hours, 650miles, 2 bad restaurant stops, 100's of wind "mules", 3 hours of whining (by the 6yr old), 101 signs for Wall Drug-home made doughnuts and 5cent coffee(but when we got there FINALLY it was just closing-aaahh man), 40minutes of lost time because the stupid GPS got us lost, and 1 small rustic cabin.

Corn Palace, not worth the stop.

Because if we hadn't stopped at the stupid Corn Palace, that smelled like Grandma's basement, we would have most likely made it to Wall Drug before it closed. Look at them, can't believe they are actually smiling after this day.....and the disappointment of no doughnuts or 5cent coffee.

The long and winding road.....or in this case just the long straight never ending road.....

Our Cabin in the at Hill City KOA.

Thank God for new days.

Today we woke up to blue skies and an amazing view of the black hills from the porch of our cabin. And our cabin didnt look so rustic in the light of the new day. We are stayin at a KOA right near Mt Rushmore/HillCity. It is really family friendly, pools, free mini golf- Cece played 12 games! splash park, etc etc.

We did drag the kids away to go see the Crazy Horse Monument. Crazy Horse was really amazing, not sure what we were expecting, but it was really worth stopping at. This guy Korczak Ziolkowski-now thats a mouth full- was asked by the Lakota Indians to carve a monument to their chief, this man dedicated his whole life to it and now his 10 children and wife have taken over the project that has been going on for 60+years. Kinda cool............

Visiting the Draces~ Wisconsin

We attempted to surprise Noah with a visit to our good friends the Draces,in Hudson WI. Mike and Sandy used to live in Grandville and Noah and Parker where best buds.

We thought since we were with in an hour it would be fun to surprise the boys, but, they figured it out before we got there. It was still fun to see Noah's face when he realized where we were headed.

We really enjoyed catching up with Mike and Sandy. What a beautiful place they have. Hudson Wisconsin is such a fun town. Very quaint, cute shops and nice restaurants. The kids have just been go go go. The boys are actually out ding dong ditching the neighbors at the moment....... Ainslie got to go to McKenzie's school carnival, and her an Kenzie had a caricature of them drawn. Its been great seeing where Parker and Mckenzie hang out. Its going to be hard to get up early and hit the road....But tomorrow we have 635miles to go to South Dakota. Thanks Draces for a great visit, your awesome host. We will be back if you'll have us!!!

Oh yeah and we did stop at a "cheesy" road side cheese store and buy some cheese curds,(and Kenny had to have a seat in their luxurious restrooms, TMI) when in Wisconsin do as the cheese heads do!

Blessings

We just cant express how thankful we are to all our friends who called today to wish us well, to those who stopped by, to Grandparents that took time to come see us, and to the many of you that dropped in at 5:15 today to cover our family in prayer. WOW words cannot express how overwhelmed we were. Prayer is amazing and powerful. God uses it to draw us closer to Him but in that he draws us closer to each other-binds us together. Thank you Demetria for letting the Holy Spirit work through you. And thank you all for taking time from your very busy schedules. We love you and will miss you. We will keep you in our prayers while we are away.

5 Days and Counting

Kens working all weekend. The kids want to see friends. Mom wants to see friends. Mom wants to keep house clean and keep packing. And poor Jack (our 4yr old golden retriever) is discovering something is up. I think he spied a suite case possibley a duffle bag or two, and now he has the sad eyes on,and his eyebrows are shifting every which way. OOOh I wish we could take him with us, but that is out of the question.

Tomorrow we get to spend time with our church family. The Nesbit boys are grilling for us all. That what I heard anyway I hope its true.

Ken is working, again. Someones gotta fund this adventure of ours. My garage sale money is not gonna make a dent in it. Tomorrow evening cousin Jordan is babysitting and we are going to Saugatuk with friends, for our last adult only dinner for many weeks. I'm not complaining....I am just saying that eating in public with my four kids, one of which can't sit down to save her life, while she is eating dinner, (we wont mention names but it's not Ainslie), for 30 days straight might give me a few more gray hairs.

GETTING READY TO GO

Where does one start??? Months ago.... we found out Ken would be able to take 1month leave from work and we said lets take a big vacation. Europe to vistit our friends Andrea and Tim ????No kids maybe too young/flights too expensive. Out West USA, yes neither Ken or I have seen much of our country, so the planning began. I guess I'm an over planner. Stacks of books, hundreds of lists, many nights pouring over maps, while Ken said uhhuh uhhuh yep yep, and now the packing has begun, the lists have been saved on microsoft Word, and we have 6 days to go.....and I have stopped reading the travel books and brochures and stopped hanging out at Panera (because we have dial-up and it took too long at home to do research) and now I'm going to relax and let it all happen.