Life and Times of The Johnston family: South Dakota With My Parents!

My parents came up the end of August, and the weekend before Labor Day we went with them to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore and surrounding sites, as we're really close and they've never been before! It was a really good time, my kids actually really enjoyed seeing Mount Rushmore again. The day we got to our campground we just chilled, then went to Rushmore for their lighting up ceremony, which is absolutely fantastic! We were moved to tears again even though it was our second time seeing it. We got some yummy ice cream there then looked around a while until it was time for the ceremony to begin. The next day we went to a town called Deadwood. Unfortunately for us it was the last day of a big car show, so it was super crowded.....and frankly mostly bars and gambling halls....Tony called it the Vegas of South Dakota. The main drag wasn't exactly family friendly. Luckily the Museum was AWESOME! It made it all worth the while! My parents inquired of them a family friendly place to eat that might have something gluten free for Lizzy. They were directed to a cute little sandwich place in an old car repair shop. They even had gluten free bread!! Then we headed toward home and stopped in there was a cool little dinosaur museum. And we ended the trip with some delicious ice cream! The next day we drove down to Wall Drug which is GIGANTIC!! We found some great souvenirs though! We got lunch there, and still had more to see! After we exhausted ourselves there. We got in the car and drove through some of Badlands National Park, which is super cool! We got to see tons of prairie dogs up close...they are actually really cute! After we saw all we wanted to see we went back to Mount Rushmore to see more. The next day the kids INSISTED on going back to the mirror maze in Keystone they loved from when we went last year. Unfortunately it wasn't open yet when we got there, so we went to Rushmore Cave and let the kids do some gemstone finding! We bought each of the kids a bag of sand with gemstones in them and they got to take them outside and pour the sand into a sift type thing and put it in the water to wash the sand away leaving the gemstones to be put in their bags. They both came out with quite the loot and had a lot of fun doing it too! Then we went back and the mirror maze was open so the six of us had ourselves so much fun finding our ways through the maze. The kids went through a few times then we finally dragged them away. We wandered the main drag of Keystone and we had seen last year that they do fun looking old fashioned pictures and decided to do that for our family pictures this year. They were SOOOOOOOOOO much fun to do and they turned out great! I'll be posting those pictures in a separate post. We had lunch at Ruby's Diner which has some really good food! Then we wandered the shops, ending with more ice cream of course. Oh and in there somewhere Tony and I took the kids back to the mirror maze and they let go around several more times. Man our kids LOVE that place!! The next day our little family headed back home and my parents spent a couple more days in South Dakota, then joined us. I used my parents' washer and dryer to do our laundry for free!! :) We visited a lot and of course enjoyed the wonderful food the KOA provides! That Saturday we went to Martin's Cove which is truly amazing! The last thing we did was pull handcarts around and information loop they have, but we didn't stop to read any plaques as it started raining and blowing as we got started around. The kids still enjoyed it though! We ate lunch in the car out of the rain, then drove to Casper. My dad was in need of a part for their motorhome so we found a nice RV Sales where he was able to get what he needed and the kids, my mom and I had lots of fun looking through the trailers they had inside! Then we had dinner at Olive Garden to celebrate mine and Lizzy's birthdays. On Sunday my parent's came to church with us, and we had a nice calm Sunday. Monday was my birthday and all I wanted was a day to myself! With peace and quiet! So Tony took the kids back into Casper to see a movie they've been wanting to see, and did other things with them. While I stayed home enjoying every moment of my day! My parents got out much later than they had anticipated that day as their main slide wouldn't come in. But thanks to the internet they were able to get it it and eventually get on their way.

Pictures!

Just some pics from August.

The kids love these Busy Books!

Downpour!!

Shadow doesn't like the storm

First trip to Rushmore

They were excited when they found Devil's tower!

Not sure what he's concerned about, it wasn't hardly crowded at all. (he made this shirt himself)

Wyoming!

Admiring it's beauty.

Lizzy was feeling restless while waiting for the ceremony so went and looked around. These are made out of duct tape.

Passing the time reading about the monument.

Pushing the lever to make the mountain go BOOM!

I dare you to stop this girl from learning!

Time for the ceremony!

Museum in Deadwood

The super fun kids room!!

She said this was just like a giant Q-bits game(a critical thinking game she does)

She did it like a BOSS!!

There were so many fun learning toys!

Devin playing a game with my mom.

Devin lost....

This is the cool place we had lunch

The dinosaur museum

Some people have to read while attempting to do the splits. ;)

Ice cream!!

Miles of big beautiful sunflowers

Wall Drug, Devin loves his pop gun!

Super fun kids area!

Tony's sure he's going to die with these two driving ;)

Devin found a giant bunny!(he's obsessed with bunnies!)

Riding a Jackalope!

Devin shooting the buffalo

ANOTHER BUNNY!!!

This is a mechanical dinosaur that every 15 minutes would move and roar....our kids were terrified of it when it was going though Devin won't admit he was scared. He stood back and kept shooting it while it was going! LOL