{Mt. Rushmore}

The fun didn't stop after the St. Patty's Day

celebration...the next day we packed up

and all loaded in our van and headed out to

South Dakota...Destination: Mt. Rushmore!!!!

We drove out on a Friday afternoon and safely arrived

in Keystone, SD where we would be staying the night

in a fun Holiday Inn Express. The kids were fantastic

travelers but were sooo excited to get out

and get some wiggles out swimming in the hotel pool! The front entrance of the hotel was like a mini zoo for

the kids. They had all sort of stuffed animals for them

to see and complimentary hot chocolate which we all enjoyed!

And ironically enough our good friend who plays hockey

had a tournament in Rapid City, SD

(which was 15 min. away from our hotel) the

weekend we were there! So fun that we got to

watch just one more game. G &G Hansen

had never been to a hockey game before so they

were way excited to be able to watch one and meet

our good friends, the Rupps! And of course the kids

had a great time watching and runnin' around!

Go Oilers!!

First thing Saturday morning we headed out to

Mt. Rushmore. (which was only 2 miles away from our hotel!!!)

Addie was so excited to see these

faces that we had been telling her about.

They have really done up the place and have made it a very beautiful Memorial. As you walk toward Mt.Rushmore you first walk through these granite pillars with each state flag adorning them. it really is a beautiful site. Then it all opens up and you are standing right in front of Mt. Rushmore. Check. We can officially check Mt.Rushmore off of our list of places to see! It was absolutely beautiful and incredible! Here's our little family! I love how all 4 of us are lined up almost perfectly with the presidents in back! A little collage of the memorial. The statue in the middle is Gutzon Borglum... the brains and sculptor behind this amazing rock carving that he dared dreamed to do. From L to R: George Washington

Middle:

Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt

And on the Right:

Abraham Lincoln

Put them all together and you have an amazing

sculpture of 4 amazing men/Presidents that made

an difference in history.

There is a nice trail that takes you to the base of the mountain

so you can get a closer look. It was a beautiful day with

the sun shining and a light breeze.

And the 3 Randalls were kind enough to let us snap

a 3 generation picture of them!!! We had so much fun

there at Mt. Rushmore. We actually spent about

2 1/2 hours there between site seeing and the museum.

the kids were so good and we all had a good time.

After Mt.Rushmore we stopped in the little town

of Keystone (where we spent the night) which is

2 miles down the road from Mt. Rushmore.

It's a quaint little town with a population of 311.

Most of the shops were closed for the "season"

but we did manage to find an ice cream/candy

shop open!! yay! We walked down the one side

of the street and back up the other side. It's

not very long as you can see and yes this was

the extent of the town.

Yay for Ice Cream...we were all craving it!

Every DQ we passed along our way had big

signs on them that said, "closed for the season

come see us in April." We were so excited when

this cute shop was open and serving up nice

cold Land O' Lakes Ice cream. It was delicious

ice cream. they had every kind of fudge you could

imagine in there along with every kind of chocolate

covering every kind of nut! I could have gone wild

in that store but I stuck to just the ice cream!

After Ice cream we headed up the other side

of the street to see what other stores there were.

Spinning salt water taffy in the front

window of another cute little store

caught all of our attention fast. We actually got to

go in and see the entire process to making salt water

taffy. From the spinning to flavoring to coloring to spinning more

to cooling to shaping to putting it in the coolest machine ever

to watching that machine spit individually wrapped

pieces of delicious Taffy. They had every possible

flavor of taffy....even Jalapeno, which Tyler got to try!

Last stop of the trip....Hill City. They have an old

1880 steam engine train which runs in the summer from Hill City

to Keystone. Although it wasn't running we stopped anyway

to let the kids get out and see and play on the train. It was

a great stop before the 3 hour car ride we had until

we would be home. Overall, this was such a FUN trip.

The kids were fabulous, the company was fabulous,

the sites were fabulous! And a big thanks to

G & G Hansen for helping and joining us on this trip!!!