Friend Makin' Monday

This is only my 2nd time doing Friend Makin' Monday since we were gone on our road trip for to weeks. So, it worked great for me that the topic is vacations.

Friend Makin' Monday is being hosted by Jolanthe at No Ordinary Moments this week because Kasey is still on vacation.

If you would like to take part in FMM, just click here for the details. Now for the the questions:

1. Tell us about the best {or worst} vacation that you've ever taken.
2. Tell us FIVE places/vacations that you would like to take at some point your life. It doesn't have to be next year...maybe it's the vacation of a lifetime or somewhere you just dream of going years from now.

So
#1 Well I really would have to say that the trip we just took was my favorite. We left our home in MN and went to Mount Rushmore, then to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, then on to Salt Lake City. The Lake was nasty. I don't advise swimming in it. Ishy. Then we were on our way to Reno and from there to my parents in Santa Rosa, CA. We spent 4 days there taking day trips to the beach, the Redwoods, Sonoma, and San Fran.



After we left, we headed to Yosemite and then on to Vegas. My daughter and I went to see Lion King and it was awesome. After Vegas, we went to the Hoover Dam where it was 116 degrees. So, needless to say we didn't stay long and then continued on our way to the Grand Canyon, which was a beautiful site. The next day we stayed in Moab, UT and went to Arches Nat. Park. Now that was a neat place. After that we headed towards Denver and stayed over night in Thornton, CO and our plan was to go to Rocky Mt. Nat. Park but we were all pooped so we decided to head home. We were going to spend the night in Omaha, just to take a break from driving, but we figured we might as well drive the last 5 hours home. We got in about 3:00 am. Whew. That was a trip.


#2. I would love to go to Italy. I am 1/2 Italian so I would love to go and explore the old country. The other 1/2 of me is German so I would also like to check out Germany. Besides that for some reason I always wanted to go to Ireland and Australia.

Yellowstone

After our wonderful pancakes in SD we got back on the road and headed for Yellowstone. From this point on in the trip none of us has ever visited any of our destinations. The park was everything we imagined. It was so beautiful. We spent about 10 hrs checking out the sites. This was the view from our campsite. So beautiful. However, we thought it was cold in SD. That night it got down to 35 degrees. Seriously. Crazy, isn't it? I slept in my sleeping bag, with an additional blanket inside and I wore sweat pants, socks, a T-shirt, a sweatshirt and my coat and I was still cold. Part of the problem was that our tent is so big that the heat the five of us generate just doesn't get trapped. BURR. Before we called it a night Ryan got a touch of altitude sickness. He had the chills and was nauseous. But, the following morning he was back to normal. After Yellowstone we headed south to the Grand Tetons.

Ryan is pointing out the snake to D.

Way Behind

I thought I was going to be able to post every few days while we were gone on our trip but that obviously didn't happen. We either stayed at a spot with no internet access or if we did have access I was too pooped to log on. So, I have a lot of catching up to do.

I packed these for D to keep him busy in the car. There were times we drove 7 hours in a day. I got the idea from Chasing Cheerios http://chasingcheerios.blogspot.com/2009/06/activity-bags_27.html

D definitely liked the stickers the best. I purchased a bound composition book from the dollar store, so I wouldn't have to worry about pages falling out and he just stuck away. When we were with my parents in CA I actually had to go get more. The other things he played with a lot was the travel Magna Doodle and the Preschool sticker activity book.

I brought an old cookie sheet with us that he used as a work tray and it was good because I put magnets on the tanagrams so they would stick to the tray.

Target had some great flash cards and a white board in the $ spot. I picked up a bunch of stickers there too.

CA Trip

Well, finally I am writing about how our trip is going We actually haven't had all that many days where we have had Internet access and on the days we have had it I have been so pooped from the day I couldn't even think about blogging.

Anyway, we ran into an issue even before we left the house. Not a big one, but big enough to make us upset. We planned on watching the fireworks over Mt. Rushmore on the 4th. Well, Mt. Rushmore has it's fireworks display on the 3rd. What the heck? We couldn't leave until the 4th and who has their 4th of July display on the 3rd. At a national monument even. Whatever.

With our plans altered a little we ended up going into Custer State Park and went up the needles highway. We decided to watch the city of Custer's fireworks from up on the highway. It was really neat. I think we were slightly too far away but the kids still thought it was really cool to sit out on a cliff and watch the fireworks.

That night we camped at a place called Crooked Creek and froze our tooshies off. We weren't expecting it to be 45 degrees in July. Brrr. But, after we woke up we had pancakes right at the campground. All you could eat for $2.99. They tasted so yummy.

Onward to Yellowstone.

SCORE

I was at the a thrift store a few days ago looking for some little things to take on our road trip and I found this.
A Leap Frog Phonics Radio for $1.99. It works great. I checked online and it retails for between $40 and $50 bucks. Score. I an hoping it will keep D busy for awhile anyway. I haven't showed it to him yet that way when we leave on Sat. it will be new to him.

Other thrift finds were these: The painting was $2.50 and it will look great in our bathroom. I am such a sucker for tulips. I love, love, love 'em.

And the flag things came to $4.00. I'd like to decorate our deck with a flag theme. It never goes out of style to have pride in your country.

Tooth Fixed

Well we got N into our dentist today. They fixed his tooth again but they said that he will eventually have to get a cap. The stuff that they used to fix it is also a little darker than his other teeth and the dentist said he'd work on that at our next appt. I am just happy we were able to fix it before our road trip out west.

The One Armed, Toothless Wonder

My N. Gotta love him. Two years ago he was participating in a snowball fight, an illegal one because it was on school grounds, and somehow he managed to knee himself in the mouth and break his tooth in half. This was a permanent tooth. ARG. Anyway, I picked him up and he was able to see our dentist right away. They filled in his chip, you can't really call it a chip, and he was as good as new. The dentist said he wasn't sure how longed the replacement would last. Well, now we know. Today, while swimming, N was blowing up a tube and his friend bumped him and his tooth broke, again. I called every dentist in our phone book and seriously, the last one I called was the only one who could see him this week. He can't get in until Thursday but it will have to do. We couldn't wait for an appt with our dentist since we are leaving for CA on Sat.


So now N is one armed and toothless. I am scared to ask, "What's next?"