Missouri

After a long summer of waiting for this trip to commence it had finally arrived. A two day drive to Fort Leonard Wood Missouri to stay for an unsure amount of time while we got to see Josh. The drive began on Monday the 15th when we drove to Laramie. My friend let us crash in her apartment for the night. I figured we could knock off that 3 hour drive and have two less intense days of driving the remaining 13.5 hours. So off we went across I-80 and the beautiful state of Nebraska. The drive went fairly well considering the scenery and the frequent roadside stops for little boy bathroom breaks.

We stopped at Fort Cody in North Platte Nebraska. The kids thought it was pretty cool.
They are standing in front of the miniature replica of Wild Bill's Wild West Show. Hand carved little figurines. Very impressive for whomever did that.
They of course found toys that they thought they couldn't live without. Teag is one step away from frenching that little horse. JK
That night we stayed in Lincoln NE. We had dinner before going to our hotel. That town is full of team spirit. Cornhusker gear everywhere. All throughout dinner I kept people watching and checking out all their t-shirts, hats, bags, jerseys and everything else. Not gonna lie, I think I like the Cornhuskers now.

We then went to our hotel where we planned on swimming to work out all our energy. We had the pool to ourselves which was nice because my kids were acting like maniacs. This picture of Teag is an indicator.
The next morning I thought we would only have about 6.5 hours of driving so we hung around in Lincoln for a little bit before hitting the road. We went to the sunken gardens. The girls loved it and Teag loved the koi ponds.

And this pic of me is in the wrong spot.

This pic of Josh was after Graduation. It was the only one of him smiling so thats why I put it in. He has a different name for Missouri, "Misery." He doesn't have too many fond memories of his time here.
This was after Graduation when we got back to the hotel for some little catching up and R&R.
The next day we went on a road trip to Lake of the Ozarks. They dammed up a river and created this lake which has over 1100 miles of shoreline. Its insanely huge. On the way there we passed several turtles on the road and Josh pulled over and picked one up for the kids to hold for a bit.
The kids thought it was so cool. Presley didn't really want to hold it so I didn't get a pic of her.
We went to Ha Ha Tonka State Park while down there. These are some castle ruins that we visited. It was really so stinking hot and humid there it made it kind of crappy. I was completely soaked after our half mile hike to the ruins.
This is the only family picture we got while we were there.
Then we headed down to the beach area. We found this little sandy beach and ended up staying there for the next 5 hours. The kids loved it. The water was like 90 degrees and it was shallow in this whole area. They had a great time and even met a new friend.

Presley not wanting her pic taken.
Teag showing us some cool tricks.
They did front flips, cartwheels, spins and everything else imaginable of this dock for at least two hours.
The next day we went bowling and went to the museum on the base. The museum was very cool. I was a little skeptical but it really showed me. The kids loved it too.
One of the days we went swimming at the rec on the base. It had the two diving boards which were the kids favorite part. Presley and Kenady both jumped of the tall one. I swear Teag would have jumped off it if we would have let him. He was doing front flips off the shorter one. He has no fear of water.
Here are some videos of our excursions. It was such a great trip. It was just the best being able to see Josh and spend some quality time with him. We are almost done with all this craziness. Yeah! Sidenote: On the drive back to Wyoming, I took a 2.5 day drive and condensed it into one day of complete butt and back breaking drive-a-thon. We left at 5:30 am on Thursday and got home at midnight. My back side has still not forgiven me for that. At least we made it home safe.

Catching up with Summer!

This summer has been one of the most care-free, playful summers on record. I don't think my kids have any idea how good they've had it this summer. We've managed to play somewhere every single day. Today is the first day that we didn't leave the house all summer long, hence, I have to time to catch up on my blog.

We went out to the gorge with some friends and of course, had to blow up Caribbean Island. The kids loved it.
This is Teag and he BF squeezing into the coupe. The coupe was given to us several years ago and has always been a fan favorite around here. Very thankful to our friends who gave it to us.
We also spent a full week down in SLC in July. This is Presley making sure that she doesn't drown while riding the bike. We played in our cousin's circle for hours this day.
As you can see, we got very creative with our bike riding skills. For those of you who think this might be dangerous, don't judge me. I figure I used to pump people and do all kinds of crazy things on bikes and I survived. I think its good for them to experiment a little bit.
Took a break to get a picture of all three of them.
Cooling down in their pool.
Josh's mom turned 50 while we were down there so we were able to blind side her with a party. We had a delicious dinner and were able to spend some time with everyone there. It was a lot of fun.

The next morning we took the kids on a hike up to a waterfall that is really close to Josh's parents home.
This us at the top.
You can kinda see the waterfall behind us. We let the kids take off their shoes to feel how cold the water was and of course Teag tripped and got completely soaked. While we were there we saw some people canyoning down the waterfall. It looked like so much fun, but also so very cold. We had a great time in SLC.

Overall the summer has been a very active, crazy summer. Good times though. We got a break today but we are off and running to Bear Lake for the rest of the week and then onto a road trip to Missouri for 2 weeks after that. So I will enjoy today while I can because its about to get busy again. Gotta love it though!