Final Day ~ Two Parks {May Family Vacation}

Tuesday morning! We spent the morning just exploring the city.

I've always wanted to see Dinosaur Park, but during all the times I've been to the Hills, I have never gotten up there. Until this trip! I was so excited! The park was a WPA project during the Great Depression. The kids loved the statue (and so did I, haha!).

Afterwards, James fell asleep in the car, so we found a great park in downtown Rapid City, and I stayed in the car with the doors open while Dan played with Ev. We eventually switched, because James just kept on sleeping. We let him play some once we finally woke up, too. It really was an amazing park... more like 4 parks in one and lots of opportunity for imagination play, too. 

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An end to the trip: Dan's training started on Tuesday afternoon, but our original plan was to explore some in the morning (the parks above) and then I would take the kids for their afternoon nap in the hotel, and finally we'd eat supper together and I would take the kids home on Wednesday morning while Dan caught a ride home with a coworker after the training on Thursday. Well, after seeing how the first day affected the kids, plus I was not looking forward to trying to get the kids to nap in the same room together at the same time... I decided just to head home :) 

Overall, it was a great first vacation for us as a family of four, and the perfect practice for more vacations to come!

Next Up ~ Mt. Rushmore and Horse Thief {May Family Vacation}

After getting to our hotel, we organized our room and headed to Mt. Rushmore. 

Last winter, I won a Instagram give-away from the SD Department of Tourism, which included a Mt. Rushmore parking pass, a state park sticker and several South Dakota-Made goodies like truffles and coffee. This giveaway was a major motivation to get out to the Hills this summer - more like a good excuse to see how well the kids would do in the car (we had a 10 hour car trip planned for July... posts about that one eventually!).

Dan hadn't been to Mt. Rushmore since they improved the trails and the visitor center, and Ev was excited to see Mt. Rushmore - we have one book that has it and there is a big painting of it at Wall Drug. James, on the other hand was pretty tired and pretty cranky. Neither child has ever slept super well in the car, so he had only one short nap before our stop at Wall Drug. But, we got through it and enjoyed the hike.

Instead of heading back to the hotel right away, we decided to head to nearby Horse Thief Lake for another short hike. Ev and Dan had some fun exploring again, while James was in the carrier on my back... still not sleeping - crazy one-year-old!

Here, we let James out a bit... he loves exploring just as much as Ev does, but his footing isn't quite as sure ;)

After this hike, we headed back to Rapid. Both kids were asleep within 3 minutes in the car! We picked up some pizza and then enjoyed the water park at the hotel. Day 1 was a full, fun and exhausting day!

Starting Out ~ Wall Drug {May Family Vacation}

Dan had a work training in Rapid City last May, so we decided to go out a day early for our first family-of-four vacation :)

We left on a Monday morning, and planned to stop once between home and our hotel in Rapid. Somehow, we made it to Wall Drug without stopping, which worked out well... we were able to eat a picnic lunch that we had brought and then enjoy all the fun photo-ops in the "Backyard."

I need to go look up my pictures of the main 2 trips I remember stopping here - once when we were on a family road trip en route to a family wedding in Washington and another time as a Senior in high school en route to the state track meet. 

I'm so glad we have these pictures of the kids! Fun for me to take the pictures and fun for the kids to play around and stretch their legs before heading into the car for the last hour to our hotel. 

PS: As I look at these pictures I remember being disappointed about going so early in the season since it was a little chilly out, plus some attractions weren't open yet in the Hills because it wasn't officially "tourist season." However, how fun was it for the kids to run around Wall Drug and not have to worry too much about waiting in lines to sit on these props or having a mommy too worried about losing track of kids in a crowd. No worries there, haha!