Back to Reality

Well once again, I just wanted to say thanks for going down memory lane with us on our vacation. Now that I have posted all the pictures that I wanted, it's back to reality.

We were all lucky enough to head down to the Lake of the Ozarks a couple of weekends ago. My mom owns a place down there so we decided to head down and take advantage of a little fun. Coltan and Cody went tubing for a while and we went up to the strip and they rode go-carts. My mom actually went a couple of times as well. She took Carson once and then she got into a single cart and raced Coltan and Cody. Poor Coltan picked the slowest two carts on the track.

This past weekend Carson and I went to the Platte County Fair and man was that fun. They had a Truck and Tractor pull which I have never been to and I'm hooked! We sat there from 6:30-9:30 and Carson watched the whole time. He did get up and dance for the crowd and meet everyone. He became the fairs favorite little guy. Everyone was giving him lots of attention and my little ham ate it up! After the tractor pull, we went and rode the motorcycles, jeeps, merry go round, an elephant, and a big slide. We ended up leaving close to midnight and boy did he sleep good.

Some of the things I have been working on over the last few weeks are switching rooms, getting ready for a garage sale, and getting ready for a bunch of doctor appointments.

Cody's room was done in Green Bay Packers when we first moved in here. We did the top walls yellow and the bottom green with a Green Bay border down the middle. I will look through some pictures and see if I have one of it to post later. Carson's room was already painted in blue and I put up some sports bears for his theme. Well Cody hasn't really cared for the Packers since Brett Farve left and now he wants his room done in AC Milan Soccer team which is red and black. I have been buying things here and there for Carson for a John Deere Tractor theme. So what did I do? I switched Cody and Carson's rooms. This way the green and yellow are already up. Cody also had bunk beds in his room and we took those down and I swiped a bed from my niece that is actually really nice. It is the kind that has the drawers underneath. I also bought carpet for my whole house a year ago and we installed it downstairs, but never got the upstairs done. So while all of the furniture was out of the rooms, we installed carpet in Carson's new room, and in Cody's new room.

I have also been going through EVERYTHING in my house and taking a lot of stuff downstairs into the garage sale pile. I will be trying to sell some things on craigslist and some at the local consignment shops and then a lot in a garage sale. That is a huge project all in itself. It has been kind of fun though cause before buying the house I live in now, the boys and I rented a duplex for a year and when we moved, I lost a $400.00 Ipod and when I was going through some boxes, I found it! Never been used. Now the boys and I are fighting over who gets it since we all already own one. LOL

Coltan has been in soccer camp for the last 2 weeks. He goes from 7:00AM-9:00AM and then back again from 6:00PM-8:00PM. This is a conditioning camp that is put on by his high school. Then next week he will be trying out for the soccer teams. I still cannot get over the fact that I have a child starting high school. I'm only 34 and feel really old!

Coltan and I will be getting very busy in his room later this week so that we can unload all of the clothes that he has outgrown and put them in the garage sale pile.


Cody has been doing not much of anything. He is on a break until the second week of Aug and then it will be very busy for us again in the soccer world. Coltan will not be traveling like that this year until Spring. He will be playing high school in the fall and then back on his regular team in the spring. Anyways, back to Cody, he has been helping me a lot with getting his room done and going through all of his clothes and things to get rid of for the garage sale. It is hard to believe how much he has grown in just a year. I thought when they get older they slow down?

As for Carson, well we have earned two new trains this week. He gets a new engine from Thomas the train if he goes potty 10 times. So the first one he earned was Spencer and just last night he earned Molly. Toys R Us had a sale where if you buy 2 you get one free. So my mom was kind enough to buy him 4 and got 2 free. Carson has is next 60 potties covered! He is working on Fearless Freddy now. So hopefully he will get the hang of this. So far, he isn't telling me when he has to go. I have to just keep taking him to the bathroom. So we still have lots of wet pull ups. Any suggestions? I wanted him completely potty trained by the time the boys go back to school which is in a few weeks.

Well that is about all that has been going on. Carson has his swallow study on Thursday and we will see how well he has progressed since last year. Keep your fingers crossed because insurance doesn't cover Simply Thick which is about an extra $100.00 out of pocket expense for me every month. I would sure love to have that money and put it towards credit cards!

Well that about sums up our last couple of weeks. I have a few pictures from the lake, gun range, fair, and some others that I will try to post this week. Hope everyone is having a great week.

The Badlands, Part 4

These are the last pictures of our vacation. Thanks for bearing with me but when I start to scrapbook, I will have all of this for a reminder to help me keep it all in chronological order. I just love the formation of the rocks. Some of these pictures really reminded me of Grand Canyon.

This picture was looking down a clift. See the green grass on top of the buttes? In the early 1900's, farmers would take apart their lawn equipment and have help putting it on a pully. They would lift it up and put the mower back together. They would bale it into hay and sell it. Man, we thought the economy was bad now??? Could you imagine having to go through all of that work just to make some money?

It started getting cloudy. There was supposed to be a storm moving in.

I thought this was a cool shot of the storm heading our way.

This was the last picture I took and it then started raining. So, it was time to head home. Luckily the storm was moving the other direction so we never really had any problems.

Well this concludes our South Dakota Vacation. Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoyed our memories as much as us. Tomorrow will be back to reality pictures. LOL

Badlands Part 3

This rock here is the backside of the next few pictures. We stopped and Coltan and Cody climbed this rock. It was one of the smaller ones but still pretty high. Coltan made it to the top.

Cody keeping up.

They each had there own better way of getting up to the top.

Stopped for a picture.

He was asking what because he started climbing down the other side and I couldn't see him. You know, I was acting like a concerned mom!

Now they were heading back down the rock.

One last picture of them together.

Uh, are we heading back up again???

After we were done, we started driving again. This area was absolutely gorgeous.

Badlands Part 2

I took over 400 pictures in the Badlands. So here are a few more for you to enjoy. I had so many favorites and it was hard to only choose a few.

The Badlands

We decided to hit the Badlands on our way home. It was 45 minutes east of Rapid City (which is the direction we would travel to head home). The trip from Rapid City to Kansas City is about 10 hours. So when we got to the Badlands, I never thought we would stay til 7PM. It made it for a very long and exhausting drive home but I'm sure glad we got to stop and see this surreal place.

This was a picture I took from the highway. This was right inside of The Badlands.

There was a Prairie Dog Town area and there were tons of them. They are actually cute but there were signs posted everywhere about a plague that they carried. We sat and listened to them talk to each other. I wish I would have brought my camcorder for that.

There was another area where we saw lots of bison.

Carson thought he was very funny. He was rolling around to scratch his back.

Here was a cute little ground hog and her baby. It looked like she was scolding her.

Of course, there were antelope all over as well. This one was fairly close. You can tell they are very used to cars and people because we didn't even scare him.

Panning for Gold

So after Bear Country and Custard State Park, we finally made it down to pan for gold. The place we were at closes at 7 and then they let you stay there and pan as long as you want with no one on site. We were ready to pan for lots of money and I'm not sure if we even found a nickels worth. LOL Before we started Carson needed a pony fix!

Coltan pretending he just found a million bucks worth of gold.

Now reality set in and Coltan is still broke.

Cody still trying.

Working really hard at panning.

Carson thought he could find the gold without using the pan. Now if you look over Carson's head, you will see a glimpse of Cody's cell phone....it is red in color. Well just after the next couple of shots, Carson thought he would throw Cody's phone in the water and pan it out. I'm not sure how, but I grabbed it and took the battery out and ran into the bathroom where they had one of those electric hand driers and the next day after letting it dry out, IT WORKED!

Carson helping out his big brother.

Beautiful scenery everywhere we were in this state.

After we left here we went to a little restaurant in town and had a great dinner. Then we got back to the hotel after 11:00 and everyone was exhausted.

CusterState Park Part 2

This part of the park was very scenic and a lot of fun. We drove through tunnels and did some rock climbing as well. What a really cool place this was. Coltan and Cody climbing up some rocks and trying to give me a heart attack!

This was very similar to the areas that the boys were climbing. By this time, Carson was out and slept through all of the adventure.

This area here I gave Cody the camera and Coltan and him climbed up. Carson had finally woke up and I had no idea where the boys were. I would every once in a while holler for them and they would holler back.

You can see my white Yukon parked in this picture. The boys were actually on the backside of this rock that I was park in front of.

This rock here is called needle point. I'm sure you can see the "needle point".

This area was beside the needle point and Carson decided to climb through to see where it went. It was a dead end so he had to come back.

This area here you could rent paddle boats. We did not because we were still wanting to go gold panning after we left the park.

Another area where the boys did some rock climbing.

This was the last area before we left the park. Breath taking gorgeous.