Korean Barbecue

 Our friends invited us over for a night of Korean barbecue.  It was so fun and yummy!

Littles Date Morning

We finally got around to taking Little Guy and BB on a date.  They wanted to be together.  They've been wanting to play at Wonderscope for a while now, so we took them there and then finished off the date with ice cream at Betty Rae's.  Yum!

We got there right at opening and it was still pretty packed.  By about an hour in the place was a zoo.  The boys didn't seem to mind and had a great time.  I was relieved when Betty Rae's was about to open.  I'm not used to that many people anymore.

It's so fun to watch these two together.  They can be the absolute best of buddies when all is right in the world. 

Those homemade waffle cones are simply the best!  The flavor of choice for both of them was honeycomb ice cream. 

Lake Day

 We tried out a new lake last week.  It's a small reservoir with a man-made beach South of us in Paola.  It made the sandy beach so nice.  We had the place to ourselves for a good portion of the morning.  This particular lake is free, so it made it even better.  

We'll definitely be back!

Last Two Stops

 My husband gave me a hard time, because I wanted to see the Corn Palace.  Of course, we still went, because he knows there's no point in trying to stop me unless he wants an unhappy wife.  Hahahaha.  That's how I know he loves me, because he comes along for the ride.  I made him get in the pictures just to push my luck a little.  (Insert maniacal grin) 

Of course, he added in a few pictures of his own...

You can see all the corn up close on the Crazy Horse. 

Our last stop was while the highway took a slight turn over the Iowa border.  We stopped at a Lewis & Clark Center.  They are all along the trail.  This one talked all about the different roles of the individuals within the expedition.  The children got to choose of the people and be them throughout the museum.  

They were very excited they were each given a commemorative Lewis and Clark quarter.

It was such a great road trip.  It consisted of 13 days, 9 states, 4,232 miles, 82 hours of driving (holy buckets!), four national parks, both sides of the family, and one flat tire.  Not too shabby.  Now we need to sleep for 48 hours straight to recover.  If only!  I had 30 minutes from the time we got home to when I had to hop back in the car to run to work. 

The Badlands

South Dakota was a new state for the kiddos (for the oldest 3 it's their 44th state.  Little Guy wasn't alive when we went on our Minnesota trip, so he's missing 2 states the others have). It stormed on our drive in, but we were greeted at the hotel with a beautiful rainbow.

We woke up early in the morning and headed straight to Badlands National Park.  I took way too many pictures, but I couldn't help myself, because the landscape was absolutely stunning and so interesting.  We entered at the Pinnacles Entrance and worked our way across.  1st stop: Pinnacles Outlook!

We then drove around to the Yellow Mounds.  Each color is a timestamp of a layer of geology.  Little Guy loved the bunny.

We walked along the Fossil Exhibit Trail.  It was nerdy geology exploration time.

We got to the visitor's center just as started to down pour.  We were afraid it was going to ruin the 2 hikes we wanted to go on, but by the time we were done it had slowed to a drizzle.  We got out and walked part of the Cliff Shelf, and it stopped raining.  

We walked the short boardwalk of Winder Trailhead, because we thought for sure the Notch Trail would be too slick and muddy, but we decided to just try it, and I'm so glad we did, because it was a great hike.

We actually climbed up the side rather than use the ladder, because there was a long wait for people trying to get down it, and it's one person at a time.

The climb down was a bit more slippery with the mud, but for the most part the trail itself wasn't bad.

You can see the pooled water from the earlier rain storm.  It was a great hike and the weather held out enough for us to see the Big Badlands Overlook. 

We loved our time at the Badlands!