Family Vacation

Last week Jason had a week off work so we took a family road trip to South Dakota, Wyoming and Idaho. I, of course, took LOTS of pictures. I chose some of my favorites to show you so you can see how much fun we had. :)
The trip started with a stop at the Little Bighorn Battlefield on the way to South Dakota.

This marks where Custer fell and died.

An Indian memorial

Next stop....Devil's Tower National Park. It is the first National Park.

Devil's Tower is an old volcano. It was really cool!

I LOVE old trees like these that were next to Devil's Tower

Devil's Tower is surrounded by this beautiful red soil and rock

Next.....Mount Rushmore! I loved it. It is worth going to see!

Next....The Cosmos. It is a location they say is "magnetic". They built everything on a slant so it fools your visual perception. You feel like you are going to fall over....it is pretty weird. It as cool.

First we fooled around in the bookstore a bit waiting for our tour.

I am "the cougar"! :)

Katie and I are trying to walk around and not fall down.

Katie volunteered to show a demonstration. The tennis ball should roll down the ramp but it kept rolling back toward Katie....she couldn't figure out how it worked.

Next stop.....Reptile Gardens. It is a zoo of sorts with only reptiles, birds, amphibians, etc. They had a bird, snake and alligator show....It was Katie's favorite stop.

Katie is petting "Mathusela"....a tortoise that is 175 years old and huge.

Katie is petting "Fluffy" the baby alligator.

A guy wrestled a huge crocodile for the show. All the time he is in the pen with a lot of other alligators and crocodiles...how would you like that job? Not me!

Katie with the cool bald eagle they had.

Next...on to the Badlands! It was awesome. Nothing grows there but the soil is so interesting with lots of hills and valleys.

On the way back to our hotel we stopped at Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota. We had to stop because the whole way to the Badlands and on the way back there was a sign telling us we "needed to see Wall Drug" every mile. So we stopped and it was cool. It is an indoor flea market with a yard in the middle for the kids and good photos.

We also stopped at the South Dakota Air and Space Museum. It was cool.

This was my favorite airplane...the B2. Can you see Katie and me in the pic?

We stopped at Storybook Island which is in Rapid City, South Dakota where we stayed. It is a huge park with fun things for kids to do with characters from kids stories.

We stayed a night in Cody, Wyoming and went to the Buffalo Bill Historical Museum...it was cool...especially the gun collection! :)

This a restaurant we could have eaten at but decided not to.....can you guess why?

We ate dinner at a cool old restaurant named Irma's. Buffalo Bill started the restaurant/hotel and named it after his daughter, Irma.

Katie and Heather (my niece) at the splash park in Rexburg, Idaho. They are good friends. Katie loves having the new cousin.

We went to the Blue Angels Airshow in Idaho Falls. It as cool. We saw a bunch of awesome planes and shows along with the Blue Angel show at the end.

This is a picture of my new hero, Amanda. You can see her standing on top of the airplane holding on to a small pole sticking up. You should have seen how high and fast this airplane went with her hanging on......I could NEVER do something like that!

The Blue Angels

Heather, Katie, and me with a cool Mustang!

I got a new floppy hat for the occasion...glad I did...it was a bit hot that day.

Heather and Katie with the big gun in Jason's favorite...the Blackhawk....I love this picture!

Wedding pictures.....

I finally finished uploading pictures the wedding photographer took. The post is after the freak hailstorm post because I started it before and just now finished it. So scroll down and enjoy the wedding photos! :)

Freak Hail Storm

Last Wednesday, June 30th, Bozeman had a freak hail storm. I was just picking up Katie from her class and we were driving home when it started hailing golf ball and tennis ball sized hail. I could not see anything so I just stopped driving and waited until it passed (along with everyone else on the road). My windshield looks like I had a couple of baseballs thrown at it, my hood is full of dents as well as the side of my car (the side the storm came from), and a hail ball broke the red plastic over my taillight. The top of my car is totally dented up and the hail hit so hard that it broke the inside portion of my roof in the car. You can see dents on the inside of the car as well. It was really scary but we are ok. Jason's car got hit too. It cracked his windshield and left dents in his car. Jason's mom's house was hit hard. Her vinyl fence has holes in the whole one side of it. Her patio cover was damaged as well. It also cracked one of her windows. Jason's dad had his trucked parked outside and let's just say it will need to be fixed. We are also going to have our roof looked at because there was shingle stuff all over the place.I called my insurance company and I was put on "the list" of the catastrophe team that is coming out to Bozeman and will contact me when they can get to me. You look all over Bozeman and see cars with broken windshields and dents. You also see many broken windows in homes and apartments as well as siding with big holes in it. The storm lasted only a couple of minutes but left a lot of damage behind. Hail....the last week of June???? Crazy!

This is some of the hail I found on my lawn

The side of my car

My taillight

My broken windshield

Jason's parents' vinyl fence with holes in it

Jason's parents' patio cover