Sister Sneak 2009

This all happened before 8 am today:

• "Mom, I accidentally wet the bed." Really? Because I was on the LAST load of laundry today.


• "Mom, I can't find my library book and it's due today." Really? Because that blasted book has been in my way for a week now. Of course it would disappear today.


• "Mom, I spilled my juice." Really? Because I just cleaned the floor.


• "Mom, why is the bathroom wet all the way from the toilet to the sink?" Really? Because...oh well, I guess I need to mop the bathroom.

Sometimes being a mom is exhausting. After this morning's adventures, I decided it was high time to post about my girls get away that happened last weekend. (I need to relive it for a few minutes.)(And no one feel too sorry for me, I am leaving again tonight for another child free weekend in Vegas!)

We have a tradition in Jarom's family where the adult ladies go away together for the weekend. It is always SUCH a great time.

The only children allowed to come are babies dependent on their mommies. And honestly, who could say no to this little sweetheart?
Is there anything better than cuddling a sleeping baby?

This year was Katie's turn to host, so we went to Logan, where we stayed in a hotel, ate great food, and learned how to "wire wrap" necklaces at a VERY fun bead shop.

The best part about sister sneak is the "favorite things" bags we do. A tradition we started last year and loved so much, we vowed to do it every year. It's seriously better than Christmas. There's just something about an entire bag of goodies meant for you and you only! We each bring a secret, small item that we love, and share it with one another.
My mother-in-law made these darling bags for us to stuff our goodies into.

Here's what we got this year:

• Missy gave DARLING sugar cookies shaped like flowers. She had wrapped them in little boxes so they looked like corsages.


• Becky gave yummy smelling bubble bath.


• Kaylin gave homemade caramel apples.


• Natalie gave a CD of some of her favorite inspirational music.


• Amber gave Scentsy car candles and tins. And also brought a big bag of perfumes and lotions to share.


• I gave "3 things every purse should have"- Orbitz sweet mint gum, Aquafina lip balm, and hand sanitizer.


• Emily gave bobby pins and a nail file.


• Katie gave monogramed notebooks, pens, and Snicker bars.


• Anna gave Halloween sit abouts, fall garland, and homemade chili sauce (aka liquid gold in a jar).

After a refreshing night in the hotel and necklace making, we all headed down to Salt Lake City to enjoy Gardner's Village sans children. It was so nice to actually be able to go into the little shops and enjoy the decorations. We even had dinner in the old mill. Be sure to look at our necks to see the necklaces we made.

What a great time! If you are lucky enough to have your sisters nearby, you should SERIOUSLY consider a yearly sister sneak! Thank you to Katie for making this year so successful. Can't wait until next year. Good luck Amber!

Mini-Quin has arrived!

Like Father

Like Son!

Little Baby Smith (who doesn't have a name yet, possibly Cameron) arrived yesterday Oct. 13, weighing in at 8 lbs 4 oz. He looks exactly like his daddy! (He was even 4 days overdue, just like his Dad.)

We're all so excited that he's finally here, safe and sound. And we hate how far away he is. Congratulations to Quin and Natalie!!! Now, I can not wait until I can get my hands on this little guy!!
I just want to rub my face in all that hair! Quin and Natalie, DO NOT cut his hair until I get to see him in person!!!!

Last Day of SD Trip

I didn't realize it, but there are MANY caves around the Mt. Rushmore area. We thought about visiting "Wind Cave" but decided we'd had just about enough wind to last us a life time, so instead we settled for "Wonderland Cave". I think caves are so cool. We had a great time checking this one out. Jarom wasn't as fond of the cave as I was. He said it was eerie being so deep under ground. We were pretty deep, about 200 ft. down. Certainly the deepest cave I've ever been in.

After looking at cool cave formations, we hopped in the truck and began the long journey home.

We drove through Deadwood, SD where Wild Bill Hickok was killed and Calamity Jane is buried.

Devils Tower was so close (only about an hour out of the way) that we had to drive over and see it. We're so glad we did. It was amazing! A giant rock mountain just shoots out of the ground out of nowhere. So strange.

Click on this picture to make it big and try to find the rock climbers. There are 4, but the easiest one to see is just above the tallest pine tree and to the right a little bit. He's wearing a bright orange jacket. This gives you somewhat of a perspective as to how massive this rock really is. (The other guys are above him, in the same column/crevice, but they are really hard to see.)

We decided to forgo all strangers, and went directly to the self timer for this shot. I think it turned out great.

We just had to get out and enjoy the prairie dogs for a little while. They were so cute popping up and down in their holes.

This little fat guy was mighty curious about us.

About this time in the day, we started hearing weather reports of a nasty snowstorm due to blow in on our direct route home. We made a change of plans and decided we needed to try to get as close to home as we could, as fast as we could. So we all settled in for a VERY long drive.

Of course as soon as we decided we needed to hurry, our tire had to go and pop on us. Miraculously we were stopped when this happened. Kate was needing a potty break, so we had pulled off the interstate. I was helping Kate in the camper when I heard a very loud bang and the camper felt like it dropped off a curb. I came out to discover a VERY bald tire with a hole blown right out. We were thankful we were stopped when this happened!

We drove all night and got within 2 hours our home. We had made it past all the highest mountain passes (and had beat the snow storm) so we decided to pull over and sleep for a few hours before continuing on.

I just had to click a picture of the colors as we went whizzing on by. The trees were gorgeous!

We made it home and I think this little girl had missed her pets. :) (Not so sure if the pets felt the same way, but that doesn't matter a bit to Alyssa.)

Since brother was the photographer for Alyssa's photo shoot, he wasn't about to be left out himself. Silly kids. It's good to be home!

Finally...Mt Rushmore!

We made it! It was still SO windy, so it was kind of like run, see the mountain, click a picture, run into a building, view from the window, run back to the car. But still...we accomplished our goal of seeing Mt. Rushmore, and it really was quite neat to see in person.

"Sir, could you take our picture?"

ALWAYS look at the picture after you've had a stranger take it for you. I guess this guy thought we drove 1000 miles just to get a family photo. No need to include the presidents' heads, we're good looking enough without the incredibly famous national monument behind us. LOL!

Never fear, Jarom and his tripod are here. Ahhh....that's more like it. Yep, self-timer is the way to go.

We continued on to Custer State Park where the drive was beautiful, but VERY twisty and had tiny, little tunnels to drive through. This was our favorite tunnel with a view of Mt Rushmore straight through. The lighting was just to crazy for our little camera to do justice to the shot however.

So much wild life in Custer. Turkeys, turkeys EVERYWHERE. (They really were EVERYWHERE in SD, not just Custer.) I loved it. I want a little flock of wild turkeys roaming around my yard. How fun would that be?! (Well, if they were poop free anyway.)

Most of the buffalo had already been herded up and put in the corrals for winter. (They vaccinate, brand, sort, and sell the buffalo in Custer. A little different than we are used to over here in Yellowstone.) But we managed to see a few still roaming about.

We even saw wild burros. (Although I think "wild" is a little extreme. How about "free roaming"? I think that works a little better.)

"Well hello there." The burros....Oh the burros. We got SUCH a kick out of them. They were SO curious what we had in our car. They could smell our lunch warming up on the dashboard.

Or maybe they just wanted a kiss.

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Me and my burro buddies. (Did you ever watch the Sesame Street episode where the girl takes her llama to the dentist? The theme song kept playing over and over in my head, only with the word llama changed to burro. "Me and my burro, me and my burro...") Yep, I loved the burros. So did my kids.

After another full day of driving and site seeing, we decided to call it a night and head back to our camper. And guess what??? The wind STOPPED!!!

Wall Drug and Badlands

We forged on to Rapid City, SD the next day. We dropped off the camper at a campground and continued on to Wall, SD. Boy were we glad to have that camper off, the winds were INTENSE. We had to make a stop at Wall Drug to see what all the hoopla was about. There are about 100 million signs for "Wall Drug" between Rapid and Wall. Let me tell you....Wall Drug isn't all it's cracked up to be. But we were glad to be out of the car for a little while and inside a building to be out of the freezing wind.



The coolest thing there (which wasn't really that cool) was the big scary dinosaur. He would roar and open his mouth. Carter wouldn't get within 10 feet of the thing. In fact, the kid took off with lightening speed when the dinosaur came "alive". I only caught the very last few seconds of him running, but oh it was so funny.

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Poor scared little boy. He was sobbing.


We got our pictures with the stage coach,

and the jackalope.

And then it was time to head to Badlands National Park. Hang on to your hats...have I mentioned the wind? Honestly it was so windy, we were too afraid to even let our kids take the walks to the edge of the canyon for fear of a big gust coming and blowing someone over the edge. (We read on the weather report that there were 50 mph gusts.)

So we viewed Badlands from the nice warm car. The colors were beautiful and we had a great time learning from Wikepedia (via Jarom's laptop) all about how the Badlands were once under water and there are fossils from turtles and other water creatures there. So interesting!

After a VERY full day of driving, it was time to go back to good ol' Sacajawea and settle in for the night. It's a good thing we were all so tired because otherwise no one would have slept a wink with that wind howling all night long.

Through Wind and Snow, We'll Still Go

We spent the first night in a campground in Park City, UT. During the night I wasn't sure if I was sleeping in my camper or on a boat. The wind and rain were OUTRAGEOUS. The camper rocked and rolled all night long and when we woke up it was COLD.

Cold or not, we were headed to Martin's Cove, WY. I am a bit of a wimp when we pull our camper, I hate the way it feels like it's going to roll or fish tail, and with 40 mph winds I pretty much white knuckled it the entire way. Thankfully, we made it safely and in time to get a tour of Martin's Cove.

We went 6 years ago and pulled handcarts along a 5 mile stretch to the cove, but I'm telling you, getting a ride in the little atv rover is MUCH easier. :)


Check out Halle's hair. It was SO blasted windy!

Here we are back in the cove. It was still cold, but the wind was SO much less. Gave us a real appreciation as to the protection the pioneers received from this exact same place with wind and snow whipping around them. This truly is a humbling place to visit.

As we headed on through Wyoming, we made sure to have a pit stop at Independence Rock.

Where we climbed

and climbed.

Well, some of us anyway. I stayed down below and enjoyed the wild life and worried about running into rattlesnakes. I kept saying, "One good thing about how cold it is today, is that the rattlesnakes won't be out and about."

Kate and I started to head back to the truck, and wouldn't you know it, a SNAKE comes slithering out and I almost stepped on it. It wasn't a rattler (thankgoodness) but I was so worked up having been thinking about them, that I screamed when I saw it. Poor little Kate, who truly does have a fear of snakes, fed off my reaction and just about came out of her pants.

As we headed on down the highway, the snow started coming down. And then the wind mixed in and before we knew it, we couldn't see anything, the freeway was a mess, and cars were crawling along at 30 mph. We decided we'd just pull off at the next exit and call it a night. This is what we woke up to the next morning.

Miley Cryus Turns Into Major Vacation

A few months back I found out Miley Cryus was coming to Salt Lake. (We ALL love her in this house.) She came last year but the tickets were wicked expensive so we didn't go. The girls have felt a little shafted ever since, especially since the show was ON Alyssa's birthday. The tickets were MUCH cheaper this time around (all 3 for the price of 1 last year) so I decided to splurge and take my girls on a date. We kept it a secret from them until the day before. I WISH so badly that I would have had my video camera rolling when we told them. Just imagine lots and LOTS of screaming!

The plan was just for the 3 of us to go down and have a girls only party, but then I noticed the week of the show was also a short week of school for the kids. Jarom and I decided we'd just take the trailer to UT and camp for a few days. Some how the plan spiraled out of control and before we knew it, we were headed to the Black Hills of South Dakota.

I apologize for those of you who follow me on facebook, for you've already heard most of the vacation stories. But you know me, I love to print my blurb books and I have to have this all written on the blog to do that. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the next few days of travel recap posts from me.

Can you feel the excitement?!

We were pleasantly surprised to learn that our seats were the front row of the balcony. PERFECT seats!

It's Miley!!! The music and screaming were SO loud and intense that I had to go get a pair of complimentary ear plugs. How is that for old?! (Halle wore some too b/c she was starting to get a headache, but Alyssa refused; she wanted the whole affect.)

I had been warned by a friend that Miley's show in Portland had caused some parental outrage because the dancing was a little risque. I was nervous to see what I had gotten myself into, but Miley actually got sick during our concert. She left the stage in the middle of the 2nd song and had to take a break before she came back. I don't know if she had toned things down b/c of the Portland deal or if it was divine intervention that she didn't feel good enough to dance like normal, but I didn't feel she was inappropriate at all. Thank goodness.

It really was a riot and my girls and I are still Miley fans. She's great live, even sick.

Here's the girls' reactions to when they saw their first glimpse of Miley. (I think Alyssa was a little in shock. LOL!)

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Jarom and the little kids met up with Aunt Natalie, Uncle Brandon, and Aunt Emily and they all went to Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, while we were at the concert. Worked out great.