Warrior Dash 2012

When I first heard that the Warrior Dash was coming to Earlham, I was excited. But when I heard the date, I knew I had to sign Chris and I up...regardless what Chris said. 7/14....our wedding date. Our 5th year wedding anniversary to be exact!

5 years may not be a long time, but we are so excited to have reached this milestone! Many people doubted we would last, but honestly, I think we are more in love now than 5 years ago. Enough of the sappy love stuff, on to the Warrior Dash!

For those of you who don't know what a Warrior Dash is, it's a 5k race with multiple obstacles along the way. For example, we had to climb rope nets, crawl through trenches, and jump over fire just to name a few. Here are some pictures of this day!

We are ready!

Our costumes! Chris is a trooper!

We had a lot of "Happy Anniversary" wishes during the race (from the people passing us :-)

Adam hoping over the fire

So excited to see the end!

Had to make sure the tulle didn't catch on fire!

Into the mud pit. Goodbye pretty white tulle!

Danielle and Erin after the race

We are warriors!

After picture. I had to lose the skirt because it was so heavy!

The men!

We rocked it!

Happy Anniversary!

Love.

Represent!

Don't mess with us! (By this point, Chris just wants the photo shoot over!)

 It was a lot of fun. Chris and I stayed with each other throughout the race.....you know, through thick and thin! :-) What a great way to celebrate 5 years. What to do for our 10 year? Tough Mudder, anyone?

Day 7: Laura Ingall Wilder Day!

Our last day of the trip was probably the highlight of the trip for me! I read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books when I was little and have always wanted to go over to De Smet to her house. But it was always too far out of the way on our trips to Grandmas in Minnesota.

Luckily, I have a husband who loves his wife enough to take her there. The girls and I have been reading the books together as well so this was as equally exciting for them!

"This is like Laura's wagon!"

pumping water from the well

Pretty proud of their muscles!

Washing clothes by hand.....A lot more work!

Alexa showing Bren what clothes pins are for!

This great tour guide really explained the life of a pioneer to the girls. They were intrigued.

In another wagon!

The girls got to help drive the horses to the school.

My little pioneer girls. Bren wasn't digging the hat.

Great experience!

After a long day,we spent one more night camping at Lake Thompson. Beautiful lake and scenery. We got up early the next morning and finished the drive home! What a great family vacation! I am so grateful for all the memories we made! Already planning our trip for next year!

Day 6: Happy 4th of July

So, here I am...two weeks after our vacation and I haven't finished the blog. Typical Jacque. But I am going to get it done now because I want to remember our trip...all of it. We started the Fourth of July off by finding out there were no fireworks due to the lack of rain.
 So we decided to head up to Belle Fouche for their annual 4th of July parade.

Enjoying the Parade!

Lex showing off her goodies!

After the parade, we continued driving west to Devil's tower...in Wyoming! Crazy how this trip took us across the entire state of South Dakota!

I can't remember the name of this little town, but it look like it was straight out of the wild wild west.

Devil's tower

The girls worked on their photography skills

My little rock climbers

My little rock climbers after too much parade candy

Pretty cool. We got to see 2 groups trying to climb the tower. We found one man who was with one of the groups just watching. He had been sitting there for 3 hours and they had barely made it 1/4 of the way up. I guess he had quite a lot of wait time left!

We enjoyed watching all the prairie dog villages

The girls and I by a big rock :-)

Bren playing on a log---it was a 1.4 mile hike around the tower .....so we tried to break it up so it wasn't too much walking. 

So no fireworks on the fourth...it was a first for us. We did get to be neighbors to a couple from Canada that night. We had drinks and talked well into the night. They were hilarious...and it was fun to find out the similarities/differences between the two places. Fun fact: The two things that are "smuggled" over the boarder back to Canada are....beer and dairy products. A case of beer costs them around $50 in Canada. They had their camper filled with beer---I think they bought WalMart out! I told Chris he could never afford to live in Canada! :-)

Day 5: snakes and swimming!

We decided today was going to be our 'relaxing' day....meaning not a lot of driving. Chris took the girls to Reptile Gardens while I stayed back at the campsite to work on some on-line class work. (it worked out good for me since I'm not a big reptile fan anyways.) They had a great time watching some shows and petting an alligator.
This afternoon we went a waterpark full of slides, a lazy river and more! The girls had a great time....that is until we talked Bren into going down a waterslide with Chris. Somehow, their tube flipped and Bren ended up hitting her head....a few times. I'll upload a picture of her battle wound. Needless to say, the fun ended quickly and we got 'feel better soon' ice cream. now off to a lazy night of relaxing around our 'non' fire ( Rapid City is under a no burn). Hopefully there will still be fireworks tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath.

 Here's Brenna's war wounds with the slide.

Chris' face just cracks me up!

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Day 4: Wind Cave and Horses!

Day 4! We started today right where we left off last night. We had drove by Wind Cave, but had decided it was too late to venture into the cave. Good thing! The tour lasted almost an hour and a half. Both Chris and I had never been in a cave before, so it was a neat experience for all of us.

Wind Cave is known for its boxwork. It is believed that Wind Cave has over 90% of all the boxwork in the entire world. Pretty cool!

Bren wasn't too keen of the cave--it was cold and dark. Luckily she had a nice daddy who carried her most of the way (especially down the 350 steps. Don't worry--there was an elevator up :-)

Lex and I "Caving" (spelunking is the old term)

You can't see it on their faces, but they were happy that the cave was too far down to have any bugs or bats in it!

Our tour was around 200 ft below ground-walking distance .5 miles. It is estimated that the entire cave is over 140+ with all of the pathways.

After that, we ventured down to the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary . Our kids love horse and thought this would be a fun place to see wild mustangs running. Wrong. Our "tour" consisted of a 2 hour long bus drive finding little batches of "wild" horses who are fed and watered on a daily basis. We were allowed out to take pictures and even get close enough to touch one. Not too wild. :-). The girls did enjoy ringing the bell, though.

There was a cute baby one the girls loved.

Here's the biggest batch of horse we saw. Our guide did tell us that the horses have 18,000 + acres to roam. Many of the more wild mustangs venture to the "wild" side of the sanctuary....where we didn't get to go. So...not a place I'd recommend for a stop on our next trip out here, but the girls did enjoy seeing the horses.