Road Trip Pt 2 (Overload of Mt Rushmore Pictures)

Having never been to the black hills before I could only assume that they were hills and that they were black, right? Rapid City is beautiful, the black hills appear black from a distance, Mt Rushmore is amazing and well worth a trip. Overall we had a lot of fun and are so glad to have seen this part of the country!

Perfect weather and blue skies.

The Sturgis Bike Rally was going on at the same time, but it still wasn't that crowded...just a lot of leather.

I love that Rayce had to wear his cowboy hat, somehow it was very fitting.

We loved this place! Next up, a drive-through animal park. There were bears everywhere.

At first I kinda wondered if we had wasted our money...and then this guy came walking along. I've never seen a white wolf, or any wolf for that matter.

They even had some bear cubs.

We left Rapid City the next day and drove 11 hours to Utah, something I probably wouldn't do again but everyone was ready to be here with family and friends. I didn't really think about leaving Omaha until after it was done. We had a short but sweet year in the Midwest and will always have fond memories of it. I hope we will find Japan to be a good fit for our family. We will soon find out.

Road Trip Pt 1

We are in Utah now! After a week of packing and moving and saying goodbye yet again we had a very eventful road trip to Utah, not to be outdone by a soon to be road trip to Seattle for our departure to the great unknown.

We had a couple of days completely entrenched in boxes before the movers came, yeah, not my favorite thing, but it went as smooth as possible.

One of our going away dinners with the Sorenson's.

Rayce and Boris made use of the bean-bag after beds were packed up!

After the movers let we noticed nails left in our driveway from them nailing up the crates...only problem was we noticed too late so 2 hours into our drive we had to stop and replace a tire!
We also made a few stops along the way to Rapid City, SD, like to the Corn Palace.

I know it's hard to believe that this is the only Corn Palace in the world, so we had to stop. Truth be told I hate stopping along the way but would rather get to the destination, but Dan loves to stop and check things out.

We also stopped in the middle of nowhere, which happens to be somewhere in South Dakota to see an 1880's town. It has been used in various movies and TV series and it was actually pretty cool.

The saloon was our favorite.

Then the kids found a kitten and nothing else mattered. I've never seen Rayce like that before, he was determined to take it to Japan with us.

We finally got back on the road and made it to Rapid City about 11 pm.

Graduation Day!

It seems like we just did this, because we just did this! A little over a year ago Dan graduated Dental school and today he graduated from the Advanced Education in General Dentistry residency program from Offutt Air Base. The residency is very small, only 8 people so it was short and sweet!

The graduates all lined up and looking very handsome in uniform.

Dan with Colonel Gamble and Colonel McClure.

Dan and Colonel Risk

This residency was more rigorous than either one of us anticipated but I think we would do it all over again, Dan learned a lot and met some great people along the way. Next stop Japan!

Some of My Fav's

As you can see, we finally got some new family photo's taken. I need to get better about doing these every year. I really hate the hassle of trying to find something for everyone to wear and getting everyone ready and yelling at everyone to stay ready...but it really is worth it. Here are some of my favorites!

I love this one even though no one is really smiling and Danielle looks smashed in the middle.

She is so photogenic.

I love my family!

Summer Cont.

The kids have been doing pages from their workbooks almost everyday, and surprisingly there has been little complaining. I still don't think I could be a home-schooler.

We went to a neighborhood association party at the park complete with gelato from Ecreamery, Beautiful and yummy.

We got family pictures taken on Monday and about an hour before we were supposed to start we got this crazy storm out of nowhere. It was really hard rain and left it humid for our pictures!

For our upcoming move we are trying to kennel-train Boris for the 10 hour plane ride. It's not easy, he HATES the kennel, so I used the same method I use on the kids, bribery! It took him about 10 minutes of whining outside the kennel before he finally ventured in to get his hard earned treat...and he came right back out!

Two weeks before the movers come!