Happy Halloween

We have a Harry Potter, purple Morph, and Voledemort this year. The girl decided to be with her teenage friends. Pft! 

Kent drove Josh around on the little motor scooter, while Hayden and his friend Dallin, and Sawyer and the neighbor Tyson trick-or-treated with them on foot.

Last game of the season

Today was the last games of the season for these two. They were at the same time, but luckily at the same field. Josh ended up with 4 goals this game!

I missed Sawyer's game because I was watching Josh's, but isn't he a handsome soccer player? 

Braces

Today is the day! Braces! He's actually pretty excited.

Deadwood and Crazy Horse

On Saturday we spent most of the day in Deadwood. We did the walking tour around town. We ate lunch at the pizza parlor, then made it to Saloon 10 in time to see the reenactment of Wild Bill Hickock's assassination. 

Sitting in a miner car

Giant Pumpkin!

The actor who portrayed Colorado something or other.

The actor who played Wild Bill Hickock. 

On the way back to the hotel we drove near Crazy Horse. But we thought that was close enough so we snapped a pick and didn't go in. 

McKinley had a fever so we took her back to the hotel. Sawyer and Josh stayed there watching cartoons while Hayden joined us at the Alpine Inn for a nice steak dinner. Then the boys went swimming in the pool while I sat with McKinley in the hotel room. Luckily she was better by morning.

Mt. Rushmore trip

The boys are off track and McKinley has a little break for fall recess. The stars aligned and Kent was able to take a couple days off work too. So we decided to take a little getaway. We were deciding between California Redwoods, or Mt. Rushmore. McKinley thought we should do Rushmore this time so we could mark South Dakota off of our map.

On Thursday we packed up and drove around 10 hours to Hill City, South Dakota. 

On Friday we checked out Mt. Rushmore. It isn't tourist season right now, and the weather was in the low 70's, so it turned out to be a perfect time to visit!

We also drove the Needles Highway and Custer State Park. There were a few tunnels to drive through,

There were a lot of wildlife warning signs, but we probably only saw about 5 bison close up, and then a big herd from far away near the bison ranch area.

After the Needles Highway and Custer State Park drive we looped back to Rushmore to see them lit up at night. There is no night program running during the off season though. Then back to the hotel for the kids to swim in the pool, and Kent to deal with a migraine.

Wheeler Farm

Josh and I explored Wheeler Farm today. I think it was his first time there. I think his favorite part was throwing rocks in the lake. I was trying to sneak in some pictures because his family picture session didn't yield any good individual shots of him.  Most of them turned into his concentrated, fake smile like this...

But once in a blue moon I found the real smile.

Baking!

Josh wanted to use his oven last night after his birthday, but we didn't get back from dinner until after 9. Today he made a little after school snack for the boys.