The longest vacation this family has EVER taken...day by day.

Day #1

 The first day...look how happy we all seem :)

We left at 5:30 am on July 1st and drove to Green River, Wyoming where we met up with my sister and her family. 

We thought it would be fun to take a picture in front of all of the "State" signs we passed along the way. We soon found out that some states are LAME and have their signs hanging over a bridge...or over the Highway...not cool :(

They had a visitors center in Green River...so we went in and took pictures...cuz that is what we do!

(Shelley, Kristy...and the photo bomber is Kylan)

(Kambree)

 (Austin and Kylan)

(Scott, Noah, and Shawn)

They were tired already!

And before you know it, we were back on the road.

We stopped to fill up the van with gas...often. This is a funny sign we saw at a gas station called "The Loaf n Jug", and you all know me...I do enjoy a good funny photo op :) And NO we didn't take advantage of the buy 9 get 1 free, but next time we are in Wyoming we might.

Wyoming really didn't hold much adventure for us. We only made one stop and that was at Martin's Cove. My brother-in-laws parents are serving a mission there. We stopped and visited for a few minutes, had lunch, and let the kids pull the hand carts around a little.

 Seriously...how could I NOT take a picture of this? It was a sign that was in the girls restroom at Martin's Cove. It made us all laugh :)

Then we left for South Dakota...this is what we saw...windmills...and more windmills.

 Yeah finally South Dakota!

 We were torn between going to see the laser show at, Crazy Horse, State park or going to, Mount Rushmore, and watching the flag ceremony. Mount Rushmore won, so we stopped at Crazy Horse and took a picture or two.

Off to Mount Rushmore

 We just happened to get the back of this guys shirt in the picture...it is so funny. It reads "I am a Bomb Technician if you see me running try to keep up".

Austin had to do this famous, "I am picking the President's nose" picture.

 Sitting in the amphitheater waiting for the flag ceremony to begin.

This picture was taken after we saw the flag ceremony. It was amazing!

That night we stayed at the Econo Lodge...do not recommend this place!! We reserved a room with 2 queen beds, one for Shawn and me, one for the 3 girls to sleep in together and then we brought a blow up mattress for Austin to sleep on the floor. When we got there, there was only 1 double bed and a pull out couch that had a single bed in it. They were sold out so there was no other room to move to. Here are a few funny pictures of that room...it sure made for good memories. 

  (Austin and Kam in the single, pull out couch, bed)

 Oh and if you had the mattress blown all of the way up you couldn't fit them on the small floor...or open the door to the bathroom...or open the door to get out of the room!!

The girls decided to deflate the mattress a little and kind of scrunched up on the floor. It was AWESOME!!

All in all it was a great first day. The only down side was that Austin was having a flare. His hips and knees were hurting so bad that he could barely walk. When we were at Mount Rushmore all of the kids were running up and down the amphitheater stairs, running up and down the trails that they have that go half way up to the monuments. He was a little depressed not to be able to join in the cousinly fun. They had elevators, but it was still hard. A few times we just ended up carrying him on our backs. I was freaking out ...just a little...we still had 10 days of our trip left. We contemplated calling his Dr. to see if we could get new meds, but in the end we decided to give it a few more days and see if the treatments he was already on would kick in.

Day #2...coming soon :)