Our first family vacation

Like I said in my last post, we went to Mt Rushmore over the Memorial Day weekend. It was our first vacation with just the three of us, and we had so much fun. We left on Thursday and drove 5 hours to Alliance, Nebraska. We stayed the night at a crummy hotel there, and we saw Carhenge, and played in the water fountain at central park. One cool thing, is that for about 10 blocks in downtown Alliance, the streets are paved with bricks. We had lots of fun at Carhenge. I don't think I would recommend going out of your way just to see it, but if you are ever near by, you should check it out.
Corbin loved Carhenge. He kept saying, "car! crash!" and he starting crying when it was time to leave.

I loved all the beautiful, green fields

We visited the central park fountain on Friday morning, and then we got back in the car and drove for about 3 hours, until we got to Rapid City, South Dakota. Fifteen miles outside of Rapid City, Clark hit a speed trap and received his first speeding ticket. Definitely a bummer for him. Especially because we had no idea that the speed limit had dropped to 55 mph.

We went to see some dinosaur sculptures. Corbin neighed at the first one he saw. We also went to a cave with a small waterfall in it. Unfortunately, you can't see much in the picture. The waterfall is to the right of Clark and Corbin.
We stopped to see the Stavkirke Chapel, which is a replica of a famous 850 year old Church in Norway. The wood working was amazing.

Saturday we started the day with a tour of Rushmore cave, the closest cave to Mt Rushmore.

Corbin lasted about half of the 60 min. tour in the backpack. Clark carried him the other half.
After the cave, we went on a drive around Custer state park, while Corbin took a nap. We drove through some really need stone tunnels. There were also a couple of really neat wood bridges we drove across. After Corbin woke up, we drove to see Mt Rushmore.

Corbin was getting pretty antsy after Mt Rushmore, and Clark and I were getting tired, so we decided to skip Crazy Horse and instead we went back to Rapid City. We stopped at an amazing kids park called Storybook Island. Corbin rode in his first barrel train, and he loved it. For the next hour he kept talking about the "twain, choo-choo"

Sunday we drove to Badlands National Park. The name comes from early French trappers, who called it bad lands, because it was a difficult area to travel through. Unfortuately, it was a little rainy, but we were still able to drive around and enjoy the park. We just couldn't go on any hikes.

I loved Badlands, It was beautiful!

After driving through badlands, we stopped at Wall Drugstore for lunch, and we wandered around the stores there, and took some fun pictures, like the one below.

We also stopped at an airplane museum, but we didn't take any pictures there.

And that concludes our vacation. We drove back home on Monday, and now life is full of laundry, unpacking, work, and preparing talks for church on Sunday (Yikes! Anyone want to volunteer to do mine for me? I'll prepare it, and you can just read it word for word in front of everyone...any takers???)

We got back last night from our Memorial day trip to Mt Rushmore. I haven't had time to go through all the pictures we took. I will try to post them in a couple of days. In the meantime, here is a fun picture I played around with, using Gimp. I actually didn't do anything to Corbin's head. He was sitting on Clark's shoulders right next to Mr. Washington's head, and so I just cropped out Clark's head and shoulders.

I just broke Corbin's heart...

...by putting his blankie in the washing machine. He sat in front of the machine and cried for at least 10 minutes. Then he came over to me and cried some more. Poor kid.

spoiled rotten

I had a great Mother's day weekend. Clark really spoiled me. On Saturday, we went to the Denver Aquarium and had lots of fun looking at all the fish. After that we went to out to dinner. Sunday afternoon Clark cooked me a steak dinner. He also changed all the poopy diapers all weekend. With no complaints. It was fabulous. Here are a few pics from the aquarium. Unfortunately, there aren't any picture of me. My camera battery died, and I was lucky to grab these few before it shut down. Thanks for the great weekend, Clark!!

I'm not really sure why they have tigers at the aquarium, but Corbin loved them.

Not too much has been going on here lately. Just a lot of the same old stuff. Clark has been pretty busy with work (seriously, when is he not busy?) He didn't get home until 10 pm last night :( Thank goodness we are going on vacation in 2 weeks!

Corbin is learning more words each day, which is really fun. I still think of him as my little baby, so it is crazy to see him growing up! A couple of new things about Corbin:

* He loves to help me push the shopping cart. He lasts about 5 minutes in the front basket and then he is begging "down" and "helpy" (helping). He pushes the cart from the bottom, while I steer. It works fairly well. I just have to grab my stuff off the shelves pretty fast, or else he tries to leave me behind.

* Corbin LOVES watching "Cars" He will find the "moke" (remote) and come and say, "car? lie-een keen?" (Lightening Mcqueen)

Corbin coloring pictures to send to his grandmas for Mother's Day. One of the pictures has dinosaurs on it, and he kept saying, "haasy (horsey), neigh!"

Corbin loves helping me vacuum. Even if he is mid-tantrum, he is instantly happy if I get the vacuum out. I wish I found vacuuming so enjoyable.

mix it up

A week ago, Clark and I were hungry for a Sunday afternoon treat. We had some frozen apple pie slices in the freezer, so we made those. We didn't have any ice-cream (so sad, I know), so I suggested we whip up some Dream Whip (basically it's whipping cream in a box). We poured it into our mixer, and after about a minute there was a big bang, an a bunch of sparks shot out of the back! It was crazy!
I went and found the user guide for the mixer, and found out it has a 1 year satisfaction guarantee. That didn't help us so much, because my parents gave us the mixer for Christmas 2007. We have had it for 1 year and 4 months. Clark and I were pretty mad.
I decided to call customer service anyways to tell them what happened. And they replaced our mixer for free! I am so happy! They were so helpful! I really didn't think that they would do anything about the mixer, and that they would just tell me, "too bad, the warranty has expired." So. Moral of the story: It never hurts to ask. Because you just might get a new mixer.

I love how quickly the weather changes in the spring. Two days ago Corbin was helping Clark shovel snow.

Today 95% of the snow is gone, and Corbin splashed in puddles and played in the mud. It was wonderful. I am getting so excited for summer.

A happy, muddy boy
I read somewhere (I wish I could remember where) that you should have kids say "cookie" instead of "cheese" when you take a picture. It results in a more natural smile. I think it really works. But then again, maybe it is just because Corbin loves cookies.

Playing with his "suck" (truck)

Every time he could hear an airplane, Corbin would gasp and say, "whaz at?" (what's that). And when I say plane, he copies with, "pane" And then he looks up to find the plane. It is pretty much always in the order. He is so interested in everything that is going on around him.

maddog jr.

I'll be honest. Sometimes Clark and I regret having a dog. I hate that she barks at every little thing behind our house. I mean seriously Izzy, it's a little stupid to bark your head off at the trash bags that someone left on the walking path. And at this time of year, she is a shedding maniac. I brush her at a minimum of every two days, and I vacuum every other day; yet there is hair EVERYWHERE. It drives me crazy.
And then Corbin goes and plays with Izzy for 30 minutes. Seeing them both so happy makes all the negative things I just listed seem not as bad. They have so much fun playing together. Corbin loves chasing her (as seen in the video below). Although sometimes he is more intent on running into Izzy, which then sends him to time-out. Corbin also loves to play fetch with Izzy. He loves to get her frisbee, and he hides it in the kitchen, while Izzy waits in the family room. Then I give Izzy the okay to go find it.

Spring snow

We are having a pretty big snow storm. It started yesterday morning, and snowed/rained all day. By last night we had about 6 inches. This morning we woke up to tons more snow! It is that heavy, spring snow; and when I looked out the window this morning, I noticed that our poor pine tree was buried. I had to go out and sweep most of the snow off. I was worried the limbs were going to break. Corbin was kind of upset when I got out the broom, and took it outside. He kept asking the play with the "bacuum" (vacuum).

The snow is still coming down strong, and it looks like it will continue for a while.

mad hatter

Corbin is really into hats lately. He likes to pull the visor really low, so that he can barely see. This is his favorite hat to wear. It is an EY hat, that Clark's work gave us when Corbin was born. I was going through Corbin's box of next-size-up clothes a couple of weeks ago, and I found this hat, and another one. Corbin wouldn't even try on the other hat. He threw a fit when I tried to stick it on his head. For some reason, Corbin just really likes his EY hat.