1st place!

Aidan played with some of his friends in a 3v3 tournament at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Denver on Saturday! They won 1st place!!

Here's the winning team!

Fun day! We even stayed for the Rapids game that evening and saw some of the fireworks show that followed.

Tyler Courier Times - Telegraph

On the last morning of our trip my mom is sitting at the table looking through the paper when you hear her say, "Wellllll, look who's in the paper!" This is my dad bending over working on a part for a boat and the article is pretty big with lots of quotes and stuff from him. He never mentioned it to anybody, which is hilarious because I knew that he had already read the paper and saw it. Ha!

I had to stop and buy one for myself to keep. Since he didn't want to brag - I will.

What a surprise!

I did it, I can't believe I actually pulled it off! (Lots of lying involved though!) I planned a weekend with our family in Texas and the boys had no idea that we were going. Tristan figured it out once I handed him the boarding pass in the security line! I did learn a little about him though - he doesn't like surprises. I should have know since he's such a planner but oh well. It took him until later that evening to finally start enjoying himself.

The view of downtown Dallas from our hotel window! Breathtaking!

The pool that Nana put together herself due to the installation people never showing up or returning any phone calls. She was determined to have this ready for our visit and she did it! She's an amazing woman whom I will always admire. (If that was me, it wouldn't have been done and I would have cried my eyes out!)

The rooftop swimming pool at the hotel. Yes, we did a lot of swimming!

Finally made it to Medieval Times. We had seats on the second row and little Miss Brooke got the flower from our knight! The entire Brown family enjoyed the dinner and show.

My mom and I! (These pictures are not that great because I dropped my camera the first day of the vacation and broke the screen again.)

Aidan and his Nana and Cleve. If he had a choice I think he would leave me in a minute to move in with them. I love it that he loves them so much!

Texas flag outside my parents house. Along with a boat motor of course. What an awesome weekend we had! It's truly a blessing to have such wonderful families.

Recap of the trip!

**Remember when I said that this was a weekend away for us? I didn't realize I was a prophet!! I had no idea that it would mean no phone service, no texts, no email, no internet, and no GPS Maps from our phones! (For those who did write/call me: thanks for thinking of us, so sorry for being so rude to not reply but I had no idea about it all until Sunday night.) That was a shocker for me and something I wasn't prepared for, I hadn't printed directions for anything other than our cabin. This really turned into a weekend away!!!!! It was good but I wouldn't be honest if I didn't tell you I felt a little vunerable and anxious during the weekend.

We headed north Friday and drove to Lusk, WY which was our pit-stop on the way to Mt. Rushmore! We stayed at the Covered Wagon which was pretty affordable but not really nice if you know what I mean? It was okay don't get me wrong, the pool was fantastic and the boys had a blast there. The room was just so-so but of course the boys loved it because we had 3 beds so they each got their own. Compared to all of the hotels we've been in can you believe this is at the top of their list? Ha! The town was really small and unfortunately the restaurant I was so excited to have dinner at ended up being closed so we had to go to Subway. I was grateful that we had that Subway option though because there wasn't much else.

Saturday morning we got up and finished the drive to Custer, SD and drove on to Mt. Rushmore! It was amazing to see and the walking tour guide was really informative - I loved learning all about it.

We drove by Crazy Horse but didn't stop. He was a famous Indian from that area and they are in the progress of constructing his mountain carving. It's supposed to be the largest in the world!

Drove through Needles Highway, which is a long scenic drive. It was nice - we stopped at Sylvan Lake and did a bit of hiking. It was beautiful there.

Finally made it to our lodge where I had the cabin reserved! It was super nice but unfortunately our phones still didn't work and our cabin was so far from the lodge area that we didn't have luck with the wireless internet either. Josh is teaching a class and he had to go to the lodge to use the computer so that was a bummer but it turned out okay in the end.

The boys loved the cabin and being in the forest. They love to go and explore, climb rocks (and hurt themselves), and be outdoors. We even had a campfire that night and made s'mores!

Sunday we made our way home and although I didn't originally think 6 1/2 hours was a long drive - it is! Especially when you are tired. I had a good time but I'm so tired right now that it's hard to enjoy it. Give me a week and then maybe I'll sound happier about it all. I am really glad that we did it though. Now I can mark that off my list and decide on what we have to see next.

Happy 4th!!!

Tomorrow we'll be on the road!

The first night we'll be staying here. This should be interesting huh?

When I called to make reservations (6 weeks ago) I didn't realize how popular Custer, SD is during the 4th of July so I could only get 1 night at the state park.

Anyway, the goal for this trip is to get away from home and soccer for just a weekend as a family. Mt. Rushmore has been on our list as a "must see" for a while now and when I found out it was only 6 hours from us I knew we had to do it. It'll be a short trip, Friday - Sunday but if we love it, we can always go back. I'll post pictures as soon as I can next week so check back!