Day 2:

Last night we got next to no sleep. For some reason Gwyneth is afraid of this hotel room. When we come to our our room and open the door to come in she, starts backing away and keeps saying "Scary." I have no idea why.

The only way I could get her to sleep was to have her in bed with me. That worked ok except for her all night kicking. Then our wee one woke up at about 3:30 screaming her head off. Gwyneth was sound asleep so I got up and took Andrea down to a lounge to sit and give her a bottle. Apparently G woke up and found me missing and completely freaked out. Who knows maybe she thought the scary hotel room had eaten her mother and baby sister. She eventually cried herself to sleep and was still asleep when Andrea and I came back to the room at about 5 am.

Despite the rough night, we had a fun day. We took a tour of Wind Cave. It is the fourth longest cave in the world and has some very unique formations called box work.

After the tour we had a nice picnic lunch. Nice until the insect kingdom started making some rude appearances. I got bit on the foot by a nasty black ant. A few minutes later Alex said he thought he had a bug in his ear. It was a tick. Fortunately it hadn't planted itself yet and I was able to easily grab it out with a pair of tweezers. I told him that in the Midwest ticks commonly fall out of trees onto people. Now he won't set one foot under a tree without his hiking hat on. A few minutes after that another black ant found its way up Baby G's pant leg and bit her. Then we left.

After dinner we went to Mammoth Site. It is an excavation of mammoth bones from animals trapped in a water filled sink hole about 10,000 years ago. It is a dig that is still in progress. It was really quite interesting. The picture at the top is of my four cuties in a replica hut showing how mammoth bones and hide may have been used to build shelters.

It was a full day, but a fun day. I'm REALLY hoping for everyone to sleep well tonight.

Oh, and today is Gabrielle's 9th birthday. Happy Birthday to my girl!  : )

Today was the first day our our road trip to visit my parents in Underhill, Wisconsin. We stopped for a short tour at Martin's Cove, WY and a picnic lunch at Independence Rock which is just a few miles past Martin's Cove.

While we were at Martin's Cove a woman approached us and was taken with the extreme cuteness of our kids. (Who can blame her!) She politely asked me for permission to photograph my kids. After she took the photos and cooed over the babies a bit more she said, "Now where did my husband get to? He was right here a minute ago."

I said, "What does he look like?"

"Well, I don't know if you have heard of him, but his name is Gerald Lund."

"Well yes, that does ring a bell!"

For those that don't know, Gerald Lund is a General Authority in our church, as well as the author of the popular LDS fiction series (books and movies) titled "The Work and the Glory". He is something of a Mormon celebrity. Sister Lund was going to introduce us to him, but he had wandered off to places unknown so we we never did get a chance to shake hands with him.
Somewhere out there Gerald Lund and his wife may end up with a photo album containing pictures of my kids.  : )