I have learned that with road trips I do much better leaving in the afternoon. The reason, my mind is always thinking and planning. So I never sleep well until I am on the road. Instead of be up half the night and then leaving at dawn, we left late afternoon and drove about 4 hours. 5 miles from our stop I got pulled over. My cruise control is broken and I ended up going 86 in an 80. I was hoping he would just give a warning, but no, a $40 ticket.

We stopped at a campground. I had put some taco meat in our little travel crock pot, so dinner was ready when we arrived. .

I could not decide if we were going to set up a tent or just rearrange things in the van. I opted for the ban, which was not the best idea. It took me way longer to move things around than set up a tent

Since it took me so long to set up the van for sleeping, lots of mosquitoes got inside. We killed probably 30 of them. We would end up opening a door and the inside light would come on and more mosquitoes fly in. The boys ended up with lots of bug bites.  I actually would have slept much better if I had left Joseph in a reclining seat and I had had a little more room to move my feet.  My pad was pretty comfortable.

The birds starting waking me up around 4am. I finally woke boys up at 5:45 and we hit the road. Our next stop was only 5 hours away. We planned to meet a friend for the night, so knew we had an easy day. We stopped at a rest area on the edge of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

In Bismarck we stopped at the Heritage Center, which is next to the Capitol.  Very cool stuff.

All of my kids earned some money for the trip and this little guy was just not happy until he found something to buy in the gift shop.  He really likes his stuffed animals and this guy is Slush.

as
We stayed the night in Bismarck and they boys got about 4.5 hours in at the pool. As you can tell from the pictures, we had a great time!

We have arrived in Ohio!! I am still trying to sort through the pictures and will hopefully get them up soon.

However, two days ago we celebrated Benjamin's 12th birthday.

He loves stealing my cameras and taking selfies! He usually spends his birthday on the road or out of state. This year was no different.

We are in the middle of our road trip, so hope to get some pictures up soon. In the mean time,

Random pictures from our day to day....
Yes, this griddle was food for the three boys.  Benjamin is almost as tall as I am and they are all eating a lot right now.

Not one of my finer moments!  I was on a country road running Bree.  I meant to make a u-turn at this intersection.  However, I cut it too close to the culvert and ended up with my right front tire in the ditch.  Some people passing by were going to pull me out but I was at a very weird angle and they were afraid they would break my bumper...which is 1-2 thousand a day to replace!  Good ol AAA to the rescue.  At least I had a cool, beautiful evening.

Went and had a shaved ice with my little man.  He wanted to get two mini action figures out of the gum ball machine.  He proudly used his own money.

Several Sundays now JR has run home from church.  It is 7 miles.  The second time, he took his wing man and Bree.  Bree did not make it the whole way but Joseph did!  I like all the country roads around our house.

This was the picture after the run.  He completed it in just over 1 hour.

A recent fishing trip with JR and Joseph. I think Joseph caught 4 fish and JR 2. Unfortunately none of them were keepers, but they were hooked none the less.

One of the neighbor boys has 'all the toys'. His dad works at a car dealership so I think that lends itself to it somewhat. Occasionally the boys will have the opportunity to take them for a spin.

These are what they call pocket bikes....

I am told they are street legal but of course no one is old enough to ride them. I guess the cops are okay with it as long as the kids stay on one street and an adult it watching them. The boys love it! Joseph can't wait until he is old enough to ride one by himself.

Last week Benjamin attended a 4H overnight camp, which had a medieval theme.  It was 3 nights up in the mountains and he had a blast.  I asked him his favorite part and he told me the dance!!!  I was shocked.  They have a dance on two different nights and you have to dance with at least 5 songs or they make you do dance with a counselor (they are high schoolers) in front of eveyone.  He was very relieved to find out the dance was swing/line dancing and not slow dancing.  I got excited and told him that we should practice so we could 'wow' everyone at the wedding in a few weeks.  He was not diggin' that!

The camp sits on this lake.

This was the group of kids.  Most of the camp is student led, which is one thing I love about 4H...big on leadership.  I am hoping that Benjamin will stay involved and become involved in all the high school leadership programs they have.  (Benjamin was behind his shield, so don't even spend time looking for him :-) )

This was a catapult they used.

This is the dragon swing.  Two people would lay down on their stomach and a small tractor would pull them back.  Then they swing through the forest.

He had a great time and is hoping to talk Jacob into going next year.   Between this camp and the Awana camp that Ben goes to in August, all of my boys have great camping opportunities.  It is also nice because everyone goes the same week, so it is for all ages!

I can't remember when the playhouse went up, but it has been at least 3 years. It came down this weekend! It takes up half our yard and the main thing it is used for right now is storage, so we took it down.  The younger two loved helping.

Looks like a tornado hit our yard. We will probably put a fire pit where the playhouse stood. I really want a trampoline, but I don't think there is enough room.

Some random pictures....
We recently headed to the river to see how Bree would do.  When we got down there it was flowing too fast and high to chance letting her get in.  i had visions of her floating away and me running along the bank trying to get her to swim.  I got this picture though, which I loved....

The weekend the boys went to trapper camp, Joseph wanted to spray his hair.  So, he got wild!  He kept telling me how 'swag' he looked!

I went to work recently again with JR.  This is the condo association that he has managed for over 4 years.  It is tucked down in there and it is ski in ski out...you can see the ski lift just to the left of the building.  It is pretty remote and quiet.

I saw these two big horn sheep beside the road.  They like to come down and lick the salt...from the snow plows in the winter.  They can be a pretty big distraction and cause accidents because they are so close to the road.

Trip preparations are being made to start out on the road. We will be spending 4 nights on the road, each one in a different location. I have some other posts pre-dated so as not to leave you all without a word for us!

JR, Benjamin and Jacob attended a trapper camp this past weekend.  They learned about conservation, ethical trapping, pelts and all other kinds of things.  I guess they have already signed all five of us up for next year.  They came back with all kinds of stories, some bait and even a skunk skin.

Here Jacob is skinning a beaver.

This was trapping safety

How to set water traps...

Seeing animal furs

Fleshing the fat off the beaver skin.

Jacob had a great time again at the cabin with his friend Cam.  He spent two nights at the cabin and then two nights at the trapper camp.

They saw some amazing clouds....

and beautiful scenery

From what I heard and the clothes that I saw, they spent most of their time in the dirt, working on a fort.

This is Cam's mom....

J played so hard, he crashed in the car when it was over.