South Dakota - Day 4 - Bear Country USA

Day 4 was yet another cold and rainy day.  But we carried on!  We went to Bear Country, USA and we LOVED it!  I guess you could say it is a zoo of sorts, but how zoos should be!  The first half you are in your car, which worked out perfect with the rain.  You just drive through this path at your own pace and they have different sections where animals just roam around.  Obviously, (since the animals are wandering around you) you are not supposed to get out of your car or roll down your windows.  But I secretly would roll down our window to take pictures - I didn't want raindrops in all of my pictures!  Mark was a little worried about this - but we were fine :)

Arctic Wolves

Bears!  There were SO MANY BEARS!  At least 50!

Big Horn Sheep

These little kiddos were too cute running around!

Buffalo

Elk

Mountain Lions

Mule Deer

Reindeer

Rocky Mountain Goat

Wolves

 

 

 

 

They did keep the Grizzly Bears in their own blocked off section.  Their names were Tank and Cheyenne.  Take a guess as to who was who? :)

 We were MOST excited though to walk through the Babyland.  They keep the little kiddos separate from the big kids.  This was really the only thing that was kind of ruined by the weather.  It was raining pretty good and all of the little kiddos were hiding in their little caves and logs so it made it hard to see.  We were kind of sad, but we did see some and they were so cute.  We wanted to take all of them home with us. 

Arctic Foxes

Badgers

Black Bears - I PROMISE they were in there! :)

Coyotes

Lynx

Porcupine

Red Fox - we felt really bad for this little guy, he was just shivering out by himself while the rest of the group was in the log :(

River Otters

Skunks

 

South Dakota - Day 3

Day 3 of our trip, we woke up to a snowy/cold day.  Luckily, we had just happened to plan on more indoor activities.  We drove about an hour south to the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs.  It is essentially a museum of sorts, but was really cool actually. 

Apparently, this man bought a bunch of land to begin a housing development, and only ended up digging about ten feet when they hit bone.  He got someone to come out and it turned out to be a mammoth.  Can you imagine?!  Anyway, they have already found 59 mammoths and expect there is still LOTS to go. 

It was really interesting actually to learn more about them.  One thing that was interesting was ALL of the mammoths they have found are male.  They believe that this site was a watering hole of sorts back in the day.  And they would go to get a little drink and some of them fell in and then were unable to get themselves back up. 

Anyway, it was really interesting.  They take you on a little short tour of the excavation site and then pretty much let you wander around as long as you want.  They let anyone come and help dig - no experience needed - even kiddos!  That would be pretty darn fun!

Part of the excavation site - AMAZING

This is "Murray Antoinette"

Just to give you a little size comparison - to sum it up - THEY ARE HUGE!

56 of the 59 mammoths they have found are American Columbians that looked like this - the other three they have found are Woolly Mammoths.

They have also found these beasts - GIANT SHORT-FACED BEARS!  They are MASSIVE!  They stand twelve feet tall on their hind legs.  They were described as taller, leaner and meaner then today's bears - geez!

There's that little cutie in the exhibit part of the site :)

After we left the Mammoth Site we decided to change our plans a little bit.  It was still rainy and so we decided to take a drive through Custer State Park.  This was another thing we hadn't initially planned on doing but we are glad we did.  We didn't get to see too much wildlife because of the rain, but we did see some buffalo. 

I will tell you what though, the Black Hills are BEAUTIFUL!  I don't really know what I was expecting, but I was very pleasantly surprised.  I seriously LOVED it there!  And Custer State Park was beautiful too.  It was especially exciting when we went on the Needles Highway.  It is beautiful there.  The road was a little sketchy for me at times - sudden drop offs of death and the sort - but it was still beautiful. 

We went through three tunnels that were pretty crazy too.  VERY SMALL!  Glad Lola (our little Corolla) is a small little gal. 

We took our time and drove up to Rapid City which is where we were going to be staying for the next couple of days.  Wet - but another GREAT day!

South Dakota - Day 1 and 2

Oh my goodness...this trip was so much fun!  We are pretty pooped, but we are SO glad that we decided to go.  I probably will go into WAY more detail then anyone cares about - but I want to make sure to remember specific things and since I am still WAY behind on my scrapbooking, I am not sure when I will get to this - so just bear with me :)

Tuesday we left around noon and headed up north.  Our trip up was pretty uneventful - which is probably a good thing.  We arrived in Hill City, South Dakota a little after six that evening and found a little restaurant to eat at.  We got all checked-in and settled in our hotel for the night.

Wednesday morning was a little discouraging.  Tuesday while we were driving I had gotten a bad headache and my back was pretty sore (probably just from sitting in the car for so long - one of the things my doctor had warned me about).  I thought that after a good nights sleep I would be fine.  However, the night was pretty miserable for me and I woke up feeling worse then I did before.  Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed with myself.  I SO wanted things to go well, and this was definitely not the start that I wanted.

And can I just say now that Mark is seriously the best!  After going and eating some breakfast we just laid in bed.  Whenever I tried to apologize or anything he would just say that he was completely fine just lying in bed with me until I was feeling better.  He is such a great man - I am truly blessed.

Finally around lunch time, I was feeling like I could function a little bit.  We got in the car and headed to Jewel Cave National Memorial.  This is the second longest cave in the world!  Pretty amazing!  It is over 160 miles long!  Holy smokes!

They do quite a few different types of tours, but unfortunately, due to my "condition" we could only go on the most basic of basic tours.  It was still really interesting though.  They take us down these elevators and we just went in the first BIG room.  The guide told us a lot of interesting things and it was fun to just look around a little bit.

This is looking down from where we were standing deeper into the cave - this room was huge!

A little hard to see, but these are the steps that take the other tours down deeper into the cave.  Unfortunately I am too big to go down into the sections it would take us to, plus I guess you have to climb some ladders which we thought probably wasn't the best idea :)

Next we drove over to the Crazy Horse Memorial.  This was actually something we hadn't planned on going to, but once we got here, decided that it was worth stopping at.  I honestly knew NOTHING about who Crazy Horse was or anything about this memorial prior but it also proved to be really interesting.

A little history:  Crazy Horse was a young Lakota leader in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  Once plans started for Mount Rushmore, some of the Native American leaders here in the area, wanted to create a memorial to one of their leaders.  They contacted a man who agreed to take on the project.  It was not only meant to spotlight Crazy Horse, but all Native American people.  The project is taking a very long time to complete but once it is done, the sculpture will be the largest mountain sculpture in the world!  Pretty amazing.

This is what it looks like so far - it was hard for me (even there) to comprehend the dimensions of how big it is because you are so far away.  But the face that you can see is NINE STORIES HIGH!  Crazy!

This is what the sculpture will look like when it is all done - I like it!

After that we headed to Mount Rushmore.  It had been raining all day, but luckily it started to clear up while we were at the Crazy Horse Memorial.  We stopped at Horsethief Lake on our way up and it was beautiful.  It's just a small little lake on your way up and we couldn't resist taking a walk down by it.

GORGEOUS

Mount Rushmore was pretty amazing though.  Mark especially loved it - I am pretty confident that that was his favorite place we went to.  We got there around six o'clock.  We walked around a trail that went along the bottom of the mountain and it was the perfect night to do it.

Oh boy - well, here is the very eight month pregnant version of me right now.  I pretty much felt like a hippo during the entire trip, just waddling around.

We definitely took our time because we wanted to stay until nine when they did their "lighting program."  That was definitely my favorite part of our visit to Mount Rushmore.  The ranger gave a speech and then they showed a movie about each of the different presidents represented.  It was really neat.  By this point, it was pretty much completely dark outside.  They then gradually turned on the lights on the mountain.  It was beautiful.  They then invited all of the veterans, or currently serving military, to come down on the stage.  I was really disappointed by how many people left for this - I felt like it was incredibly disrespectful and made me sad to see that people don't see that.  But they had them take down the flag and then had each of them line up and state their name and which branch of the military they served in.  I love things like that.

Leading up to Mount Rushmore they have all of the state flags displayed, we loved how it looks!

We, of course, had to get some little souvenirs from our trip there.  We even picked up a little stuffed animal for our little guy - after all he did make the trip with us :)  Mark picked out a Mount Rushmore buffalo.

Moving Day

We have moved yet again!  Last Saturday we made "the move" but luckily this was a much smaller move - distance wise at least.  We are still in the same apartment complex - even the same building - just a bigger apartment. 

We were SO lucky to be able to have some help too.  Our friends, Jacob and Heather, came and helped and so did one of Mark's friends from school and his brother.  We are so grateful for them - it would have been a VERY long day otherwise. 

We were able to get everything IN the apartment though - now we are just slowly sifting through the chaos of it all.  We switched from a one bedroom to a two bedroom and it will definitely be MUCH better with our little guy coming.  Hopefully in the upcoming weeks we can get everything up and ready for our little guy to make his big debut.  We can't wait! 

It's always tricky trying to work with new space but we are ever so slowly getting things to where we want them.  We moved everything Saturday and then today (Monday) we did all of the cleaning.  And by "we,"  I mostly mean Mark.  Seriously, he is SUCH a trooper.  I was able to help for about an hour and a half but then had to go to a doctor appointment.  I came back to have lunch together and then I had to get a new headlight for our car (which decided to burn out on Saturday) and run some other errands to get ready for our trip.  It's been a CRAZY day. 

Tomorrow we leave for our Berning Family Vaca 2012 to South Dakota.  We are excited but it feels crazy at the same time.  It will be good once we get going because right now it just feels like the craziest thing to do right now.  Hopefully we don't get any surprise action with the baby - I would REALLY prefer it if I didn't have the baby in South Dakota - and we can enjoy some relaxing/fun time together.  But we are officially moved out - and hopefully we'll be ready for our trip tomorrow.  Oh boy...

One Year Down...

One year down - three more to go!  This post is a little late in the making - but I just wanted to say how proud I am of Mark.  He has down INSANELY well.  I could literally brag about him all day.  He has worked so hard and it has completely payed off.  He can now enjoy his much-deserved break.  

We are a fourth of the way done! 

WOOT WOOT!

Happy Mothers Day

This week I have been thinking a lot about the truly wonderful women I have in my life.  I feel like I have been so blessed to have MANY remarkable women guide me throughout my whole life.

This lovely lady, is my favorite!  I could write so many things about my amazing mother, but I will try and keep it brief.  She is everything I hope to be someday.  She has taught me both by word and example what it means to be a righteous woman.  She is so positive, insanely creative, and always there to help anyone and everyone.  I couldn't have asked for a better mother.  I love you so much Mom.

I am also so grateful for this great lady, my second mom.  I love the long conversations we are able to have and how welcoming she has been to me in completely accepting me into their family.  But I am especially grateful for all that she taught my wonderful hubby.  He is an amazing man and treats me like a gem, and I know that he acts the way he does because of the things he was taught.  For that I am extremely grateful.

 
I have the wonderful blessing of having very close relationships with all of my grandmothers.  I am so grateful that I have been able to develop those relationships with them.  I love that I can talk with them like they are my best friends.  They have given me some of the best advice throughout the years.  I don't know what I would do without them.  They have truly left a lasting legacy on my life.

There are so many women that have molded and continue to help me become the woman that I want to become.  I have a LONG way to go before I could even think about being in the same ranks as these women, but I am grateful to have them in my life.

The First Presidency said, "Motherhood is near to divinity.  It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind.  It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels."

I love all of you mothers.

Berning Family Vacation 2012

Yesterday it hit me that we needed to move up our family vacation this year.  We decided last year that May was the PERFECT time of the year for us to go on our vacation because things aren't busy yet PLUS the weather is turning nice (but not too hot!). 

However, because of little baby Berning coming we just figured we would need to postpone.  But because of Mark's school schedule - plus the baby coming smack-dab in the middle of the summer - it was either go before or after.  We just figured it was the smarter choice to go after.  But then it hit me yesterday that that plan is really kind of silly.  There is no way in August we are going to want to take our very tiny baby too far.  I am sure we would just end up bagging the trip altogether and that would make me sad. 

SO...we are going in three weeks!  Mark is done with school in about a week and a half and then we are moving apartments.  So we are going to go the week before Memorial Day.  We are both pretty excited about this and even though I will look like a hippo and be waddling all over the place - hopefully we will still have fun! :)

The plan for 2012 was to go to South Carolina.  Last year I explained how Mark and I decided on our little family vacations, but I will just quickly recap.  We put all of the states in a hat and essentially pick one.  There are, of course, rules to all of this but that is the gist of it.  Last year was Arizona and we LOVED it!  We drew South Carolina for this year, but it doesn't seem too smart to fly across the country so hugely pregnant and so we decided on a place that was a little closer to home. 

SOUTH DAKOTA HERE WE COME!

 Now, I know what some of you may be thinking (especially my family) - what could possibly be fun to do in South Dakota?!  It's not usually considered much of a tourist destination.  But this is why I LOVE this idea for our vacations.  Planning the vacation is almost as fun to me as the actual vacation!  There are fun things to do EVERYWHERE! 

Anyway, so now I am busily trying to come up with a fun - yet, not too crazy - vacation for us.  I am having WAY too much fun planning and hopefully it all comes together okay.  Either way I am sure we will have fun.  PLUS then we can think of all of the fun for next year when our little boy is going to be with us - WOOT WOOT!