Tag: South Dakota

The Black Hills 2023: Part II

Posted on by Lauren Lane

We go to the Black Hills to my parents’ cabin nearly every year. I blogged Part I of our trip HERE. And I’m continuing our trip today!

After naps on the Fourth of July, we headed over to my parents’ cabin for dinner and kid-friendly fireworks. Like sparklers and poppers. 🙂

Just two dads who were influenced by an Instagram ad to grab these cute Bluey Fourth of July shirts and surprise ALL of us with them. So cute!

Fourth of July as a parent of small children summed up in a picture.

My sister and me. What do you think – do we look alike? Or not at all? Our mom swears we look nothing alike. And generally speaking, the rest of the world thinks we look exactly like but with different hair color and eye color.

Our kids did fairy hunts every night at the cabin, and at the end of each fairy hunt was a prize left by the fairies. This night…it was special suckers.

The next day, we rented e-bikes with the kids and went on a bike ride. And my bike ride didn’t last very long until…

I lost control of my bike, and because it was so heavy (I should have never been riding a bike as heavy as the one I was), I flew over the handlebars and onto the gravel. I’m still nursing the bruises, scrapes, and bruised ribs….but there will be a time to get back on the bike again.

After a nap with baby Aidan to recover….

It was time to rally for parents’ night out!

We had a great time first in downtown Deadwood and then heading to Spearfish for dinner and drinks.

Our last day at the cabin was low key. The kids played at Mimi and Papa’s, while I worked on packing us up for the trip back home.

Jonathan got in several more tractor rides before we left…

These two 😍

Our ride home was mostly uneventful….and so very long. But we had a wonderful time at the cabin this year!

A sneak peak of our family pics from our time up there!

Thanks for being here in this space with me!

The Black Hills 2023: Part I

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Coming back from vacation feels like being stuck in a tornado trying to catch up. It’s amazing how you can feel so caught up and like everything is in a good place before you leave, and then return and feel like there are nowhere near enough hours in the day to catch up on all the things that need to be done around the house and for the family.

But, we are back. And I’m slowly catching back up. We had an AMAZING trip to visit my parents in the Black Hills, and thankfully, all kids were healthy for the trip!

We drove up and back in one day. It took us a record (on the long end) 13 hours each way. We kept telling ourselves with that with the boys’ ages this year, this should theoretically be the most difficult year.

I’m going to pepper you with all sorts of pictures of family and the cousins. We had the best time hanging with my sister’s family and Mimi + Papa!

We’re ready for the big trip!

We have very little space in my car with all three rows up for car seats. We bought a rooftop carrier, and I honestly felt like we could fit more in the rooftop carrier than we could when we had the entire back of the car with the third row down. It was definitely the way to go! And I was so thankful that I didn’t come away feeling like we needed a bigger car.

We always stop halfway through the drive and pack a picnic lunch. We eat it at a park and let the boys run around the playground to blow off some energy. Aidan seemed content to be out of the car. 🙂

The other plus about the rooftop carrier was there was an empty seat next to Harrison I could sit in if I needed to help the kids or play with them during the drive. Harrison is a roadtrip warrior.

And we made it!

Our first night in South Dakota was a fast dinner of pizza at our rental cabin and then straight to bed. Slumberpod helping me out with Aidan this trip.

The next morning we ate breakfast, then spent the day recovering for the adults and playing at Mimi + Papa’s for the kids.

This boy was IN LOVE with Papa’s tractor. He’d sneak into the garage to look at it. He’d climb on it if it was out in the driveway. Every morning he woke up, he asked me if he could go ride it.

The happiest little guy to be back at the cabin!

I spent a lot of time feeding this one…

And the big kids enjoyed s’mores by the fire pit!

The next day, we had family pictures suuuuper early. Then took the kids to the rec center for some swimming!

The big kids got to go hunt turkey feathers at Mimi’s…

And played cards during quiet time.

Aidan still enjoying his Mimi’s snuggles…

The next day was the Fourth of July. I stayed back at the cabin with Aidan while the kids and the rest of the adults headed into town for a Fourth of July parade…which there are no pictures of because apparently it poured rain the whole time and all adults and most children were miserable and left early. HA!

After all of the fun that was had those previous two days, it was naps all around for us…

Including our big kid! This is a rarity these days and usually only happens when forced 🙂

The rest of the trip at…some point soon. :). The baby is up and crying – so I’m off to be Mom!

The Black Hills 2022: Part 2

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Over the week of the Fourth of July, my family and I packed up the car and headed to South Dakota to spend a week in the Black Hills visiting my parents. They have a cabin just outside of Deadwood. I look forward to going up there for a week every year. It’s cool, crisp, and the mountain air is perfection.

If you missed Part 1 of our trip, I blogged about it yesterday HERE!

Part 2 starts with a hike on the Mickelson Trail. Baby J absolutely LOVED this hike. In fact, even though we took the stroller, Harrison rode in the stroller most of the time and Jonathan walked!

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The Black Hills 2022: Part 1

Posted on by Lauren Lane

We got back last week from a trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota to visit my parents. For those that are new here, a bit of history on the Black Hills for my family, because this isn’t going to be a typical travel post about what we did and where we ate!

My parents grew up at the foot of the Black Hills in Rapid City, SD. My maternal grandparents bought some land in the Black Hills before my living memory, and lived in the Hills pretty my entire childhood. As kids, we’d always spend a week in the Hills visiting my grandparents. My sister and I have wonderful memories in the Hills growing up. We’d catch and release chipmunks, go camping, feed the deer, hike (I hated hiking growing up, though), and just generally lived outside in nature for a week.

Years ago, my parents bought land in the Hills as well, and in 2014 built a cabin on that land. They spend their summers living at the cabin, and the rest of the year they live in Kansas City. Thus began our own family annual pilgrimage to the Hills once a year.

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The Black Hills 2021 – Part 2

Posted on by Lauren Lane

I shared our Part 1 of our Black Hills trip yesterday, and today I’m wrapping up the latter half of our trip.

We decided to keep our activity the next day pretty low key. We headed to a playground in Spearfish that ended up being amazing for all of the kids. It was great for running around and playing hide and seek, and there was a place along the stream that the kids could dip their toes in the freezing cold water.

How baby J felt about the cold water…

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The Black Hills 2021 – Part 1

Posted on by Lauren Lane

If you’ve been coming around here for awhile, you know that the Black Hills in South Dakota is a special place for my family. I grew up going to the Black Hills to visit my grandparents as a kid. It’s on the very western side of South Dakota, and in 2014, my parents built a cabin in the Hills with the intention of living in South Dakota during the summer months.

We’ve gone to visit every summer since 2015, except for last year with COVID. It’s always a lot of fun, but it was particularly exciting this year to see Harrison really enjoy the Hills. The freedom to be out in nature, explore, play and thrive was a joy.

Our trip began with a verrrry long car ride. We got up and were in the car by 5:30am for our drive to the Hills. Harrison was so excited to go visit Mimi and Papa that he didn’t go back to sleep like we were hoping for the drive. 😳 But he ended up doing so well. Baby J too!

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The Black Hills – Part 2

Posted on by Lauren Lane

We spent a week over Labor Day up in the Black Hills at my parents’ cabin. The Black Hills are near to my heart – they have always been my family’s “place.” My grandparents lived in South Dakota my entire life, so Kendra and I spent at least one week every year back up in the Hills visiting grandparents.

Last week, I blogged Part 1 of our trip to the Hills this year. So, today I’m sharing even more pictures from the latter half of our trip.

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The Black Hills 2019 – Part 1

Posted on by Lauren Lane

The Black Hills in South Dakota are my home away from home. A piece of my heart belongs to those Hills. My parents are from Rapid City, SD, which is the city at the base of the Black Hills. They moved to Kansas City before Kendra, my sister, or I were born for better career opportunities, but both of my sets of grandparents still lived in South Dakota. My mom’s parents built a cabin in the Hills when I was super young, so we went back to visit our grandparents and stay in the Hills at least once a year over the course of my whole life.

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