I think I mentioned that our minivan was written off because of the hail storm back in June. This beaut took it’s place and treats us very well… Most likely the best part about the Ford Explorer is the massaging front seats – which can be slightly weird at times to think about the fact that I’m getting a massage… as I drive down the road. We picked up our car the night we came home from the airport with our AMAZING cousins, Zachary and Ethan!!!!!! (And yes, that excitement was added just for you Z & E…????)

Saturday, June 14: We headed over to Aaron and Shawna’s and grabbed some of the wood that had blown down in a previous storm for fire wood. Ethan here demonstrated his talent with an axe and I was pretty impressed as I most likely would have chopped something that’s not usually meant to be chopped.

That evening some of us set up the tent up on our town’s school grounds, which is in a fairly central location, while others distributed the invitations (that I had made) all over town.

On Sunday, June 15 the Gospel Meetings began with a barbecue for the community and several speakers. Then the following nights 3 or 4 of the local brothers gave their testimonies each night. It was really cool to hear all of the different ways God worked in their lives!

Sunday night was a young peoples bonfire out at our place… We played Bible smugglers once it was dark; a game that involves being very sneaky and lots of running. You see, wandering somewhere on our land are two “missionaries” who have red headlamps. Except for the “border guards” everyone else are what we call the “smugglers” who’s objective is to get their “Bibles” (slips of paper with their names on it) to the missionaries without getting caught by the “border guards”. The border guards are trying to catch the smugglers and if they are caught they are sent to jail for a minute. Then they take a new “Bible” and try again. At the end the smuggler who got the most Bibles to the missionaries wins for the good guys and the border guard who collects the most Bibles wins for the bad guys. It is one of my favourite games as I figured out how to be sneaky, but sometimes things go wrong as you are running around in the pitch black dark just looking for a missionary.

Our ancient minivan being taken away… I don’t miss it too much but I know Mom misses all the space in the trunk…????

After a couple of days hanging out around the house, and an epic water fight at the Hull’s we headed out for my favourtist place – Hills Alive! We had to take two cars as both our Ford and our truck are only six seaters and we also needed to tow the camper. It is about an eight hour drive.

This trip was very bittersweet as it was also our last trip with our camper. I’m not normally so attached to vehicles or anything but it was hard letting go of the camper that we had travelled around North America in. We had so many memories in there…????

Because it is legal in both North and South Dakota we would often ride in the back of the truck to our destinations – if we weren’t on the big highways!!! There’s nothing quite like riding through town and seeing all those little kids look at you in awe as they are about to be buckled into their carseats…????

We broke up our eight hour drive into two days so our first stop was Medora!!! We ate supper in our campsite with the Miller’s and then stopped at the MOST AMAZING ice cream shop ever! They homemake their ice cream and their scoop sizes are ginormous – definitely worth the money!

After ice cream was the Medora musical. I’ve heard about it for years from my parents and was super pumped that I got to go experience it for myself!

The Medora musical is really patriotic and so mind blowing. The special act that was performing the night we were there was a group of jump-ropers – they could do pushups and flips and all sorts of stuff that I have troubles doing without a skipping rope…???? This scene was one of my favourites – it was so quiet and the horses at the top of the hill were silhouetted in the spot light, it was majestic.

Friday we arrived in Rapid City, SD. We did all of our snack shopping for Hills Alive… This may look not to healthy but at Hills Alive it gets so hot that you don’t feel like eating anything so you just snack when you feel like it and drink all day.

When at Mt. Rushmore try and replicate those iconic stone faces…

I think they did pretty good at keeping a face of stone while awkwardly do some weird kind of  squat thing while in public…????

I was just getting a snack out of the bag when I looked over and noticed my dad giving Mom a foot massage and I thought “That’s taking care of your marriage right there”. So not to be sappy or anything but PDA can be a testimony to your kids… Just sayin’.????

Adrian, Jesse, Mariah, Me, Zachary, and Ethan. (We bring the party????)

Saturday night was a little bit terrifying… The adults had been watching the weather and saw there was a storm coming – a hail storm to be exact. As is started raining the big screens and speakers were lowered to the ground and some people started heading out. But we are slightly diehard Hills Alivers and thought that we’d just let it blow over. But it didn’t blow over like we thought – it lasted for around an hour. So after about 20 minutes of on and off hail our family packed up in the blowing wind and pelting rain. The thunder and lighting was pretty close and it just so happened that the creek that runs through the park overflowed it’s banks. So while running to the parking lot with all of our stuff that we had carted in, we were wading through a stream that went almost up to my knees. Once we made it past the stream Dad yelled at us to follow him and we took off through the parking lot. Just saying… but it is pretty scary running blindly through a parking lot, dodging cars, being pelted by rain and then seeing a lightning bolt strike close enough to blind me for a second. And then the thunder crashed behind me and the lightning strikes again and then mentally breaking a little because I’m so terrified that I’m going to get struck by lighting while standing in a puddle. And by mentally breaking I mean running and singing at the same time “In the Eye of the Storm You Remain in Control” by Ryan Stevenson over and over again while trying not to have an asthma attack because I’m not used to singing and running at the same time… Anyway we all made it to the truck alive – Lanaya almost didn’t because she heard Mom yell “Follow Dad” and so started running after him, forgetting she was in a parking lot full of cars trying to leave – but she made it and we all made it and that’s what counts. After we made it to the car it began raining even harder, so hard that we had to pull over because we couldn’t see a thing…

This is Ben, the lead singer in Citizen Way. Often at Hills Alive you have many opportunities to meet the artists while they are walking around or in the autograph lineup!

At Hills Alive I even checked something off of my bucket list! I got a Henna tattoo!!! It wore off after a week or so but it was pretty cool while it lasted… Ethan wished his was real though…????

Sunday night in the park, at the close of the weekend, is one of the coolest places to be. There are around 20,000 Christians gathered together worshipping Christ and it blows my mind every time how a love for Christ can unite thousands of people.

After Hills Alive we moved to a campsite further into the Black Hills, and, once again, we toured while riding in the box of the truck!

Several years ago my family hiked around a lake in Custer State Park… The first half hour was fun as we were climbing down a waterfall and all sorts – but once we hit the uphill stretch everything was terrible. For one, it was uphill but it was also in the blazing sun and we didn’t take enough water and I kept tripping. So this time we did the hike backwards! We went down where we had gone up and vice versa. It was a blast and we all enjoyed ourselves so much more!????

The peak, which was uphill from where we started but only ten minutes versus two hours!

The last half hour of the hike was spent going uphill!!! However, the water flowing down the rocks and huge puddles we had to wade through made it so much more fun!

Definitely recommend this hike if you are ever in the Black Hills area and looking for a long but not too arduous type of hike… If we had wanted to have even more fun we probably could have just ran up and down the waterfall part several times.????

This probably sounds really terrible to you but I think one of the best parts of riding in the back of the truck was riding past all those little kids stuck in carseats in the back of a minivan with all of the windows done up and feeling pretty cool because they all pointed at you as you drove past.???? But good times were had by all and we scared all the animals away with our “singing”…

Group shot driving through a tunnel carved out of the rock on the needles highway. Only one car could fit through at a time and even then it was pretty squishy!!!

The next day began with a longish drive out to Badlands National Park! We had been there before on our gap year trip but I had not enjoyed myself at all. We visited on the second last day of our trip and all I wanted to do was go home. I had been gone from my friends for 11 months and 2 weeks and I was very ready to be home… However this time was MUCH more enjoyable!???? As you can see here we rode in the back of the truck – again.

Some of the vista… We saw a single bison wandering the planes and lots of prairie dogs. The next day we toured a tourist town, visiting one too many rock shops and a couple art galleries in between…????

Thursday was spent racing home so that Cassia and I could be on time for our 2nd Annual Girls Campout! All of us girls from the Gospel Hall get together and campout, in tents, along the rivers edge for one night. It results in photo ops, a lot of screaming, and some laughing…????

You know those cool photos where everybody has a lit sparkler? Those pictures must be photoshopped…???? We ran back and forth from the fire all trying not to burn anything but having a lit sparkler and this photo worked the best…

I think it’s a good thing thing this photo isn’t completely in focus – otherwise you would be able to see the half smiles half stress.

On Monday, July 29 my Mom had a sleep deprived CT scan in Regina… So I invited a couple girls to stay overnight and help keep her awake until 4am, when she would leave for Regina. We played speak out, made a wild video representing our night, did a hip-hop-abs workout, and many other wild things… It was great fun but I think about half of us were “drunk-tired” by the time it came time to go to bed.????