Family time is the best time!

Last November Joe’s older brother Jon and brother-in-law Mike visited Minnesota to celebrate Thanksgiving and their parent’s wedding anniversary. We got to talking about visiting them in Denver and the boys got really excited. REALLY EXCITED!

Fast forward to April, when we received financing for the winery, we started questioning whether or not we should still go because we would be in the middle of construction for the winery. We talked to our contractor, consulted with some family, and ultimately decided to take the trip. Our future summers will be busy with the winery, so we think it was a good decision :)  And because of the crazy weather we have had and all of the delays that the rain has caused, I'm so glad that we decided to go. 

Our first stop was in Omaha to visit the Zoo! I unfortunately only snapped a few pictures, but we saw a lot and had a really good time! Here’s one of the boys checking out the helicopter.

Our next stop was Denver, CO to see Jon and Mike. They took us to the museum where we learned about dinosaurs, mummies, and our senses, we played Legos with Uncle Mike, played with their dog Zoe, ate ice cream, and went swimming with Uncle Jon. It was perfect! The weather was beautiful and they were fabulous hosts! ☺️

Our travels took us to South Dakota next where we were full time tourists for a week.  We rented a cabin near Keystone and did 2-3 stops a day, which was plenty for our family.  First we stopped at the Mammoth Dig Site in Hot Springs, SD where the boys got to dig for dino bones as Jr. Paleontologists!  The actual museum was really interesting and Joe and I would have loved to spend some more time there.  But traveling with 3 boys made for some interesting times, especially with a 2 year old, so we did the museum tour and then headed to the kids dig so they could burn off some bottled up energy. 

We also visited all of the things that Western South Dakota has to offer.  Some of our favorite places were the Cosmos Mystery Area, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Reptile Gardens, Prairie Berry Winery, and mining for gold!   One of the best things that happened was running into Joe's sister Jill and her husband Chris while we were out here.  The boys had no idea they were going to be here so it was a great surprise! 

All together, we were on the road for 13 days and put over 2200 miles on the van.  We made lots of memories and are so glad that we paused from the chaos that life seems to always bring us, and made memories with our boys.