New Year's Weekend in Manchester Center, VT

After driving back up to VT from MD, it was great to spend some time with Steve in his new apartment in Manchester. The Equinox/Range Rover Center trails behind his apt. were really fun to explore-not so fun fending for my life at the grocery store amongst crazy New York and New Jersey holiday tourists!

Xmas recap in pics

I had the best Xmas with the whole fam!

North Dakota Outtakes

Now that I've joined the new wave of blogging from my phone, here are some pics that didn't make my original post.

Encinitas,CA

Sunset at D Street in Encinitas, CA

The Most Beautiful Boquet

Over a month later...here is the most beautiful boquet-too amazing not to share!
Thanks Steve!

Labor Day Weekend-North Dakota Style

I had a blast with the family over Labor Day weekend in North Dakota for Eric and Sarah's wedding.  It couldn't have been a more perfect wedding and weekend for that matter. 

After meeting up with my parents in Chicago, we got to Bismarck without a hitch. We hopped into our hilarious candy red Dodge Charger and headed sound to Rapid City, SD. After a 5 hour drive post a full day of flying, we were all ready to call it a night. After fighting for a place to sit at the continental breakfast spot in the hotel the following morning, we started off our Thursday with a trip to Mount Rushmore.  The weather was perfect and we were able to get in and get as close to the monument as possible. I was a little disappointed that Teddy Roosevelt’s mouth didn’t open up like it does in “Team America World Police” just sayin…

After taking a few hundred pictures at Mt. Rushmore we hit the road to Deadwood. On the way we made an “emergency pit stop” at a South Dakota Winery (which surprisingly had some great wines) Once we got to Deadwood, we stopped for lunch in the downstairs "saloon" of a casino...we walked around and took pictures of the town, the buildings, and some interesting souvenirs (to say the least)

The Rehersal dinner on Friday night was a lot of fun...good thing it wasn't held in the creepy haunted downstairs area of the community event hall-where'd they find that "bartender"?

Wedding Saturday was amazing. Sarah was such a beautiful bride, so classic. The ceremony was perfect, the reception was a lot of fun…all in all…I cried about 22 times…and thanks to sister Lauren, my makeup surprisingly held up all day.

On Sunday we headed to Medora and did the 36 mile driving loop in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We saw wild horses, one tatanka, and bunch of prairie dogs. Dad won the prize for spotting the first wild animal, or should I say animals, when he spotted the wild horses in the distance. It’s pretty amazing that the horses in the park were descendants of the first horses that settled into the badlands of western North Dakota in the middle of the 19th century. Although the day started out pretty rainy, the weather broke long enough for us to hit the “town” and grab some souvenirs and some dinner. The first place we stopped at for dinner was priceless. I wish everyone I know was there to see this…We walk in, seat ourselves after we are greeted by a man behind the kitchen window saying “What, you gonna eat standin’ up?” after we sit down in this tiny run down diner that they were advertising as a “café” we get handed menu’s by “Betty Bad News” and we come to find out that the “café” is out of the following: Bread for sandwiches, sandwiches, chicken fingers, French fries, cheese, pizza, soup, salads…basically everything off the menu…when we tell the woman that we’re going to go somewhere else and get up to leave, she’s all, we can make you scrambled eggs with Texas toast instead of regular toast or we can make you a sandwich with hamburger buns instead of bread, but we don’t have cheese or lettuce, and reminded us again that they had no fries…haha…it was 5pm, I should have asked for a hamburger with a side of scrambies…hold the everything else.

We ended up hitting up a place that had ok food…hit up an ice cream parlor that only had cotton candy sherbet and strawberry ice cream (all set) picked up our tickets to the Medora Musical, which I hear is great, and headed to the show. The stage was amazing, the amphitheater carved out of the mountain, beautiful backdrop. As soon as we got settled into our seats, it started to DOWN POUR. I’m not talking a little rain, but a full on DOWN POUR. When show time arrived, a person from the show gets on the loud speaker to let us know that he checked the “internet radar” and it said that we were in the thick of the storm and that they were going to start in 10 minutes. In 10 minutes, the DOWN POUR turned into a MONSOON with thunder and lightning…needless to say, the show was cancelled and we were headed back to Dickenson. Never a dull moment.

Aside from our rainy adventure on Sunday, the trip was an overall blast. I’m glad I got to see Mt. Rushmore before their faces fall off, which is bound to happen sooner than later.