July 28th: "Mountain" Rushmore

Nathan has been looking forward to seeing "Mountain" Rushmore, as he calls it, for days! We checked out a Curious George book at the library called "Curious George and the Hot Air Balloon." It takes place at Mt. Rushmore. We have been reading it for a couple of weeks and Nathan could see pictures of where we were going to be. He would ask several times during the trip, "Did we make it?" So, one of the best moments on our whole trip occurred just as we approached Mt. Rushmore.

Nathan had been asleep on the way there from the hotel. I wondered if we should wake him up so he could see it at we drove up, but we hesitated to do that because he really needed rest. Well, just after we paid the parking fee and drove around the corner, we hear from the back of the van. "Oh, I see Mountain Rushmore! I made it!" It was probably the best moment of the whole trip! He was thrilled to finally be here. He knows the names of the presidents and could point them out when we got there. It was fun to walk around and get a little closer to it as well.




Of course, as with most things in life, there is opposition in all things. Who knew it could come from the same little angel that was so excited to see Mt. Rushmore? Along with the best moment on the trip came one of the worst. Looking back it's kind of amusing and not all that serious or uncommon for a two-year old, but at the time the only ones laughing were Grandma and Grandpa. They must have a perspective to things that we haven't reached yet.

The beginning was on our walk up closer to Mt. Rushmore. Nathan was drinking out of Aaron's sippy cup and for some reason decided to throw it. Well, it fell off the boardwalk and over the edge. It was a long way to ground, but Ryan walked around and picked it up. Then Nathan had a meltdown over the size of his ice cream. Ryan handled it like a pro. He took Nathan for a little walk to cool down. Nathan was tired and had gotten himself all worked up. Once he settled down, he was very pleasant and enjoyed his ice cream. Aaron still had his sippy cup, and all was well again. They even fell asleep in the car.

The ironic thing about the whole sippy-cup thing is that on our drive home we stopped in Casper for breakfast. It wasn't until we were about 2 hours away between Rawlins and Rock Springs when we were trying to find the boys' sippy cups to give them a drink that we realized both of the sippy cups were sitting on the table in JB's in Casper. We had left them and it was too far to go back. So, Ryan's valiant trek was not entirely fruitful, but give him props for being a great dad - hiking "out of bounds" to get the sippy cup and also handling the little tantrums so well.