Mirci Family Vacation 2008, to South Dakota

THE ARRIVAL
And so it began, the Mirci Family Vacation of 2008. It started off quite nicely with the flight from Cleveland, Ohio, to Rapid City, South Dakota.

From there we met up with Aunt Shell, and Grandma and Papa Mirci.

Newlyweds Tristy and Dan, and expecting parents Curtis and Kasumi.

THE GOLDMINE

Dax didn't seem to want to ride the horse once we put the money in, but he gave away free kisses to the wooden donkey which we found at the gift shop near the Gold mine.

Mommy snuck a kiss to the Miner, and Joey and Dax came to "protect" her.

Daddy waiting for the rest to come out of the mine. In the mine they had some old mining tools on display.

Dax was pretty nervous inside the mine. And on the right we have a line of Mirci Miners!

Down into the mine! Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of us panning for gold on our camera. We had a great time swishing water around our pans with dirt and rocks in them. We found gold dust and lots of quartz and even some little tiny pieces of red garnet. Garnet is the January birthstone and Mommies! Mommy could have spent the day trying to perfect the panning technique. And Dax could have spent it playing in the water!

Lola kept entertained by hamming it up with some sunglasses.

What Joey keeps calling "buffalo wings". There were plenty of wild Buffalo all over the Black Hills. One night we got to go out with our friends who live in Rapid City, Ricky and Terri Rodriguez. It happened to be their Anniversary, and Terri's birthday. At dinner we also got to meet their newest addition to their family, Landen Quint. They said we came at a good time that summer. It usually wasn't that green. The Black Hills don't get as much rain as we had thought, and they also have had problems with wildfires in past.

Your Choice Family!

OK, OK. I know. I have the cutest daughter ever!! I couldn't help myself at the Mall of America. There was this boutique. I had some cute ideas...and voila! I only got a few prints, so if you usually get pictures of my kids (and display them!), then let me know which you would like a copy of.

Oh, and if you are ever in Minnesota and visit the Mall of America, walk into Sadie's and you will see 2 HUGE pictures of Lola! Of course they don't tell you if they are going to put your child up on their wall. But if you walk back into the store later and you see her up there on the display, you kick yourself in the fanny for not getting the $500 package so you could have one too! They used some different fairy poses. One where she is looking into her reflection and they added an orb light to the fairy wand, and the other is one where she is looking up to her right at an orb or fairy or something. It would have been way too much money for me to get those pictures because of all the effects they used. But they sure look good on the wall!

I call this one her Miley Cyrus pose.

And this one is cleverly named purple fairy.

They graciously let me take a picture of their wall.