When your children are old enough to be excited about going on trips and understand the idea of destinations, start including them in the vacation planning conversation. This happened for us, more inadvertently than on purpose, but it turned out to be a happy coincidence. We love to take trips and road trips as a family and we always start talking about it ahead of time. Last fall, we planned to stay home for Christmas, but the older girls mentioned that we hadn't been to Oregon for a Christmas vacation for awhile. We took them seriously, took a week of our 2 week Christmas break, and went to my in-laws house for Christmas and it was a wonderful time.
While beginning to discuss our summer plans in the late spring this year, our girls mentioned that they had heard about Mt. Rushmore in school and would really like to go see it. So, as we planned our summer driving schedule out, we put Mt. Rushmore in the plan. I was a bit wary that it wouldn't be all that exciting, for the kids or us either, but I was definitely wrong (for which I am happy). Mt. Rushmore is a sculpture on a grand scale done right into the face of the Black Hills in South Dakota. As we found out more about how it had been sculpted and the lengths that were taken to achieve this monument, we were all amazed by it. The 3 oldest girls did the Junior Ranger Program that most National Parks and Monuments in the U.S. have and it kept them engaged and gave them a badge to take home as a memento of their trip. So, if you have a chance to visit Mt. Rushmore one day, I would definitely recommend it as an interesting family stop.
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| Little D at Mt. Rushmore. |
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| Mommy and Dakota |
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| Wow! |
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