Road trip to ND

First stop on the road trip was at Independence Rock, WY.

Here is a side shot of Crazy Horse, the carving that wasn't finished in SD.

We made it to Mt Rushmore. It was a spectacular site to see, I was surprised at how smooth the carvings looked.

Another view...

George W...

A nice old man snapped a shot of us...

Barton and Dad.

Barton playing in the rocks, it was a well needed break from the car seat.

Next stop was the famous Sturgis, wish we could have made it in time to go the motorcycle museum, maybe next time...

A herd of Buffalo on the highway in South Dakota. There was a whole lot of nothingness from Sturgis, SD to New Leipzig, ND (oh except thousands of antelope).

The old Baesler Homestead, the house is gone now, it was bought and moved in the late 70's.

The old Lutheran church, the Baeslers still keep it up. It's about 9 miles outside of New Leipzig close to the old Baesler Homestead.

On the Enchanted Highway coming back from Dickinson, there were these massive metal sculptures. This stop was of the pheasants.

On the hunt, Mace just shot one...and luckily Schorlen spotted it.

Found the bird!

Showing off the catch.

The loot... 9 birds for Mace during the trip.

Mace was sooooo excited to finally get a DUCK....he's been wanting one since he was 14.

Barton having fun with Grandpa Baesler.

Barton digging into an apple from Great-grandpa Baeslers tree.

Happy to be on the ride home...of course this was taken at the beginning on the day, 13 hours later had more screaming.

A whole lot of work, but...

Well it is finally done, and it was a ton of not so fun work. But the grass is done, woot woot. Here's some pics of the progress.


This is the front of the house in the beginning.


Here's the back.


Barton and I spent quite a bit of time on ol' yeller moving 10 loads of dirt around.



Dad and Tyler thought they'd have a go at it too...



Once we dug trenches, Barton helped by eating rocks and diggin in the dirt. I put the sprinkler system in, but Dad helped with some of the nasty digging. Thanks Dad!


We finally got all the sprinklers in and trenches filled back in.


Front yard all smoothed out and ready for sod.


Here's a pic of the finished product. I liked the sprinkler flags so well I thought I'd leave them up for a while :-) Thanks to Giz, Bub and 3 awesome ladies in the neighborhood for the sod laying help!

Back yard with grass, and my sprinklers even work, SWEEEET!!!!

Well it was a lot of work, saved some $$$ and dropped a couple pounds doing it ourselves...so I guess it was worth it.