The Nature Of The Way Things Is: Blue Bell Lodge

First thing she did when we got to the cabin was find a Ponderosa Pine branch and use it as a broom to start sweeping - like mother like daughter :-) Our cabin was beautiful - new, clean, nice covered front porch - it was perfect!

First morning we were there, Jim was awoken to a sound like a chainsaw outside. He looked out the window to see this. (All those white dots are more buffalo's eyes in the background).

The Buffalo stayed in the campground for the entire morning, grazing wherever they wished (and we later learned they 'moved' an air conditioner unit off it's cement base). I took this photo while peeking around the corner of our cabin, from our porch.

This is also taken from our porch, looking down the drive from our cabin.

Here's one of the big bulls. He's about 5 feet from our porch in this pic. That calf on the left side of the pic is about the size of a normal cow! The bulls are about 6 feet tall and up to 2000 pounds, and can run up to 40 mph. ISN'T HE CUTE?!

Here's a Bighorn Sheep we were lucky to see. There is a disease in the herd, and all of the babies only live 6 months before dying. So if they don't figure out a cure, the entire herd will be wiped out soon. This is a female, so doesn't have the huge curled horns like the male bighorn sheep do.

The kids hauling firewood to help Daddy with the campfire.

Hiking...

In the backyard of our cabin - the kids really bonded on this trip - Aidan was such a nice and helpful big brother and they got along really well - it was so nice to see!

Our last night there we went on a Hayride/Chuckwagon Cowboy Dinner. Here's Aidan and Ella ready to go~!

And here's us...yee-haw!

The Haywagon Ride drove us around looking at wildlife and singing songs...here's Ella playing the tamborine.

Aidan got to sit by the cowboy-singer, he liked that! He kept requesting Johnny Cash songs.

During the Chuckwagon Supper, Aidan said he was having trouble biting his hamburger because of his loose front tooth. So we told him to see if he could pull it out - AND HE DID! This is about 2 seconds after he pulled it out - we told him that's just what a cowboy would have done - he was so proud!

They had a cowboy dance after supper, complete with the Hokey Pokey and Chicken Dance

The Kids got their picture taken with Cowboy Keith - he was the guy who played guitar and fiddle and sang songs on the hayride. Real nice guy, born and raised in the Black Hills and knew all about the history and culture of the area - the kids loved him.