The rest of the narrative from the previous post.

Sorry, the computer dropped the connection and I did not realize it until after I pushed “publish”, so the last of the pictures have no narrative.

Where I left off: For the next 2 days, everywhere we went, Ryan looked for old cars.

At Mt. Rushmore, we took the next pictures. Melissa stayed in Washington, but Erinn, Austin’s girlfriend came. The 1^st picture is Stephanie, Erinn, Austin, Robert, Cody and Vonda. The next one is Paul holding Ryan and me holding Jackson. Our timing was perfect for taking the pictures. By the time we had done our souvenirs shopping, the clouds had rolled in and hid the mountain.

From Mt Rushmore, we went to Custer, where there is a monument to Crazy Horse in progress. When we arrived, the mountain was in full view, but after we saw a 20 minute video of the story, the clouds had rolled in and covered it also. We should have taken the pictures first. This monument was created by one of the men who worked on the carvings of Mt Rushmore. The Lakota Indians commissioned him to make a similar monument for this chief. The man is now dead, but his wife and children are carrying on the project. The next picture is Ryan and Jackson beside a teepee, but the one below it is the carving of what the mountain will someday look like. This carving is 1/300^th the size of the mountain. Currently only the face is complete. There is a plateau that will someday be the outstretched arm of the Chief. More than 50 years have gone into the project, and many more will pass before it is complete.

When we left Custer, the rain was coming down pretty hard. The Emergency Broadcast System announced the sighting of a tornado in one of the towns we had to pass through. We were under tornado warning for 45 minutes. I have never seen a storm as strong as this one. With the wind, rain, thunder and lightning, we had to drive pretty slowly. Then we hit hail. It looked like snow on the road, and felt like we were driving through gravel. When we got to where the tornado had been seen, the only evidence we saw was tree branches and overturned garbage cans. Cody spotted this rainbow and we took a picture of it through the window of the truck.

When we got back to Gillette, they had stopped the rodeo because of the lightning. The water from the rain had made the arenas pretty soupy. Our portable shade was blown over and the frame bent. We don’t have awning on the motor home, because it wore out and we lost it in a wind storm on our last trip. We have a replacement, but have not mounted it yet.

Thursday morning Austin’s friends participated and then we did laundry and went to the grocery store.

Friday we drove out to Devil’s Tower. The pictures don’t show the rocks very well, but this big rock has a couple of legends from the different Indian tribes. The most popular is one of 8 Indian children playing one day, 1 boy and 7 girls. The boy was chasing the girls when he turned into a bear. The girls climbed up on a big tree stump to get away from him, but he clawed his way up closer. The stump turned to rock and rose up toward the heavens. The “scratches” from his claws are left in the sides of the rock. Because Austin was riding Friday night, he did not want to go with us, so he and Erinn stayed back in camp.

Austin did not cover the bull that night. He stayed on about 6 seconds. He finished 60^th place. One other boy had a lower score than he did, so 61 of about 150 covered. The #1 bull rider was Joe Frost, from Randlett, Utah.

Our camera shy cowboy came to tell us goodbye before they left to go back to Washington. A 16½ hour drive. Good thing they had 4 drivers.

We drove to Lander that day, and then on home on Sunday. Near Martin’s Cove, we stopped at Independence Rock. Here was a landmark for the pioneers headed west. It was part of the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Pioneer trail. It is called Independence Rock, because one company moving west got there on July 4^th and decided that was a good name for it. We walked around it and as we got close there were some kids up on top, so Jackson and Ryan started up too. Stephanie went up to help them down.

We had a wonderful time, saw places we have talked about visiting, but never got around to it. Thanks, Austin, for giving us an excuse to visit the area. 1700 + miles on the truck, but a wonderful time.

National High School Rodeo Finals & the rest of the week

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Austin qualified for National High School Rodeo Finals, in Gillette, Wyoming. As the supportive grandparents that we are, we traveled there to support him. We also took Ryan and Jackson. Since Stephanie is here for the summer, to watch Hayden, she wanted to go with us too. Jennie had already made arrangements with Dora to take Hayden so Stephanie could go to Girl's Camp with her. It was a hard decision for Steph to make, but she was just homesick enough that she chose to go with us instead.

When we went to Washington in June, we discovered a leak in the toilet, and also the black tank was leaking. We got a new toilet and tightened the hose attachment to the sewer. The plate in the floor did not match the new toilet, but Paul was able to fix the leak in the old one, so he put it back in and it worked fine. The sewer still leaked, but we were to be attached to the sewer line at the complex, so we left it the way it was, hoping it would work out okay.

We had made arrangements with a friend to borrow a trailer to tow behind the motor home, so we could take the car with us, and leave the motor home parked. When Paul picked up the trailer, it had a broken lens on one of the tail lights, so he got a whole new set to fix it up. The trailer was long enough to carry the pickup truck, and it has more room in the back seat, so we decided to take it instead of the car. We got it all packed up, to lighten the load in the motor home, and attached the trailer to the motor home. Well, the lights did not work. Paul fiddled with them some more, then tried again. This time when I pushed on the brakes, the back-up lights on the motor home came on, but the trailer still did not have lights. It was after 4 pm and we had hoped to make it to Rawlins, WY (abt 300 miles) that night. We ended up driving both vehicles, so it was good that Stephanie was with us. The kids all rode with Paul and with the DVD player, did pretty good. We did make it to Rock Springs that first night, but it was late.

The next day we went on to Gillette. When we got there, the campground they assigned us to had water and power, but no sewer, so we leaked smelly water onto the ground. It was dry enough that it was absorbed pretty fast. Every day a tank truck would come suck out the sewer from all the motor homes and trailers in our campground, and by the 3rd or 4th day, we were no longer leaking. I guess it was dried up and the use of the system and the suction from the sewer truck fixed that problem.

The little boys with their hats and western gear. Stephanie's sunglasses were Ryan's favorite entertainment. They were not very quiet during the Rodeo, so we did not take them to all the events. We wanted to go to watch Austin and his friends, but also some of the kids we know from Utah. We mostly stayed for the event we were cheering for and then took them back to the campground, where they could run around and not disturb the fans.

Paul ordered a new camera a couple of years ago, but put the accessory package on a shelf and so the camera did not have a battery, charger, or any way to connect to the computer. Before we left, we made a big search and found the package. Unfortunately, the lens does not zoom in enough to get the shots I wanted, so here is Austin's first ride, from the bleachers. He drew a bull that did not perform very well and he only got a score of 44. He had an option for a re-ride, but chose to keep his score, in hope that his 2nd ride would be better. He was in 8th place at the end of the show. We counted about 150 bull riders from the 50 states, Canada, and Australia. At the end of this show about 1/2 of the boys had covered.

None of the kids we or Austin knew were performing on Wednesday, so we took a trip to the Black Hills, in South Dakota. We went to Sturgis, SD and here are the boys at the Motorcycle Museum. We were 2 weeks ahead of the big Sturgis Rally that they hold every year, so we were able to get memorabilia for 2010.

We had lunch in Deadwood, which is an old mining town that has been restored, much like Park City, here in Utah. They had a "gunfight in the street", similar to the one at Lagoon.

Next we went to Mt Rushmore. On the way, we saw a lot of antique cars. They were having a rally at some places between Deadwood and Rapid City, and we probably saw close to 100 cars. Cody was with us, and he got the boys all excited about the "old cars". Everywhere we went for the next 2 days, R

Family Reunion

Last weekend we had our Monsen family reunion. We had the option of attending the Manti pageant on Friday or Saturday night. We attended on Friday and it was a wonderful experience. The temple, at dusk, was beautiful. The pageant was inspiring.

On Saturday we met at the park in Fountain Green. It is across the street from Rowen's, so we parked the motor home at his house overnight and stayed there. It was really convenient for us.

Not all of the brothers were able to attend, and were missed. We enjoyed all who attended, though and were glad to see them. We had a really nice visit, and enjoyed getting updated .on each other's families. Here we are, with Mom.

L-R: Dorine, Judy, Mom, Rowen, Marie, and Me

We had a pot luck lunch, which was wonderful. Lots of salads, and if anyone went away hungry, it was no fault of the rest of us.

After lunch babies had naps, and here is Jeff resting with Hayden.

The little kids enjoyed the playground. Here are Ryan and Jackson on the trampoline at Rowen's house, with Angela and Grant's girls. The playground at the park in the next few pictures.

The candy was launched from the slingshots and

the middle-sized kids had a great time gathering

candy in bags. Later water balloons were launched also. No pictures of that. Dead battery.

Rory made this rocket launcher and all the kids had fun with it. First some of them made rockets, but all enjoyed launching them.

The older kids and adults played "Monsen Minute", our version of "Minute to Win It".

Here is Michael, doing the cookie from forehead to the mouth without the use of hands.

Michael was the overall winner.

We had a wonderful afternoon, just enjoying each other and our kids and grandkids. Just a posterity note: Mom and Dad had 9 children, 8 of whom were raised to adulthood. All 8 of us were married in the temple. Dave and Jerry fulfilled full time missions for the church. There have been 45 grandchildren born to these 8 children, and currently 94 great-grandchildren, with one more due in about a week and another due in September. No other announcements have been made of anyone else expecting, so that will complete this years posterity.