Vacation!

(Warning: bazillions of pictures of beautiful things in this post!)

Last week we went to Medora, North Dakota!

Traveling through prairies:

  

Getting to the badlands:

We blew a tire on our camper!

It wasn't just flat.
It blew.

We got it repaired quickly, and arrived at our campsite. Soon after we left for the Medora Musical!

 That blond guy in the middle? Amazing stage presence! He was hamming it up, grinning and really DOING the dance moves. Not just ... doing ... the dance moves. I love it when people do that!!

This fiddler played so fast it's amazing her fingers didn't fall off! She got the most cheers of the night. :)

I get such a thrill from the stage and shows. They just makes me so happy!

The next day we traveled to the North unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

There were oil trucks everywhere on the way!

Pumping oil:

At the campground we got invaded by bison! o_O

Strolling through the campground like they owned the place...

Dust bath

 ^The screen on my camper window.

Exploring the park:

Dad

Right as we were walking up to a trail for a hike, a guy was just leaving the trail. As he walked past, he told us that he had seen a rattle snake in the weeds right next to the path!
Ummm .... *gulp*

Don't ask me why, but we went for the hike anyway. And I was wearing shorts. And the trail was about 6" wide, weeds brushed our legs as we walked past ... and there was a rattle snake in there somewhere!! o_O

Creepy much?

Yeah. Much.

Tracks on the trail:

We spotted buffalo hair on the trail! Wild buffalo and snakes on our trail. Niiice.
Still, I'm thankful there is still a part of North Dakota that is wild enough that you have to fear snakes. Call me crazy, but I love natural places.

 The next pictures are from a different excursion.

This place was so quiet and beautiful. The sound of insects chirping in the distance, the soft thrumming of the wind across your ears, the lazy buzz of a fly swirling your head ... all added to the silence.

Blurry but cute. ;)

Ah, siblings...

Back at the campground. One of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen.

The next day we went on yet another hike. The sun warmed the clover and filled the air with a thick summery scent.

 Prairie dog town!

This guy was very friendly!

And now, after those bazillion pictures, I'll leave you with one of my very favorites from that gorgeous sunset...

Which ones do you like?

Natural face scrub

I love natural stuff. So I love this face scrub recipe! It's super easy, and it works really well.

Ingredients:

2 Aspirin tablets

1 tbs. Honey 

First take your aspirin. Make sure it's plain old aspirin, nothing fancy in it.

Put the two pills on a plate, and drip a few drops of water on them. You seriously only need a couple drops. Let it set for a couple seconds and then poke at them. They should kinda fall apart into grainy heaps. If they're still hard, add a little more water and they'll fall apart. But don't use too much or your scrub will be runny!

Add about a tablespoon of honey. Mix together with your fingers and smear on your face! Now let it set for like half an hour. The hard part is not touching your face!

(Be sure your hair is pulled back. Majorly sticky stuff.)



Attractive, no?

After a while, put a tiny bit of warm water in your hands and scrub the honey mixture around. Then rinse it all off, and wa-la! It might take a couple times, but this really helps.
The honey is naturally antibacterial, so it cleans your skin well. The aspirin heals your skin because it is an anti-inflammatory. And the scrubbing cleans and gets rid of dead skin.
Good stuff!

Let me know if you try it!

Heat wave + Crayons

Recently I found a picture from this amazing etsy shop. This person melts crayons in gorgeous patterns!! Seriously, check it out.
So anyways, this week we had a MAJOR heat wave. So we decided to glue crayons onto a piece of paper and set it out in the sun. This is what happened:

Our art piece didn't turn out nearly as nice as the ones in that etsy shop, but man, it was fun. :D

Calvin and Hobbes ...

they sum things up perfectly.

Newspaper Nails

 Some of my friends visited yesterday and showed me how to print newspaper on my nails!

Directions:
1. Paint a base coat. I used clear nail polish, but you could paint them white or any bright or light color.
2. Once dry, wipe your nails with rubbing alcohol.
3. Quickly put a piece of newspaper on top of your nails and hold in place with a rubbing alcohol soaked cotton ball.
4. Peel away the newspaper.
5. Paint a clear coat over top.

Notes and tips:
-Have little bits of newspaper torn off before you start, it's easier to handle small pieces.
-You will probably get bits of printing on your fingers as well as your nails. Wait until your last clear coat is completely dry, and then you can just wash the ink off your fingers.
-You can try using big and small print. One of my friends put a giant question mark on her thumb nail, a large "RED" on one nail, "2011" on one, "left" on her right hand etc. Have fun finding things to print!
-Make sure you read what you print. One friend told me that when she had done this earlier, she accidentally printed a bad word on her big toenail. ;-P
-The words print backwards. If you think about it, rubber stamps are made backwards so when you stamp them they come out the right way. Newspapers are the opposite, but still look amazing. I actually kinda like the bit of mystery added when the words are backwards. :)

Btw, my three friends are sisters. You can see the oldest girls blog at http://www.thousandwords-storyfingers.blogspot.com/, which is ironic, cuz now she really does have "story fingers" :)

Have fun!

[Linking up here]

New places

I love going new places, taking a different road, turning down a new alley.

 A few weeks ago my sis and I randomly decided to bike through a college campus.

And we found a beautiful beautiful place:

Beautiful ivy covered lamp!

You never know what you'll find if you go somewhere new.

Camping

This weekend my Dad, brother and I went camping!

*Sigh*

I love summer.

Campfire smoke in the evening sun:

My brother:

View from our campsite:

We went for a walk by a lake that evening. It was so gorgeous.

I love how this picture is abstract, you almost can't tell what it is, but it's beautiful. Just look at the range and depth of color shimmering on the water!


Have you gone on any trips this summer?