Let me first say this is the biggest KOA I've ever seen. It is much emptier now than it was earlier this weekend, but the campground manager said there were about 5,000 people camping here at its fullest on the 3rd and 4th.
There are about a gazillion little things to do around here. The boys picked Jewel Cave first, where we took a tour that lasted about an hour and twenty minutes through part of the cave. We bought them these cool National Park Passport books. Each National Park (or monument or historical site, etc) has a unique rubber stamp and date cancellation stamp that the boys can stamp their passport book with - just like the stamps you get in a real passport when you travel abroad. So as they grow up , they can collect stamps on our trips and have this cool souvenir from each place with the date they visited stamped in it!
On the 4th, we watched fireworks in the town of Custer.
The next day we headed to: 
It's this wildlife park that you drive through and see lots of wild animals up close from the safety of your car. Elk: 
Reindeer and babies: 
Bears, bears, and more bears: 
Bears in places you don't expect, like in a little cave right next to the truck: 
This morning we headed to Mt. Rushmore. 
Max getting sworn in as a Junior Park Ranger at Mt. Rushmore: 
Ben was in tears, ready for lunch, so he didn't participate in the swearing in ceremony, but he got a badge and certificate too.We spent some time yesterday and plan to spend more time this afternoon at the campground; there's a pool, water-slide (which the boys LOVE!), putt-putt, etc. The campsite:
Sacked out from fun: 
The weather's been great. Last night we got a good ol' thunderstorm in the middle of the night and it rained for a long time (brought back memories of the last time I was in Custer; that was the first time I'd really experienced thunderstorms), and I couldn't believe the boys slept through it. Another camper (from Minnesota) was shocked when we said this was a little more humid and buggy compared to what we're used to :). She couldn't imagine anything drier and more free of bugs...On the camping front, we decided that from now on, we are using paper plates. It feels so wasteful, but I was walking back from the bathroom last night and saw another campsite where they were just pitching their paper plates in the fire after dinner...I was so jealous! And since we're burning them, it's not like we're making a bunch of trash. It was funny because Andrew brought up the paper plates thing after he hand-washed dishes for one meal. We both arrived at the same conclusion independently. Hmmm.
We are even bigger fans of cooking in foil pockets directly in the campfire after this trip. We tried a new recipe this way and loved it!
*If You Happen To Be Near Lusk, WY*: The rest area just west of Lusk is fabulous! Large playground with equipment for big kids and little kids, lots of grass, trees, shaded picnic areas, a couple of pet walk areas...very nice pit-stop.
(Added Monday night): Now, we are home after a thankfully safe and smooth trip. Dishwasher's running, laundry's going, truck's unloaded, and Andrew's out fetching a pizza. This evening's plan: looooong showers and baths for the kids. All in all, a really fun trip.
The kids basically had a fabulously filthy time: 
What more could a kid ask for? The dudes: 
Andrew's first ever s'more in his life: 
Cooking breakfast:
Rich and Sarah (Sarah's due Sept 15th with their second girl): 
Hiking: 
The kids (Ben, Megan, Max, Mason and Sophie):
Hanging out:
We also had a couple of days to let the kids play together at their cousins' house in their awesome new pool. 
It was fun to have the whole Shier side of the family together and catch up.
We had a walkway running from the driveway to the patio that was this awful messy, red rock-dust. It was a walkway you couldn't walk on because it was so dirty and messy or muddy if it rained, snowed, or the sprinklers turned on. The boys certainly loved digging in it, and were frequently covered from head to toe in red muck, but that's about the only positive. So making the red rock disappear was landscaping task numero uno. On Tuesday, we got our new walkway poured!
Awww... However, I only had them concrete to the edge of the sod. We all worked to haul the red rock stuff out of the rest of the length of the walkway and we plan to lay sod on that part. We cleared out the rest of the walkway in about two hours this afternoon; we'd thought it would take a lot longer, so we were pleasantly surprised to finish that task today without a ton of effort!