Our Trip to Nebraska and South Dakota!

Two weeks ago, Dustin and I took a long trip to Nebraska and South Dakota to meet family and friends of Dustin's, who I had not yet met. The drive from Provo, Utah to Omaha, Nebraska was about 13-14 hours I believe....Woo hoo!It was my first time visiting Nebraska as well as South Dakota and I must say it was a very exciting new experience for me. It was flat green country, very open for miles..., hot and rainy weather and very trusting neighborhoods. All the backyards and houses seemed to have no fencing so anyone could just walk right through. Crazy! We stayed at Dustin's dads house (Roger) with Dustin's brother Carson, and his wife Jen and their two kids Jensen (3) and Carlie (8mos).For the first two days Dustin showed me around his hometown, we went to the zoo with Jen and the kids (which was amazing since I had never been to a zoo), we watched family home videos and looked through family albums, and all went out to dinner at a casino in Iowa. I learned Carson's creative way to save money by having Jensen pretend to be asleep so he would get in free ha ha.Then all of us (Dustin, me, Jen, Carson, the kids and Roger) drove for about 6 hours in the family van, up to South Dakota for the weekend. We stopped at one of Dustin's aunt Loy and her families home. We enjoyed playing in the haystacks and being followed by all the dogs. It seemed like there were about 8 dogs there running around ha.We continued to go to Aunt Rhonda's home. There were all kinds of animals running around. I saw peacocks, chickens and loud roosters, dogs, cats, turkeys, hundreds of cattle and horses? Little Jensen liked the turkeys the most.Bjorn took Dustin and I on a tractor ride and we sat up high in the bucket. We also zoomed around the property in one of the guys' go-carts. When it was my turn in the drivers seat however when I wanted to end the ride and park it I ended up driving it into the side of the house! At least I got it to stop.....Ha. After breakfast, the next day we drove in the van up to Sioux Falls where I met Dustin's Grandpa Larson.....Grandpa will be 99 years old later this year and he is probably in better shape than I am! Ha. Before meeting Grandpa, Dustin and some of his family members has told me that Grandpa was somewhat of a flirtatious one....He gave me a big hug when Dustin introduced me, and the first words he said to me were, "You're soft...and then took a good look at me up and down and then said, "..and pretty too!" Ha ha.We had a really nice lunch at his bar and entertainment building. We played pool, Jensen sang on stage and enjoyed lunch. Afterwards, Carson who had been itching to kill something that week, wanted to go search for gophers and other creatures...to shoot with their guns. Roger, Jen, me and the kids followed behind Dustin and Carson who were standing on the bumper of the truck in front of us. Carson nicked a gopher and Dustin caught a snake. An intense hunt.After visiting everyone in South Dakota we went back to Nebraska. There was quite the storm going on and there was thunder and lightning. I loved it! Carson wanted more from the storm though ha ha.The day before Dustin and I drove back to Utah we had a nice open house at his dad's house for our engagement party.On the drive home Dustin and I decided to take an extra tour through Colorado instead of driving through Wyoming, to mix things up a bit. It was definitely a prettier drive and I had never been to Colorado so I was excited. The only bummer was it added like 3 more hours to our trip.I had a lot of fun and enjoyed meeting family and friends. However, I am sad I did not get to see one of Dustin's aunts, Cheryl. I'll see her at the reception in Nebraska though! :)And that was our trip to Nebraska!