(cont.)

Here are some things that happened along the way that I thought were a little bit funny and some a little sad!!!

:) Lainee draws a picture of Scott (complete with armpit hair)
:) Lainee draws a picture of Maryland, which is just the house that Drew and Erin use to live in, I think she thinks the house is called Maryland!!!
:) Bradley and Taron find a "hippie" friend
:( We think their Hippie friend may have some issues.....!!!
:( Lainee falls down and gets her first black eye and a huge scrape across her cheek!!
:) Kennadee and Makayla spend a lot of their time in Kari's car, thus making my van easy to clean!!!
:( Toll Roads (seriously people.......BOOOOO)
:) Cassie, Erin and Taci texting us to see where we are!!!!
:( Cassie, Erin and Taci texting us to see where we are.............STILL NEBRASKA *sigh*
:) going to the Winter Quarters Temple and having the kids remember being there before!!!! (2 years ago)
:) Zachary and Grandma getting maps in every state we passed through!!! (I thought it was really cute how they had this bonding time!!)
:) Zachary taping one of his maps to the back of the chair in front of him and using it as "his own GPS"!!!
:( Realizing "someone" left their cell phone back at the Hotel.
:) Having that realization only 15 min. after they left the Hotel!!!!!
:) Kids being excited about Homework!!!!
:) Drinking Pepsi!!!!!
:( finshing it by 9 am


I am sure there is tons more and I will probably remember them later, but for now this is what I can offer :)

So you would think by now that we women (Me, Kari and Mom) would be pulling our hair out and wondering if our kids were old enough to hitchhike home, but nooooo, surprisingly for me, the kids seemed to be enjoying the journey as well (maybe not Landon so much but he is just 2). We had lots of fun things to entertain the kids with and that made traveling much easier. We had travel bingo, doll kits, legos, friendship bracelet kits, books, license plate games, homework sheets, notebooks to color in, puzzle/game books, aluminum foil, I-touchs, an I-pad (THANK YOU Uncle "Cloud" Galen) and of course Movies and Music!!!!! I also had the Harry Potter audio books on my touch and so whenever I could I would listen to them (the man who recorded them is simply aaaaaamazing!!!). Our 3rd and final night on the road we stopped just outside Akron, Ohio and got a hotel suite. I think the kids thought they were in Heaven. There was a kitchenette, 2 bedrooms and then the living room had a couch that pulled out to a bed, there were T.V.'s in all the rooms and big nice bathrooms!!! They thought is was soooo cool how we could all be together in the same "room"!!!

After some time in the pool the next morning we started the final leg of our journey HOORAY!!!! It was just so exciting to finally know that today would be the day that we would finally reach our destination, and even more exciting to think of everybody waiting for us to finally get there!!!! I do have to tell you about this town though, I am pretty sure it was in PA but I could be wrong. So for lunch we decided to stop in what we thought would be a small town, you couldn't see much from the freeway and the name of the town "Cranberry" just gave me the impression of a quaint little stop. Well it must have been a lot bigger than we thought for they had a two lane road going into the Wal-mart parking lot and it seemed like the roads going anywhere in that town were little mini freeways!!! But the park where we ate lunch was just what we needed so Thank You Cranberry for your wonderful community park!!!

Road Trip USA (cont.)

So day 2 brought on more of, you guessed it Nebraska..............*eye roll*. I cannot tell you the exhileration I felt when I saw that beautiful sign welcoming us into the state of Iowa! Although I should say that I am sooooo happy that there are those types of people who love to live in Nebraska despite the smell of dairy farms, because although I am not a milk fan, I do LOVE ice cream!!!! There really isn't much to tell up to this point except that when we stopped for the night in Iowa City, we found a hotel that looked like a castle and so the girls were all excited about being able to stay there. Our rooms had little balconies that looked out upon the moat aka swimming pool, and the beds in the rooms had huge head boards to make it look more Royal!!!! But I think what took the cake at this hotel was the pool. As the kids were diving in and swimming around they found a huge window in the side of the pool that when you looked through it you could see people eating in the Hotels' restaurant?!?!?!? Seriously I don't know that I could sit and eat while looking at people swimming in a pool.......*shudder*. Really, am I alone in this thinking??


Pictures of when we stopped for dinner and found an old train car that has now been turned into an ice cream shop!!! (it was closed, but the kids had fun playing on it!!)

Chapter 75: Road Trip USA!!!!

After a slight delay, the day finally dawned that marked the beginning of our Road Trip. We were sure excited to get up and get going, I had packed my van the night before we left and of course being my normal self I forgot to pack a "few" items and so the next morning was filled with; first waking up early, and re-packing and re-situating things and then helping Kari pack and re-pack and re-situate things, and then pretty much re-packing both cars and finally getting most everything in, just as I was standing back admiring my handy work, I realized that HOLY CRAP I still had 4 kids to put in this van *sigh*, but alas they all did fit and luckily for me I had thought ahead and limited my girls to only bringing one purse and the only extra things they could bring had to fit inside the purse and they had to be able to zip up that purse!!!

Off at last, since we had the delay we were just going to drive as far as we could and hope that there was an available hotel when we got to tired to go on. The kids quickly dove into their "tote-o-fun" and we hardly heard a peep from them. Wyoming came and seemed to take forever to get through, we had to make some pit stops but we finally made it into Nebraska -- Hooray!!!! (or so we thought) I really do not like Nebraska, I soon found out. Nebraska is the kind of state that drags on ffffooooorrrrevvvvverrrrr.....................and ever, and they have lots and lots of dairy farms, stinky!!!!!!!!!!! We found a hotel in North Platte and let the kids finally have a little freedom from the car, they were so excited to be out the cars and quickly threw on their swimming suits and were off for a much deserved pool time. I didn't want to jinx myself but I just had to say that the kids were awesome, there weren't any fights or squabbles, and I don't know if it was just the traveling or what but it seemed that there appetites had exploded, they were eating all their snacks and all their meals and then asking for more?!?!?!?! (I know.....wierd) With Day 1 complete and everyone still alive, it just made the trip even more exciting!!!!!

(to be cont.)