Texas and Oklahoma

We drove all day from NM to Dallas TX. It was just a really long day of driving and we didn't have time to do much. We went to dinner and were joined by a friend of Gary's, Chris Dumler. Had some good tex mex! Then, we went to bed for the night. We swam in the morning and then headed to Oklahoma for the evening. We made it to mom and dads around 530p- had some Mazzio's pizza, then went downtown to see the Price Tower and the Phillips Museum. Then, ended the night with dessert at Jareds. Good to be home for the night.

More New Mexico

When I get to my mom's, I will try and upload more pics...or at least I will put together a photo album for facebook. We drove South thru New Mexico today. We made a quick stop at Roswell and found out that aliens do exist! They live in Roswell. It's quite the tourist trap, but after about 1/2 hour, we were finished. We headed further south to Carlsbad, NM, where we spent the rest of the day at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. This park is truly amazing...the cave is huge. You descend over 800 feet through the mouth of the cave and see all kinds of beautiful formations- stalictites (from the ceiling) and stalicmites (from the ground), etc. Then we finshed up the evening with the nightly Bat Flight out of the cave. It was incredible to watch the bats spiral out of the cave for more than 20 minutes and fly off to eat for the night. The ranger said the estimated number during this time of year is between 200,000 to 500,000 bats on any given night! Awesome.

Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico

My blog posts aren't working and I am very tired...so here are a few pics...

Four Corners Monument, Mesa Verde National Park-cliff dwellings and Jemez Scenic Route, ending in Santa Fe for the night.

Nevada and Utah

After waking up and swimming for a little bit at The Ritz, we headed to Hoover Dam. It is an incredible dam. It's huge! We did the "dam" tour and were able to go in the tunnels to see the generators that send power to Arizona, Nevada and parts of Southern California. It was really amazing. We walked across the dam and took in some great views. We then headed to Vegas area to hang with my sis and her family for dinner and fireworks. We thought that the fireworks would be great, but we ended up away from the strip only to spend 3 hrs time in/out of parking for about a 10-15 min show...I guess we are really spoiled with Disneyland's fireworks.

We then headed to Utah for a night in St. George.

After a quick nights sleep, we headed to Zion's National Park. I have never been there and was amazed at how beautiful and breathtaking the views are. We hiked the Riverside walk, but weren't really prepared to do the Narrows, so we didn't. Then we took the hike to the Emerald pools. The girls only did the lower and the boys did the entire loop. After a short stop at the gift shop for a little souvenir, we headed to Page, Arizona for the night. (Our trip to the 48 state rule is that we either do something, eat and spend the night in the state for it to count) Page, Arizona Dinner and Hotel with a little swimming will be about it for our Arizona portion (We will hit 4 corners tomorrow). We are planning a Grand Cyn trip in the fall, so we didn't go that far south.

Anyway- that makes 3 states- 45 to go. I'll post more pics later or on facebook- the internet connection here is toooooo sloooooww.

Our Adventure Begins..first state, NEVADA

So we decided to get a day's head start and Friday afternoon on our 7 week adventure all over the United States. We made it safely to our first stop- Lake Las Vegas, Nevada where I booked us a nice room (probably one of the nicest of the trip) at the Ritz Carlton. Too bad we won't be here tomorrow night, they have the "best" fireworks show in Vegas. Oh well. The kids did great in the car...and with traffic it took us about 5 hours. (Only one stop for a quick dinner in Henderson). I will try and keep this updated, but it depends on time of arrival and internet connections on the trip. We are excited to see my sis and her family tomorrow night for a quick dinner on our way out of town. This hotel is gorgeous and is located right on the manmade lake. They had a fun live band playing in the courtyard area---entertaining us with some fun music---GNR, Tears for Fears and No Doubt... I will add pics as well as we go, but you'll have to stayed tuned for those later.

Oklahoma

Where did June go- well- I spent 2 weeks in Oklahoma at mom and dad's or AKA, camp Grandma and Grandpa's. My sister and her 3 kids were there, My bro, Alan was there for a few days with his 2 kids and My little bro, Uncle Jeff, took the time off to play with the kids. We swam, jumped on the trampoline, caught bugs/fireflies/frogs, went to Woolaroc, rode horses, fed llamas, rode on the VACMOBILE-the Vaclaw's OU bus, did science experiments, including volcanoe eruptions, the infamous mentos and diet coke geyser and lava lamps, played wii, 3d chalk art, sand art, watched movies, painted tshirts, shopped, pedicures, made cards, had a pirate/princess party- complete with costumes and pinata, Tulsa zoo, went to the science museum in OKC and of course Incredible Pizza and helped mom throw a wedding reception at her house the last night I was there (we transformed the house from disaster to fantastic!) I'm sure that I left some things out.

It's always a fun time when we go and we are exhausted by the time we get home. The kids came home with tons of goodies as well as some special "beanie babies" that grandma passed on to the kids. They are very special to them.

Disneyland

So I know that everyone thinks I'm crazy that I go to Disneyland all the time. But we really have alot of fun. We went 2 times in May. Once for Mother's Day and once for Gary's birthday. (SO far, we have been for everyone's birthday...we'll be going in June for mine). For Gary's b'day, we went down and stayed in a hotel Monday night, so we could get there early and get back on Tuesday for Jake's baseball party. Mother's day was fairly crowded, but we had a good time. Monday night (memorial day) was fairly crowded at Adventure park, so we hit a few rides and grabbed dinner at Tortilla Jo's, then headed to the hotel, where we had an awesome view of the fireworks! (not the best hotel, but good night's sleep and clean) Tuesday am was great. We hit quite a few rides with small waits 5 minutes. Indiana was 20 minutes by the time we got there, but the highlight- Jessica was TALL enough! A first for her (might be her last for awhile, she didn't like it). We also decided to go on the Mark Twain boat, which I haven't done since I was a little kid...We were asked to come up to the captain's quarters and drive the boat- so the kids drove the boat! They had a great time. We hit all the Mountain rides (Splash, Space, Thunder, Matterhorn) and finished up the day with a nice lunch at Carnation Cafe and a little shopping (Gary had his $70 fun card from Disney for his b'day) and headed back home.