Halloween 09

WE had a fun Halloween. WE had our ward party on Friday, which was pretty fun, spook alley, carnival games, food and trunk or treating. Saturday, We at pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, visited Lombardi Ranch in the afternoon, watched "Where The Wild Things Are", ate some pizza and then headed to The Liddiards for some trick or treating. Jake worked with Colin at one of the neighbor's Haunted House. WE have Way to much candy and sent a few bags of leftovers to work with Gary. (I kept the twix bars!)

Update:

It's been awhile and I am going to try and be better. We have had a good start to the fall. The weather is great. Baseball is in full swing with pratices and games each week. Jake moved up to Bronco league this year and we are glad that Fall ball is more of a learning experience to get him ready for Spring Ball. He plays for the Diamondbacks and they aren't the greatest team, but he is learning alot. We have been to Disneyland, of course, a few times. Jessica and I went alone one day because the guys were gone. Jake and Gary went camping in the Sequoia's where they hiked 14 miles, saw 2 bears and cut their trip short one night due to freezing temps. We didn't go anywhere for Fall Break for the first time in a few years, but went to The Long Beach Aquarium, Chuck E cheese and Disneyland. The week after fall break, Jake went with the 5th and 6th graders at school to Camp High Trails, where they had a great time and learned fun things about animals, nature and science. I read The Wednesday Sisters and Tangerine for my two book clubs and they were both good reads. I've also read Phantom Tollbooth, Three Cups of Tea, and Comfort Food. I'm also working on my trip scrapbook and I'm about 1/2 way done (thanks to my weekly get togethers with Jaimee). I've been to the allergist now to get some relief for my breathing a persistant cough and hopefully we are finding a long term solution. And last, but not least, my children have had a case of the swine flu. Symptons: HIGH fever, Fatigue, cough and aches. They have been out of school this whole week and hope to return next week. (Jake is fever free finally today..Jess hoping for tomorrow?) We are doing good and hope that this updates everyone who might be curious, but at least gets my "journaling" up to date.

Our trip

So there really is no way to just blog about a 7 week trip. Gary kept our travel journal...which I will then use to scrapbook our adventure. But, I thought I would go ahead and post some more pics of our favorite areas. You can also see pics of the kids in front of the state signs on F/B. Some of our faves were Carlsbad Caverns in NM, Niagara Falls, NYC, Crater Lake, OR, Memphis, TN, Buildings and Monuments in DC, Portland, Maine, Charleston, SC, The Biltmore Estate, Wildlife along the way, including bald eagles, a bear cub (right on the side of the road in Shenendoah), foxes, deer, moose, elk, dolphins, osprey...and more. We did some great scenic drives through Zions, Smokey Mtns, West Virginia, Santa Fe Forest, Gulf Coast and Great River Rd in Illinois and Missouri. We are planning on putting together a slideshow pps...so when we can narrow down the 4000+ pics to more reasonable number, we'll have a party! And even now, I'm trying to upload pics and it's not letting me...UGH

Back 2 School

After missing the first day and being extremely tired, we sent the kids to school. Jake was excited that his friend, Daniel, is in the same class again this year. He has a teacher from Bridgeport, so that was also nice to hear. Hopefully he'll have a good year this year. Jessica was a little upset at first, but after seeing about 6 friends from her K class, it helped her get more excited. I don't know her teacher, but she has been with Emblem for a while and from what I hear, she is good.

We made it home!

After 48 states and Canada, 13500 plus miles, and 7 weeks of travel, we made it home late Wed. night. 1 day after school started. I know that I was not good at all in updating my blog, but I'm going to organize a photo album and post it on facebook. Really- there are 4000 plus pics, so if you want to come over and help, you are welcome. I could not handle the internet connections at the hotels, they were too slow and really I was just too tired to do too much. We had a great time and I can't wait to do my scrapbook, which is really what I love to do anyway.
We are also going to try to put together a slideshow...so maybe we'll just have to throw a party! Anyway, we are looking forward to catching up with everyone now that we are back! We are also thankful to our friend in our new ward, who came out ASAP to spray away all the black widows that moved into the garage while were were away!

Pics

pics from The BIltmore, The Smokey Mtns, Kentucky Horse Farm, and The Homestead Resort.

more pics

From Savannah, Hilton Head, Air Craft Carrier in Charleston, Middleton Plantation and Downtown Charleston.

24 states down, 24 to go...

HEre is the post. I will try and post pics after this...wish me luck.So after Louisiana, we drove along the gulf coast thru Mississippi and Alabama. We visited a battleship in Mobile. We continued along the coast to spend the night in Pensacola. After spending a nice morning on the beach, we drove to Atlanta. We were able to go up to Stone Mountain that night. It was nice, they do a fun laser light show that we were able to see before heading to the hotel that night. THe next morning, we walked around the Centennial Olympic Park and toured World of Coke- where we tried many different flavors of soda- Gary's fave was pine nut candy and mine (other than the Mr. Pibb) would have to be Barqs red creme. After getting our fill of coke, we headed to Savannah. SO- I'm sure that we will offend some, but I was not at all impressed with this city. I am also upset that in order to get into Paula Deen's restaurant, you have to show up and line up to put your name on a list of reservations...you cannot call to hold reservations. You are welcome to sit on the sidewalk and continue pestering the people to see if they have a table, but pretty much they have a terrible system to seat people. Gary did happen to coax them into some peach cobbler to go, since one of the hardest things to find in Georgia-Nicknamed: The peach state is Peach desserts! After Georgia, we visited Hilton Head to take in a beach/golf day and then spent the night in Charleston. Charleston was pretty cool. We didn't have enough time to really explore, but we loved the city with its historical homes and churches lining the streets. After Charleston, we went to North Carolina- Asheville to visit The Biltmore Estate, which was awesome. We drove through the Smokey Mtns' the next morning and after nearly freezing to death on the first hike of the day the kids and I were finished with getting out of the car. (I think that it was only 50, but the wind was pushing us over....it was miserable) Anyway, we moved along to Kentucky for the night. On the way, we found the roadside tourist trap city of the US--can't remember its name, but gokart tracks, arcades, mini golf, ripleys, wonderworks,as seen on tv stores lined the main street of this town. The ONE thing we stopped for was the ZORBING track. Gary and Jake tried it and it's all Jake talks about now (which is pretty annoying since it wasn't on the itinerary, certaining there is something that we PLANNED that impressed him too?) Anyway we made it to Kentucky and took in a showing of Harry Potter, since I needed to see it- it was pretty good. The next am, we went to the Kentucky Horse Farm and checked it out. Jessie rode a pony and I think that was her highlight for the day. We then drove through WEst Virginia and ended up at The HOmestead Resort in Hot Springs, VA. Beautiful. We stayed there for 2 nights and loved the relaxing/no driving for a day. The kids and I did a nice hike where we saw waterfalls and thankfully no snakes (which normally are a extremely common sight on this hike), Gary did a round at the famous Cascades Course and I took in a spa treatment. The HOmestead is a famous resort that Thomas Jefferson frequented. After a little rest, we drove to Our Nations Capital.

Arkansas, Memphis and New Orleans

We drove the Crowley Ridge scenic byway in Arkansas- it was beautiful, we took a small hike through the park to a suspension bridge. Then we moved on to Memphis, TN. We did Mud Island (Mostly I know if from Tom Cruise's movie- The Firm), but it was very nice. It had some great exhibits from the south/Mississippi River, including a scale model "fountain" that you walked up and down and waded in if you wanted to of the entire Mississippi River. We went to Rendevous for some BBQ. The next am we headed to where else, but Graceland! Wow, talk about your floor to ceiling, wait and ceiling, carpet. Definitely not my taste in decorating, but fun to see the house, the cars and the airplanes as well as many of the outfits and awards that Elvis received. (One of my mom's dreams come true!) Then we had to part ways with my parents- they went back to Oklahoma and we went down south where we drove over the Lake Ponchatrain Bridge (over 20 miles long) and into New Orleans. We walked along the riverwalk, ate great french food, walked through the French quarter (stayed clear of Bourbon st...we had the kids w/ us), walked through a cemetary, ate Beignets at Cafe Du Monde, walked through Jackson Square and ate Pralines. I took the kids swimming for a little bit, while Gary actually had to work!

The Midwest

Next we headed for some church sites. My parents joined us for the next few days. We started at The Crown center in Kansas, where there was a Lego exhibit and a Crayola store. Then we headed to Liberty Jail and Independence. These are humbling sites and remind us of the persecution of the early church. We then headed to Omaha for the night before we went to Nauvoo the next morning. We loved going to Nauvoo and seeing some of the homes and businesses of the saints. The blacksmith, the brickyard, the tinsmith, the wagon makers, the print shop, the gun shop and the bakery. We were there on a Sunday, so there was no pageant. Unfortunately, we took too long enjoying Nauvoo that we didn't get to any other church sites.
We went to Hannibal, MO the next day to see where Mark Twain was inspired to write his classics, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. Then went down to St. Louis, where we took a Riverboat ride on the Mississippi and tour the Gateway Arch. Then we walked around and took in some of the baseball festivities of the Homerun Derby/All Stars Game.

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.