Mississippi

Noe is so excited to see the other cousins and Uncle and Aunt!

Lake Erie

We got the opportunity to go camping for a few days up at lake Erie with our good friends, the Beers. We had such a good time. It was a little bit of a pain that we had to walk to the farthest reaches of the campground to get to the potty...(here's where my "out in the log-woods childhood" really paid off) thankfully we had our shower tent set up against the bushes and i could steal away behind it in the middle of the night. Don't tell anyone I said that =). It was great fun. Well off to sleep (BYW we're in Wyoming).

The Incline

More of the fountain

We were in the center of down town Pittsburgh and they had this great fountain for people to enjoy. It was really awesome. The kids loved it!

The Fountain

Wyoming wind and our tent

Our Friends the Beers

Pictures along the way

Chicago

Drove on to NorthWestern Chicago.  When we arrived we were greeted by a drenching down pour and intense thunderstorm.  We decided to upgrade to a cabin.  That was a great decision. We were dry, we didn't have to set up in the rain and it was easy to pack up and leave the next morning.  Gabe and I got to watch a movie on the laptop and Noe was thrilled to get to sleep on the top bunk of the bunk beds (just like Jonathan, his cousin)! We were all happy and pretty comfy.  We had a long drive the next day and made a lot more stops. They had these cool service stops that spanned the entire highway like a bridge.  They were almost like an airport terminal with all these different shops in them. The walls were glass so you could see the cars below and they had a starbucks (that was all that I was really interested in). We enjoyed it even though our medium coffee cost $5.10.

HOT

Much Better! This is my kind of weather. When we arrived at the Omaha, NE KOA and emerged from our air conditioned van we were pleasantly surprised by the hot humid weather.  It is the first time we have felt comfortable outside since we left Redding. We quickly put up our tent and went strait away to the pool. After swimming we ate and got our tent ready for the night. (It was actually light when we arrived and we had a few hours before it got dark). We went to the little store to get ice and as we were walking back to the tent I could not help but smile. There in the grass around us were little lightning bugs. It's the first time Noe has seen them and it is something I actually miss from our time in Oklahoma. We settled into our tent as a warm summer thunderstorm slowly passed by. I was thankful that we are just a few steps away from the storm cellar because my little brain went right to "tornato"!!!! So all in all this has been a very wonderful camp site and State.

COLD

Wyoming, 9:30 pm
It is finally clearing up and the weather is the warmest we’ve felt all day! Feeling a little better about camping now. We have decided to take one extra day to get out to PA and only drive 7 hours each day for the next 3 day rather than a 12 ½ and a 10 ½ hour day. So excited to get to enjoy some KOA’s  and for Noe to get to loose some energy during the day.  Right now Noe has not slept at all today and is still un-tired! Can’t wait to be in my tent, in my sleeping bag and totally asleep. Only 1 more hour to go!

Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Plains!!!
    We got in around 11:45 pm and set up by 12:30 am. Went to sleep around 1pm and woke again around 2 or so to winds blowing our tent around. We had to get up and move our bags to the far corners to keep our tent from blowing over because the wind had blown the tent stakes out of the ground.  We finally fell back to sleep and at 6:45am Gabe is awake to the sound of Noe saying, ”I want to do something with you.”  Gabe and I feel like zombies trying to drive to the next place….oh just to sleep a whole night!!!! Doing well, miss you all. I LOVE road trips!

A few pictures

Thoughts from the Brain of Gabe:

Nevada seems to have run out of women at some point. There are signs advertising “Girls! Girls! Girls!” Apparently they want everyone to know that they have re-stocked the state with women.

So maybe not our smartest parenting move….

One of the special things we did for the 3 days of the driving was buying snacks from Winco’s bulk bins. We tried to pick things like checks snack mix or crunchy, salty mixes but we also pulled a few sweet things into the treat box. Those of you who have known me for a long time know that I LOVE sweets, if they are around my self control goes out the window. Consequently, as an adult, I have chosen to keep most candy and cookies and the like, out of my house. So here I am, stuck in a car for 3 ½ days with a box full of M&M’s, Thin Mint cookies, honey roasted peanuts, Koolaid drinks, Peach Tea Snapple, etc. Unfortunately, although we have apples and Odwalla drinks, checks mix and sesame snack my brain (like a 4 year old) is singing, “candy, cookies, candy, cookies, lalala lalala.” Noak is a great eater but when it comes to fun snacks that he usually does not get, well his self control is as good as mine. =) That means I get to be his self control. So he finally finished his lunch and we let him sample a few of our snacks. And then it hit me….We are STUCK in a car for about 10 more hours and I just gave him yogurt pretzels, a couple of thin mint cookies, some candy peanuts, and a koolaid drink. What have I done???!!!! This is going to be a looooooong trip. You can’t beat being with family though. Definitely no complaints.

Winnemucca, NV

June 16, 2010
We began this day earlier than we would have liked (7:45am). After arriving at 12:15am last night we stayed in a Quality Inn, it was actually perfect for our needs-quiet and clean with a King bed and a Twin (I’ve never seen this configuration in a hotel room).  We dressed in our short sleeves, shorts and flip-flops and headed outside where it was cold, overcast and, as we began to drive, raining.  Leaving Redding while it was in the 90’s did not leave us fully prepared for anything but summer in a humid region.  We quickly realized that we  should have checked the weather before booking a KOA campground in Cheyenne, WY and in Davenport, IL for tent camping. Thankfully the weather looks  pretty clear along our way.

“The Big Trip….”

“The Big Trip….” It all started with our attempted to get our 4 year old excited about being in the car for 3 ½ days straight. We began with the high, overly enthusiastic voice, then we added a little hand clapping and some jumping up and down, and finally just a bit of exaggerated “happy” smiles while we said, “we’re going on a Big Trip and it‘s going to be sooooo fun!”  I’ve found that you can make anything exciting if you take the right approach (Noe still get a thrilled expression every time the door person at Costco draws him a face instead of just marking a line through our reciept).  We continued for the next few weeks to talk about “The Big Trip” with the same mode of a attack.  We bought special treats and activities just for “The Big Trip” and we put them in a special place that we could see and anticipate getting to use them.  We talked about seeing Aunt Christy and Uncle Nate and Lily, Uncle Dan and Aunty Dawn, Sawyer and Riley. (We talked Uncle Dan eating bugs* and asking if we could eat some bugs when we are with them). The last few days he has awoke each morning asking if today was the day we were going on The Big Trip, or if it was tomorrow or even tomorrow tomorrow (that would be the day after tomorrow). Finally, the day came and as we climbed into the car Noe began asking about when he could play with Sawyer and Riley and Lily. It was at that moment that we realized that “The Big Trip” that WE prepared him for was not necessarily a trip that began with 3 days in the car. Thankfully Noak is a great traveler and so far he has had a very good time.

*Uncle Dan and son Sawyer were having some boy time while sister and mom were at a Girl Scouts campout. They were eating crawdads when Sawyer asked “We eatin’ bugs, Dad?” If you can’t figure that out, well, they live in Mississippi and the cockroaches there are HUGE!