So the great thing about traveling in the car is you can let your kids watch videos for 15 hours and not feel guilty. Or you can feel guilty turn the videos off, have all HECK break loose & turn them right back on. We choose the peace that comes from leaving them on. Lucky I have the most BRILLIANT HUSBAND EVER & when our DVD quit working about 2 hours into the trip he pulled over bought a new one rewired it & we were off on a pleasant trip again.
Typically when we travel we stop at fast food & eat however it is kind of a nightmare. Kids screaming I want that. No one wants to sit because we just got out of a crammed car. So I packed picnic style this time. It saved us a ton of money & was so much nicer. We actually enjoyed our stops. Unless its freezing I think that will be the way to go from now on.
I love the 1st half of the trip when its just an adventure & everyone still loves each other. Its such a better picture than the 18th hour when everyone is LITERALLY killing each other.
This is J.D. every minute or maybe hour of the trip guzzling the DP.
I don't know what it is about this fire pit but it just seems to bring boys together.
Ashlynn has not stop talking about how much she misses her cousins since we got home. She always has so much fun with them. I love how her & Grady have such cheezy grins.
The older these 2 get the better friends they become.
Granny has the BEST neighborhood & Ashlynn loved hanging out with them as well.
CAMPING
Iowa has many great things. Mountains is NOT one of them. The first week we went camping and it was so much fun. I haven't had that much fun in a long time. I loved every second of it as did my kids. Scott & Rae are always so great to bring us along.
Every trail we went on was breath taking. The scenery was so beautiful. The air was so UN-humid is that a word? It was just so much fun.
J.D. had to come home & work so we could have money to play:) which left much off the mans work in my dads hands. I am so thankful for all he does for us.
My Dad worked his butt off getting his camper ready for us & helping us with everything from meals, to keeping 4 wheelers full of gas & motorcycles with full tires of air. He is so amazing.
All the other gals we went with were so much fun. They helped us with meals & just made it such a great week for our family.
Ashlynn sure loves her Grandpa & misses him like crazy!
These boys like to beg Grandpa relentlessly to ride the 4-wheeler-take them somewhere or do something for them. He is pretty good at fulfilling their wishes.
Houston & Daxon love to hang out together. I think the day we left they both cried.
One day we went on the most beautiful ride up to this lake. The kids had a blast when we got up their catching salamanders.
Daxon has 9 of them in his shirt ugh!
I love how the boys are teasing the girl in this picture.
JoAnna was adorable with them she just wanted to bring them home.
The meadows all the way up to the lake were just full of flowers like this. It was gorgeous.
I also love how blue the sky was. I think one of the things that made this trip so enjoyable is it turned out to be much longer than we had anticipated but my wonderful dad had Ashlynn so I got to just take it all in. It was a wonderful day!
These 3 could be seen just following each other around camp having fun. TOO cute:)
One day we went into Bear lake & Ashlynn got an ice cream cone that is as big as she is. She took maybe 3 licks & we threw it away. Now that is money well spent:)
My dad took the older kiddos to a play with everyone else & they loved it. Daxon who complained for an hour about how dumb it was that he had to go liked it the very most.
Once we were back home Jana came & stayed at my dads & the kids just played. It was such a great few weeks & we had such a great time. It's always hard to say good buy to everyone because we know it could be awhile before we see them again. Ashlynn is already saying how much she misses everyone. We made playdough the other day because she kept talking about her granny who ALWAYS has playdough. Family we love you & miss you thanks for always making coming such a fun memory!
