What do you do when you realize it's going to cost $2,000.00 + to fly your family to Utah? You plan a road trip!!!
Day 1 First stop on any road trip... gotta be McD's!
Our second break was at a nice rest stop in Kentucky. Patrick was so happy to be out of his car-seat! They also had great brochures and magazines that I let the kids cut and paste into their travel journals.
The kids ran a few races to blow off steam.
Phew! They made it to the check point! Yay!
All settled! We didn't use the electronic stuff too much the first day.
Still going strong! I love my happy baby!
Finally, we made it to St. Louis, MO! We were almost too tired to eat!
Logan went straight for the dessert!
Day 2
The hotel we stayed at, Comfort Inn & Suites, was not super fancy, but it was comfortable and came with the added bonus of having about 2 dozen Hot Rods in the parking lot! I had to take a few pictures even though the light was terrible so early in the morning! The red one in this first picture was Grandma Netties favorite!
Mmmmmmhmmm.
Lorelai and Reid had a great time checking out the BMW!
This was one of Reid's favorites, but the sun was just too bright!
I thought Reid's taste in cars was pretty refined until he asked to have his picture with this Hyndai Yaris.
The Zoo will get its own post, but here is a little preview featuring this guy!
Other than the Zoo and lunch, Day 2 was pretty uneventful. We drove 4 hours and stayed the night in my least favorite hotel. It was my least favorite because our room was on the 2nd floor and they didn't have an elevator! Clearly, I have been spoiled by technology, but seriously people! Suitcases are too heavy to lug up and down stairs!
Day 3
Day three was just LONG! A 10 hour drive (that took us 12) and we were exhausted by the end of the day.
Our big stop was in Selena, KS where we stopped for lunch.
This is the view in Kansas.... windmills, windmills, and more windmills.
Evan was very impressed with their energy efficiency.
I think somewhere around hour 8 the kids started having a hard time. They had watched movies, played on grandma's I-pad and my kindle fire, read books, colored, written in their travel journals, and they were just done! So I pulled out the fuzzy sticks and put their brains to work. Here are a few of their creative creations!
Here fishy fishy!
Happy Heart Girl!
Blah blah man.
Modified fishy.
Logan just kept working and working. I'm not sure what it ended up being,
but he worked hard and it was awesome!
My sweet Logan.
We made it to Fort Collins, CO! Hooray! We were all so happy to get out of the van!
Cambria Suites really deserves its own post. It was awesome! And beautiful! And the kids favorite part was that it included 3 flat screen TV's! Here is Reid checking out the view from my room.
Grandma's room (which was really great because it actually had it's own door and closet).
The kids were so happy!
The bathroom. I included it because we decided the toilet paper origami was awesome!
Day 4 started out with a 6:30a.m. run to Walmart for a swimsuit and ended in Utah!
I took the kids swimming in the morning to wear them out and then Grandma took the 4 oldest to a park to eat breakfast while I packed up the room. I think we did a good job of wearing them out!
A self Portrait by Evan.
Took a break at McDonald's and got Patrick his very first Happy Meal!
Hello!
I just can't express how thankful I am for Play Places in restaurants. They make traveling possible!
Little America was our last break before Utah. The kids had so much fun on the playground!
Skip to My Loo My Darling!
Waiting for 50 cent twist cones!
Yum!
Patrick wasn't so sure he liked the idea of ice cream...
Their he goes! Finally figured it out!
Good bye beautiful Sun. Hellooooo UTAH!
I just have to say the trip was amazing and I COULD NOT have done it without my mom. She was up early everyday regardless of how many hours sleep she'd gotten or how much Evan kicked her during the night! She was organized and prepared and just wonderful. The kids really did do amazing, but they still had their moments when I wasn't sure we were going to make it all in one piece! I'm so glad we made it though. It was so worth it!
