Road Trip!

I am going to postpone my catching up series in order to post pictures from our move to New York. Tonight we are in Minnesota and this is the first time I have had wi-fi, so it is the first opportunity I've had to post anything. I have taken literally hundreds of pictures since leaving last Saturday. For now I will give you just one or two from each of our stops along the way. Once we get the computer set up in NY I'll put up a few more that might be worth looking at.

Day one....bright and early Braden is ready to go!
We drove to Idaho and stayed with Luke's parents for two nights.....we were so extremely tired that none of us thought to get our cameras out and take pictures while we were there....sorry.

We left Idaho and headed for the Grand Tetons and our first camping spot. Not a bad drive, but I must be boring company. Either that or there is something magical about this seat. (oops, I forgot to rotate the pictures so that they are upright)




We had a quick stop in Jackson Hole to look around and stretch our legs before setting up our camp site just a few miles up the road.


The rectangle sign at the top says "Jake's In Jackson Hole"

Camping in the shadow of the Tetons. Beautiful!

As we left our campsite the next day, heading for Yellowstone we saw this....

Yes, a heard of buffalo stopped in the middle of the road and one baby decides to nurse. The boys were in awe of these animals!

We spent a good part of Tuesday in Yellowstone walking the paths and visiting shops, etc.

Waiting for Old Faithful to blow so we can get a picture or two.


There she goes!

From Yellowstone we drove to Cody, WY and camped with a million bikers......I'm not kidding. They are everywhere this week because of the big get together in Sturgis. On Wednesday morning we got up and headed to camp at Mt. Rushmore and do the site seeing thing there.

Now I have to tell you that Mt. Rushmore is on the West side of South Dakota and our next stop was scheduled to be the Laura Ingalls Homestead site in East South Dakota.....there is absolutely NOTHING in between except for Wall Drug store, a gazillion billboards (I don't know what it is about that state and their overuse of gigantic road side signs) and another gazillion flies.

Wall Drug store looked like this yesterday. Packed full of bikers and other people who got sucked in by the billboards and wandered around looking at a bunch of junk.

We all came away from there feeling like this....
Braden is the only one who showed it though.


In all fairness, the Ingalls homestead made up for the nastiness of the middle part of that state. It was amazing to camp on the prarie, walk where Laura and her family walked, tour the house (it's an exact replica on the exact place where the original was) and learn so much about pioneer life. I would have to say it has been the highlite of our trip so far and I've got a bunch more pictures to make Grandma jealous (she's a serious Little House fan)

The people who own and run the property now still own all of the original 160 acres that "Pa" got when they first arrived and they have done some amazing things. Even recreating the shanty and dug out so that you can see what the other "homes" were like before they settled in the "little house"
"Ma's house"


The dug out

Tomorrow we are planning a long day and not much sight seeing. I hope to post other pictures from along the way in a couple of days!

April

Ok, so a few of these pictures were actually taken in May, but I am clumping them together because they are a part of a trip that started in April. Besides, I have a lot of May pictures to sort though for the next post.

For my birthday the boys gave me this big box full of home made cards, pictures, egg carton airplanes, and little paper people. I know they worked very hard on all of it and it was so cute to go through everything. They are becoming very thoughtful young men!



Just Jacob being silly.....what's new!

The day after my birthday I flew to Arizona to be a part of the wedding of my best friend from 7th grade! Aside from my family, Jodie is the person in my life who has known me the longest! She is a sweet and dear person and I was so happy that I got to be there for her special day.


Luke and the boys picked me up in Spokane after my trip and we spent a few hours looking around. We rode the merry-go-round, slid down a huge slide that comes out of a giant red wagon, walked by the river and went to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner (yes, they have gluten free noodles....so amazing!).


April was the beginning of a lot of travel for our family and the beginning of the count down to our move to New York. It's been a busy 4 months!

February and March

I actually don't have a lot of pictures from February and March, but here are a few that I did find. The boys and I were able to make a spur of the moment trip to Rogue River and see my older brother and his family, who were making a spur of the moment trip to Rogue River. It had been way too long since we had seen them so we couldn't pass the opportunity up.

I am really good at taking my camera places and then forgetting to use it once I'm there.....so I don't have much to show from that trip, but here is a cousins picture. Or at least an attempt at one. You'll notice Samuel is no where to be found (I think he was still climbing) and Braden is pouting by the twisty slide. Nice.


It was a great time with my family though. Lot's of laughing is always a part of it with Chris around!


And a picture of the improvised egg hunt we did with our friends in the parking lot of the church. We didn't want to go to the one at the park that the town host (really bad experience last year), so we did it on our own. The boys had fun and I think they re-hid the eggs a million times before the day was done.


I got a new camera in April and I've been better about taking pictures, so catching you up on the next 4 months is going to be hard because I'll have to pick and choose which pictures to post!