Homebound Day 3: OK, AR, TN, MS, AL, GA

The only thing that kept any of us motivated today was knowing that we would be sleeping in our own beds tonight!  The mugginess that greeted us in Oklahoma City when we woke up was disgusting and it made Alain and I a bit sad to be heading back to the South.  We'll miss the dry weather and cool nights of the last month while traveling the West!  :(

I've been slacking about taking pictures of the state signs now that we are on a large interstate.  It's just so much more difficult to take pics while the car is moving 80 miles per hour!  We stopped near Little Rock, AR for lunch and I think we stopped right after Memphis, TN for dinner at a Chick-fil-A!  That place always perks us up.  We let the kids play finally and we also treated for milkshakes since they have been really good today!

This has definitely been one of our favorite vacations EVER as a family!  It's hard to beat Norway, but this comes pretty close in overall "awesomeness."  We're so grateful that we've had the opportunity to spend time with our friends and family this past month!  It has been an unforgettable experience for the whole family!

Homebound Day 2: AZ, NM, TX, OK

We stayed in Kingman, AZ last night right on Route 66! We had another really long travel day today! We drove 1000 miles and made it from Kingman, AZ to Oklahoma City, OK!

Of the states we drove through today, we all agreed that New Mexico was our favorite state to drive through. We loved the mountains around Albuquerque and the chacter of the canyons and plateaus scattered throughout the landscape!

At this point the kids are very ready to go home! We drove until 3:30am Central time zone, so I am praying for a peaceful car tomorrow on the last leg of the trip.

Homebound Day 1: CA, NV, AZ

Well, we are on our way home from California today. It took quite awhile for us to leave, but we finally said our goodbyes and pulled out of the driveway by 11:30am. We decided to take the Tioga Pass straight through Yosemite again after Jim and Jocelyne's recommendation and I couldn't complain about taking that awesome drive one more time! 

This is Yosemite High County and that's 2 amazing waterfalls!

We were supposed to head south to Bakersfield and then cut over the Mojave Desert onto I-40 which is our gateway home. However, we opted to cut through the mountains and drive past Vegas. I definitely don't think it was the best route to take for time, but it was a wonderful drive. We drove through 3 mountain passes to get from California to Nevada! They were winding, tight roads and I briefly feared for our lives on only a few occassions. On the upside, we saw beautiful vistas of the Sierras behind us, free range cattle close enough to touch (and cross the road in front of us) and Alain got to see the amazing lights of Vegas at night!

We didn't get as far as we originally hoped last night, so we'll be driving at least 14 hours for today and tomorrow! :(

Another interesting thing about Nevada is the random houses you see in the middle of nowhere (as you approach Vegas) with lights and interesting names like "Shady Lady Ranch". It took me driving by three of them until I believed Alain who insisted the were 'brothels'. Obviously, we did not stop. ;)

The kids are ready to go home finally! I find it amazing that our kids have adjusted to the vagabond lifestyle so easily these last few weeks! It's helped that we didn't stay in one place more than one week, but it's been really fun to watch them adjust at each house to different toys, different kids and different house rules. They are such wonderful kids!

Nicolet Reunion Weekend

Well, let me start by saying that a reunion with the Nicolets begins and ends with the food. God bless Aunt Jocelyne and Uncle Jim (our hosts) as they love to cook and entertain! We arrived in time for dinner Thursday night - Tri tip beef roasts were delish!

Josh, Mary, Luc and Jy had already arrived (well, Mary was picked up late that night from the airport). Alain's cousin, Dolcey, was also there with her two boys. We set up our tent near the other campers and we were ready to crash early after a long day of driving through the mountains!


For most of the weekend we chilled around the house. That consists mostly of chatting, horseshoes, bocce ball, volleyball and napping. Uncle Frank and Alain were by far the most successful at horseshoes and they both went head-to-head in the end with Uncle Frank clenching the title after Alain's failed attempts to beat him!  The volleyball game on Sunday was also really exciting with lots of loud yells and even an injury for Jy.  Poor thing tore her ACL trying to score a point for her team!  They got the point in the end and she's quite proud that her injury didn't cause her team to loose a point.  Bocce Ball was a game that I missed, but I heard it was tons of fun.  Somehow Alain, Luc and Josh were put on a few teams together and became known as "The Brothers Nicolet."  When they played bocce ball against Uncle Frank, Josiah and Eric, they were unbeatable!

Jim and Jocelyne have all kinds of crazy toys.  The Nicolet boys got to play on a bulldozer, a tractor and a 3-wheeler!  Luc also found some bikes that he and Jy rode all over the 20-acres of property!  Jim is working on an old jeep that he's fixing up, so he took a few people out on a ride on Sunday and they had a blast.  Jy said it was almost better than Yosemite! 

Luc & Josh riding the bull dozer!

The kids had a great time bouncing from the trampoline to the playground all weekend. They also got to ride on the 3-wheeler with Uncle Luc.  On Sunday, the kids found a plum tree that had tons of ripe plums, so they picked a bunch and opened a plum restaurant. They called it Plum+Plum.  However, by the time most of us arrived at the restaurant, the plums were no longer ripe. We did our best to eat the outside of the plum, but it was very sour. It was so cute because they decided they weren't getting enough customers and they started a delivery service up to the house.  They had water and gatorade available to drink as well.  There was a small bench to sit on as part of the playground, so we sat there and were greeted by our server (Lauren).  She gave us our menu options and then told the upstairs kitchen what to prepare.  Soon after, she returned with our order!

Jocelyne took the slip-n-slide out on Saturday.  Luc helped her set it up in the perfect location.  "If you build it, they will come."  Oh, did the kids ever come out for the slip-n-slide!  However, it just wasn't slippery enough as first, so Jocelyne brought out some dish soap and that really moved things along!

Ian on his way down the slip-n-slide with Uncle Luc monitoring!

Some of the highlights of our food was coq au vin, carnitas and cinnamon rolls! Amazing food paired with one-of-a-kind company (and great wine and margaritas) equals one unforgettable weekend!

Well, this is Alain with Jy's hair and Cam with Cherie's hair! 

Aunt Mary napping after a rough day of playing horseshoes!

Lauren, Annabelle, Taylor, Zach and Emilie!

Pre-Reunion & Yosemite N.P.

When you buy a pass to a national park, it's always good for one whole week, so we were able to take advantage of the pass we bought on our way into California and return with the family to explore the park together.  It took forever for all 14 of us to get out of the house and ready to hike, but we finally left around 11:30am.  Jocelyne and Jim took us past a few of the important sights (Yosemite Falls, Bridalveil Falls, etc.) and took us to the tunnel view.  It's a very famous area for pictures on the whole Yosemite Valley.  You can see El Capitan, Half Dome and I think Glacier Point from this view point.  It's just absolutely beautiful and it was a perfect day for pictures, so we worked around the hoards of tourists to get a few shots.

They've had a ton of snow this year, so the waterfalls are still raging.  The last 2 times we visited Yosemite, the waterfalls were rather lacking by July.  It's usually springtime when you can catch them raging, but the rivers and waterfalls were so beautiful.  Zach found waterfalls everywhere.  They pop out of the rock as you are driving along and he was so excited to tell us about the waterfalls that he found!

We ate lunch at a picnic spot right below El Capitan.  If you don't know what El Capital is, I can tell you that it's a rock climbers dream!  Rock climbers come here from all over the world to climb this huge mass of granite the frames the Yosemite Valley.  We always look really hard to see if we can see the climbers because they look like little specks from down below.  Jocelyne put together an amazing lunch with freshly carved tri-tip beef roast sandwiches, fresh fruit and scones leftover from breakfast!  Let me just tell you that Jocelyn is an amazing cook.  We savor every meal that she makes.

Most of the crew with us made the hike up to Vernal falls.  It was rather steep and I noticed that Emilie was not feeling the hike early on, so I opted to stay behind with her and Dolcey stayed with her 6-year-old, Ian, as well.  While everyone else got to see one of the most beautiful waterfalls up close, we truly enjoyed letting the kids play in a small pool of water to cool off while we took some time to catch up!  Zach and Annabelle went with Alain and Z-man hiked almost all of the way by himself.  That kid is going to be a serious track or cross country star!  He amazes me.  Annabelle made it to the bridge of the falls and then came back down with Aunt Mary and Jy!

California & Yosemite N.P.

The California sign was a little hard to see, so I didn't actually get a picture of it.  Just going too fast and I think I accidentally put my finger over the camera.  Brilliant, right?  Alain gave me a hard time about that, but it happens when I try to rush things.

So, we entered California through National Forest that borders Yosemite National Park.  We drove past a beautiful lake called Mono Lake and then found a true "Roller Coaster Road" on the way into the Park.  This road was amazing and incredibly scary at the same time.  The bumps were huge and you literally could not see the bottom of the road on the other side of the bump.  The kids were in heaven, but I felt like we were going to lose our front bumper any minute and flip over!  Alain had no worries and just found it to be a great distraction for our kids who were very tired of being in the car.  This was our longest travel day thus far at 10 hours.  We've been trying to keep it to 8 hours at the most.

Mono Lake 

We entered Yosemite from the East end of the Park it was unbelievably beautiful.  The East end of the Park (called the "High Country") is high altitude and averages at 10,000 feet on the roadway (Tioga Pass), so there were beautiful trees, snow covered mountains and amazing alpine lakes!  The road took over 2 hours to drive to get to the West entrance.  We were not expecting it to take that long, but the winding mountain roads at low speeds were slow traveling.  It's not like you want to rush through one of the most beautiful National Parks in existence anyway.  So, we did our best to keep the kids entertained and finally made it to Jocelyne and Jim's house around 6:30pm.  They had dinner shortly after we arrived and the kids were so happy to see their aunts and uncles that they didn't even remember how hungry they were.

Nevada & Great Basin N.P.

We took lots of back roads through Nevada, so we we literally saw three towns in all of Nevada on our way to California.  As soon as we crossed the border between Nevada and Utah, we entered the area of Great Basin National Park.

I noticed that we would be passing it when I made our travel plans, so I looked up some information about it online and found out that Great Basin was one of the best places in the continental US to see the milky way.  Once we realized that the sky was going to stay clear for the evening, we decided to camp instead of staying in a hotel.  It was a great decision and we found a campsite right near a raging creek.  The sound was so peaceful and the kids had a great time playing on the rocks around the creek the next morning.

We arrived rather late and had to set up camp in the dark, but Alain set up a fire as soon as we finished setting up the tent so that we could have marshmallows over the campfire.  The marshmallows were the most stale things we've ever tried in our lives, so we had to cook them a little longer than normal.  After marshmallows, the kids went straight to bed.  I think it must have been after 10pm Pacific Time.

Alain and I stayed up and laid down on blankets just to watch the stars after the kids went to bed.  We saw at least 10 shooting stars (which is a record for both of us).  It was unbelievably beautiful and the Milky Way was so perfectly clear.  We also drove up Wheeler Mountain (highest peak between Rockies and the Sierras) and had the most amazing view of the Great Basin below as the sun was setting.  They had a campground at near the top of the mountain (around 10,000 feet).  The summit is actually at 13,000 feet, so it's still a bit of a hike to get to the top.  It was a beautiful campground and I told Alain that I would love to come back here and camp!  It's a dream campground for sure, but it was full so we had to find our other campsite down closer to 7600 feet.  It was nice and chilly. . . perfect for camping in the summer!

Utah & Arches N.P.

We left Colorado on Tuesday afternoon and drove through the mountains of Colorado (past all of the ski resorts) on I-70.  It was an amazing drive.  We had some nasty rain, but Alain was a trooper through the storm and it cleared right around the time that we hit the West edge of the Rockies.  Our goal was to make it to Moab, Utah by that evening and we were successful!  Moab is right outside of Arches National Park and that was the ultimate goal for Wednesday.

So, we woke up in Utah, ate some breakfast at our hotel and went straight to Arches!  We got there early, so we were able to avoid a lot of crowds at first.  It's a small park, but it's amazing to see.  The first area we hiked around at was called "The City" (I think).  I should probably take out the brochure to check it, but I'm feeling lazy right now.  It's called "The City" because the rock formations appear like the skyline of a city.  The rocks are tall and narrow like a city building with various shapes and sizes.  We hiked into a small canyon and tested our echoes.  The kids thought that was super-fun (and so did we)!

After the "City" we explored the double windows and the turret arch!  These are some icons for Arches National Park and we had the best time just climbing all over the arches and rocks everywhere.  It's amazing to stand underneath the arches!  They are huge. . .  much bigger than I could have imagined.  

Racing & Horsetooth Falls

The Koehler boys are part of a track club and during the summer there are a series of races put on just for kids.  The races are attached to 5K's and other adult races, but the kids get a punch card for each race they complete in the series and get prizes at the end of the summer when they finish all of the races.  So, Jeannie asked me if my kids would like to run either the 1 mile or the 1/2 mile and I said "yes" right away!  The kids had a blast.  Annabelle and Emilie both want me to find a track club for her to join in Atlanta now and they can't wait to do another race.  Here's a picture of them after the race! 

So, we ran by McDonald's after the race to pick up some ice cream for teh kiddos (since they did such a great job running) and then we headed to our next destination!  There's this awesome icon of Fort Collins, CO called Horsetooth Rock.  It's some red rock on top of the foothills that looks like the bottom of a horses mouth with a small gap inbetween the front two teeth.  It's right near Marcia and Phil's house, so we'd really been wanting to hike it ever since we stayed with them last weekend.  Jeannie recommended we hike the falls trail because it's a little shorter than hiking all the way to the rock with 6 kids. 

It was a beautiful hike over the foothills and then through valleys!  Then, it became more canyon-like.  We stopped at a mini-waterfall and let the kids run around rock hopping to their hearts content.  The real waterfall was just a little further up the trail.  There was a huge pool under the waterfall for us to play in and a large boulder to climb on as well!  There was also a spot where you could hike behind the waterfall, so we took a few pics of that fun spot!  Too cool!

We got out of that hike with only one injury by Emilie.  She fell just as we were leaving the falls and scraped her leg up on the jagged rocks.  Poor baby!  Daddy carried her most of the way back. 

And that's some cute ballerina socks, right?  We found those in this cute sock store in Estes Park, CO (right outside of Rocky Mountain National Park).  She and Annabelle had to get the same pair and they want to wear them everywhere! 

Denver Aquarium

On Thursday, we decided to take the day and head down to Denver to see a few sights.  We took the kids to the Aquarium primarily because Zach is obsessed with underwater animals.   If you've read through any of the older posts, you'll know he's crazy about "Finding Nemo" and also the Disney Nature movie, "Oceans."  He won't sit still for any other movies and he's just fascinated by things that live under the water. 

The aquarium was really fun! We saw a sample of a flash flood in the desert, seahorses, rays, clown fish (Nemo fish) and even a shark tank!  The shark tank was great because there was room for everyone to see all of the different sharks and they even had glass in the floor that you could see the sharks swim through! 

After the tour of the aquarium, we had the kids faces painted and Zach won a Nemo doll by playing a little carnival ducky game.  It was so sweet that the lady running the booth saw how crazy Zach was for the Nemo doll and she helped make sure that he won that prize!  He was so proud and the rest of the kids looked like super-stars with their face painting.

We decided to eat at the restaurant downstairs in the aquarium.  Jeannie and I had no idea that there would be a huge viewing tank in the restaurant!  It was amazing and every seat allowed you to get a great view of sharks and other large fish.  Just as we were settling down to eat with our food, the kids spotted mermaids diving into the fish tank and music started blaring from the restaurant stereo system.  It was a really cool show and they kids were entranced watching the mermaids swim all over the tank.  They keep a diver in the tank to make sure that the "mermaids" are safe at all times, so he got out last.  Zach was really freaked out when he saw him because he thought he was the bad guy "diver" from Nemo who took Nemo from the reef.  :(

Cozy Cow Dairy

This is the cutest little diary farm that's 10 minutes from Jeannie's house!  She's taken her kids here a few times and they were really excited to share it with us!  I don't really eat dairy, but the kids loved it! 

Goats will go to any length for a good snack. . .

There were few baby animals like a cow, a goat and bunnies!  The kids were able to feed the animals, so that was a big hit.  Afterwards, we went inside to try out the famous ice cream.  All the kids got birthday cake ice cream.  I had a little bite and it was delicious! 

Lucas at the bunny cage.

I love being out here with the Rocky Mountains as the backdrop to everything that we do!  If those cows at the dairy only knew how lucky they are to have such a view everyday!  ;)

Alain's 1st Fourteener

When we started planning this trip, Jeannie and I thought it would be fun for the guys to do something adventurous together.  It started out as maybe a race or a triathalon, but then Jeannie suggested a fourteener.  For those of you who don't know that term, a fourteener is a mountain that is about 14,000 feet in height.  So, Colorado has 54 of these peaks and many make it a lifetime goal to hike to the top of as many of them as possible.  John did some research and at first wanted to have them hike Long's Peak (very popular one in Rocky Mountain National Park), but he found snow and very steep cliffs and decided that it wasn't the right time to summit this mountain because they'd need some serious gear to complete it.  They've had a ton of snow in the mountains of Colorado this year and the rivers are already seeing a lot of flooding as the snow melts off the moutains.  John finally settled on Mount Bierstadt. 

On Sunday, John picked Alain up from Marcia and Phil's early with a friend to embark on climbing their first fourteener together!  Alain stayed up late the night before packing and playing games with us.  He had all the equipment he thought he would need and all of his food was packed.  While he was gone, we spent a very relaxing day around the house with Marcia and Phil.  It was Alex's 15th birthday (he was only 5 when he was a ring bearer in my wedding), so we went down to Old Town Fort Collins to walk around with the kiddos. 

Alain and John made it home around 3:30pm.  It was a short hike because they started the hike at 11,000 feet and reached the summit at 14, 050 (I think).  They had an amazing time, but looked totally beat up when they returned!  I guess they made it to the top and noticed an afternoon storm coming in, so as they began to trek down the moutain hail, rain, thunder and lightning chased them (literally) most of the way down.  Alain said he couldn't believe how fast they all ran and how much the hail hurt as they were running!  What a great story they have now!

Emilie's 5th Birthday

Well, I was just looking over this blog and realized that I completely skipped a post about our sweet Emilie's 5th birthday!  We celebrated here in Colorado with Maria, Phil and the Harbols family!  We had a relazed morning and arranged to meet my friend Jeannie and her kids at a wonderful playground in Fort Collins.  Lauren and I ran to the store to get a few groceries for Marcia, a birthday cake and supplies for a picnic lunch.  Then we all piled into our cars to head over to Spring Canyon Park to meet Jeannie. 

Emilie and Stella enjoying the views!

The park was like nothing I've ever seen before with an awe-inspiring red rock canyon as it's back drop.  There was a huge spray surface for the kids to get wet in and an unlimited number of playground options for kids of all ages.  I introduced Jeannie's kids and Lauren's kids to one another and we were all thrilled to see them playing together so well even minutes after introductions!  I know Lauren from college and she and her husband, Rob, went to high school with Alain.  I know Jeannie from MOPS and church in Atlanta.  I can't begin to describe what a joy it was to see two of my closest friends (who barely know eachother) and their children hanging out together!  It was awesome! 

So, Jeannie brought some yummy cupcakes to celebrate Emilie's birthday after lunch.  It was quite a site to see us all spread out (5 adults and 12 kids) under a small pavilion with lunchmeat, chips and bread spread all over the place!

Once the kids started feeling a bit wiped out, Lauren invited Jeannie and the kids back to Marcia and Phil's for a movie in their projection room.  So, we let the boys watch all 12 kids and I went out with Lauren and Jeannie for a little shopping and Starbucks!  I don't really think I talked all that much because it was just so surreal to me.  I talk to these women seperately a few times a week and they probably know eachother better than they think because I talk about them to one another all of the time, yet all of us together was something I wasn't quite prepared for.  Of course they got along wonderfully and are now conspiring to get me and Alain to move out to Colorado!  Love those ladies! 

Jeannie and the boys headed home after our afternoon out and we got ready for dinner with Marcia and Phil!  We had a great dinner (thanks to Marcia preparing so well for her 13 guests) and the cake was just enough for everyone! 

We got Emilie a new outfit, a rainbow bathing suit (her favorite thing to draw right now is rainbows) and a bag full of things to style her hair.  She loves to do her hair every morning and she used to say "I'm getting my beauty stuff on, Mommy!"  All in all, Emilie said she had a wonderful birthday!

Estes & Rocky Mountain

What an amazing day we had at Estes and Rocky Mountain National Park!  When we arrived on Saturday one of the kids got a little boo-boo (I can't even remember what happened), but the ranger got out the "Boo-Boo Kit" and gave Freddie a bandaid to make him feel better.  Then, the ranger told us that we should have all of our kids take part in the Junior Ranger Program, so we got books for each of them to complete (based on age).  We had 7 kids participate and it made the hike so exciting for both kids and adults! 

On the way up to Estes, we stopped at the most amazing cinnamon roll place in the whole world!  Now understand that I don't randomly designate a title like that.  I LOVE cinnamon rolls and Alain's Aunt Jocelyne makes some of the best, but these were above that quality. . . so light, fluffy and just the right amount of glaze.  Now I have to take Jeannie there with her kids!

We spent some walking around downtown in Estes and found the greatest sock shop to outfit the whole family!  Zach really wants to see a moose while we are traveling, so we decided to get him moose socks just in case we don't actually see one on our trip.  They also had Nemo socks, so Alain couldn't resist indulging our little guy in socks from his favorite movie.  Emilie and Annabelle got ballerina socks that look like ballerina slippers going up their legs.  Alain and I both got some warm moose socks because we couldn't resist.  What happens in Colorado, stays in Colorado. . . except the moose socks!

After we headed to Estes Brewery for buffalo burgers that were delicious!  Zach was getting tired, so he fell asleep as soon as we got in the car.  We traveled next to Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.  That's where our kids participate in the Junior Ranger program.  We hiked around the lake and took tons of photos, then we hiked on to Nymph lake.  I feel very strongly that Nymph lake should be called "Blood-sucking Insect Lake" as we were attacked by little insects immediately upon arrival!  The hike up there was a bit more steep than Bear Lake, so I was completely out of breath carrying Zach up at the high altitude on my chest!  I fell once coming down from the lake, but my friend, Lauren, grabbed my arm for the rest of the way.  I think Zach was really throwing off my balance.  ;)

 As we were leaving, we stopped at the Visitor's Center so that the kids could receive their Junior Ranger badges and be part of a small ceremony.  After the ceremony, Alain was rushing the kids to get their seat belts on quickly so we could keep up with Rob's car, but Emilie calmly commented (as she was buckling) "Daddy, why can't you just be patient?"  It's a phrase that he says to the kids quite regularly, so it was hilarious to hear it repeated to him in such perfect context. 

Colorado

I think we finally made it to Fort Collins, Colorado by 10pm. We put the kids straight to bed and they still woke up at 6am! The adults should not have stayed up late chatting, but it was so nice to catch up. Alain and I stayed here while we were dating, so it's wonderful to be back!

I did another terrible photo shoot for Colorado's welcome sign, but I'm posting the photo just as it is. I'm doing most of my blogging from my phone, so editing photos is not so easy.

Wyoming

We were in this state for only a short time, but we did see Bison as we drove through it on our way to Colorado! The kids were very impressed with the bison and then they got super-excited when we finally started to see mountains! Zach has been waiting for weeks to see big "Daddy mountains" as he calls them. ;)

So, we drove through Cheyenne and we could barely see the capitol building in the distance. It started to get really windy and we had some nasty rain until we got into Colorado.

The pic for our "Wyoming" sign was really dark, but I didn't get another chance to take that photo. It is what it is! So, to somewhat make up for the bad photo of the sign, I took a picture at a gas station with Olivia and Emilie holding up postcards from Wyoming to prove we were really there. ;)

On the Road Again. . .

Now we are heading out to Colorado for the weekend. Our friends, Rob and Lauren, have family in Colorado. So we'll be staying the weekend with Rob's aunt and uncle and then we'll stay another week with our friends, Jeannie and John!

So, we left Kearney around 3:00pm on Thursday with both of our families. We split up the kids and the ladies drove together while the men drove the other car! It was so much fun!

We stopped for dinner at Arby's and we were served by a bunch of teenagers doing a fundraiser for their high school dance club! The full service at fast food was a bonus!

Zach has really bonded with Richard who is 8 years old and only a few weeks older than Annabelle. Richard plays so well with Zach and wrestles with him anytime, so we actually had Richard sit next to Zach for most of the trip! Annabelle and Olivia played the whole time in our car as well! By the end of the trip they were playing 2-person air hockey on my phone! Emilie watched movies with Richard when he wasn't playing with Zach!

While I was in Lauren's car, her big boys helped me catch up on my license plate game! I think we found 20 new states to add to my list while we were together!

 

4th of July!

We took our oldest girls, Annabelle and Olivia, to the Archway Museum in Kearney today. It was a special treat just for the girls while the hubbies stayed back with all 7 of the other kids. While in the museum, we got to use headsets to hear the story of Kearney as the gateway to the West for Indians and Pioneers alike.

After the tour we took the girls to lunch at the Stagecoach restaurant inside the museum. We chowed down on barbecue, cheesy potatoes and yummy cornbread!

For the fourth we celebrated with hot dogs and hamburgers and a few friends. Alain and Rob picked up tons of fireworks for the big show and fun sparklers for the kids. We love spending the 4th in Nebraska because they have a huge fireworks display in their cul-de-sac! We played games with friends after the fire works ended around 11pm and stayed up until 1pm. The kids were up almost as late as the adults were! They did amazing!

Chipped tooth and a night out!

Well, we decided to check out the public pool today. The kids were so excited about the huge waterslide at the pool that almost all kids would go down! Annabelle went down a few times, but shortly after we arrived she came flying down the slide with the lifeguard rushing to her! She flipped over on the slide and chipped her front tooth! She was in so much pain at first, but the life guards took great care of her and then we waited to see if there was any serious damage. She seemed fine, so we went to Coldstone Creamery to test out the sensitivity of her tooth. That test successfully passed, but we took her to Lauren's friends house (who is a dental hygentist) just to confirm that it was ok. She said it's fine, so we're grateful we don't have to do any urgent dental work while we are traveling!

After the adventure at the pool, the adults decided to head out on the town. Rob's oldest is 14, so he took care of all the kids while we went out on the town! We met up with some friends of Rob & Lauren's at a Mexican restaurant and had the most amazing fajitas ever! It was an awesome night!

Nebraska, Here We Are!

We made it to Nebraska around 8:00pm last night! We were re-routed due to some flooding, but we loved seeing the rolling hills of Kansas.

It was still light when we arrived, so they kids got to play on the trampoline and wrestle with the dogs! Rob & Lauren have a sweet little puppy, Pepper, so she startled the kids with her excited jumping! It's so great to see our friends!

Kansas!

Well, we spent a lot more time in Kansas than we originally planned. Our route involved heading north after Kansas City, so we weren't even planning on driving through this state. However, our friends called us this morning to say that a bunch of bridges were out due to flooding, so he re-calculated a route for us through Kansas! Alain and I were all for that since this is a way we've never driven before!

Today started around 7 am at the hotel, but we didn't get on the road until 9:45am. It was nice to let the kids play and get some energy out knowing we had 8-9 hours to drive today!

Zach loves Nemo! He thinks Nemo is real in every way, so we started the day watching Nemo on Alain's computer and that was a big hit for everyone! Zach actually has a shark cup that I bought him for this trip! It seems he mostly prefers underwater animals and movies. We've tried a lot of other movies and he's not at all interested.

The girls are so excited to get to Nebraska! Our friends, Rob & Lauren, have six kids, a trampoline and animals! It's playtime all the time at their house. Literally, we visited them last year and I barely saw Annabelle the whole week we were there!

We got some photos playing at a rest stop (where we also saw lots of cows), so I added a picture for you all!

Sarah