Well.... I got all the pictures ready for this blog post in a timely manner... and then forgot to write the post all week! Oops. Anyway, we went on a two week road trip and had lots of fun as a family. We also went to many new states for our family. Here we all are in the car driving. I don't remember which state this was in, but I took the picture joking that it would be for our state map just in case! Fortunately we got a non-car picture for each state we visited.
We started the trip off with a bit of drama. Shortly into the drive, I noticed my shirt was on inside-out! This was not something I could easily remedy while driving, so it was like this for much of the day.
Our first day we drove out to Kansas City. When we got to the hotel we brought everything in real quick and then went swimming! We found out that the air conditioning in our hotel room didn't work... When we went to bed it was 78 in our room, which was not great, and all the next morning it was 81. Not only did the air not work, but the room seemed to be unable to cool off despite it being much colder outside. We ate breakfast in the lobby where the air was working properly, and that felt very nice. Needless to say we were out as quick as possible the next morning.
Turns out there's a Lego Land discovery center in Kansas City, so we stopped there the next morning. They had a bunch of fun things to do, like building a tall building on these earthquake platforms that would then shake it down.
There was also a station to build a car, and tracks where you could race them.
And of course they had a bunch of lego statues built all over the place. There was even a mini-figure land where they'd built part of Kansas City! That was really cool to look at.
Monica and I got our build on at a little station for making little pictures. There was also a ride that Brooke and I went on 2 or 3 times. All in all everyone had a lot of fun. It was all inside, and very much focused on building things with Legos, so I believe it was quite different than the large Lego Land parks.
We left Kansas City for St Louis to visit Melanie, Monica's sister. Of course that means we got to see Anaya and new baby Jett as well, and the girls all played together all day long. Grayson struggled real bad at sleeping one night that we were there, because he was getting sick. I ended up holding him until 3 am when Monica came out and took the next shift. It was a long night...
After Melanie's house, we left for Casey Illinois, which is a town full of giant things. I think the most famous one is the giant rocking chair, but it wasn't my favorite picture. I liked the girls in the giant mouse trap.
And we also let Grayson get teed off!
After touring Casey we headed to Effingham where our hotel was. Monica ran to the store to get something for dinner and I took all the kids to the pool! Pools were a favorite spot during the trip, and fortunately all of our hotels had one that was open!
The next day we headed to Gary Indiana where our family vacation was. On the way, we stopped first at Michelle's house (another of Monica's sisters) and had lunch there with them. We then proceeded on to Costco to get groceries for the week. Monica had the food cart, and I had the kid cart.
We headed the rest of the way up and arrived at Gary Indiana. We were staying at a place just a few houses in from lake Michigan. We got there Saturday evening, and here we all are seeing the beach for the first time on Sunday.
I had Grayson duty which meant dragging a stroller through the sand. Not the easiest thing I've ever done, but also not the worst. I understand why beach wagons have those really big wheels now.
While we were out there Winry, Monica and Grayson got sick. One night Winry refused to put on pajamas at bed time (honestly, probably not related to being sick...). Fortunately Monica found a great solution, and Winry happily wore one of Monica's shirts as a night gown!
I'm a bit ashamed of my photography here... I don't know how I got my hand in this picture. This was taken with my water proof camera, and that screen is a lot harder to see the preview image on, but still... that's a pretty bad palm shot... Grayson loved the beach though. He liked to sit on the edge where the waves could come up over his legs. He'd also grab sand and suck on his fingers... which is pretty gross. Especially when a HUGE dead fish washed up on shore... that was the end of our playing in the water that day.
On Tuesday we headed to Michigan City. The rest of the family went to Chicago, but since we were still recovering from being sick, it was too much for us that day. We went to a burger chain called Schoops for lunch, and it was really good! We also got there a bit after typical lunch time (we tried not to shift to the new time zone, so 1 there was noon for us) and got to eat with all the old people. They ALL LOVED our kids! There were some grandmas in the booth across from us and we even turned Grayson around to say hi to them at one point. A bunch of people told our kids they were so cute on their way out. Also, Winry at first wouldn't order anything, but when food started coming wanted something. We asked the waitress and she even made Winry a peanut butter and jelly sandwich which was not on the menu!! That was so nice of her! After lunch we headed to the zoo in town and had fun seeing all the animals. We only had about an hour till closing when we got there, but it was small so we were still able to make it around to everything. They had a spot where you could feed the goats, and the cow moo'd really loud and it scared Winry. She told everyone about that for the rest of the week!
On Wednesday morning we headed to the dunes for a hike. I took Brooke and Winry with me. Monica wasn't feeling great and Grayson needed a nap, so they stayed behind. We hiked the first two dunes of the three, and then took a short cut path back to the main building to meet up with the fast group that did all three. Here are all the cousins at the top of the first dune. The final approach to the tops was sand and pretty steep, so it was a pretty challenging hike for the girls. That said, they climbed the whole thing all by themselves. I held their hands at times, but they did all the walking on their own! I was very proud of them.
Since the hike was supposed to be pretty short, I left our water in the car (I didn't have a backpack to carry it, and I figured there was a good chance I'd be carrying kids). Fortunately their cousins were willing to share in a pinch. Winry was NOT a fan of water being poured into her mouth...
Here's our reduced group at the top of the second dune.
Grayson stayed at home with Monica, presumably taking naps. We set up a little station for Grayson and he played there all week. People came by to play with him all the time as well, and he's been craving more attention since we've returned home...
In the place we were staying there was a book called 100 things to do in Gary and Northeast Indiana, or something like that. I'd looked over it for things to try to do while we were there. That's where I found the zoo in Michigan City as well as Schoops. There was also mention of a gas station chain called Family Express and their square donuts. We needed gas, so I maybe went a little out of the way to get gas from Family Express. The donuts were good, but I'd still take Donut House here in Parker over them. They were square though.
On Wednesday afternoon Monica and the girls headed to the beach while I stayed back to wait for Grayson to wake up from his nap. On the way Winry wanted to stop and get a picture with these flowers. What a cutie!
We saw a bunch of frogs around, and on Wednesday night Sam was even able to catch one! We didn't keep it for too long and released it back out into the garden in time for fireflies!
Yes fireflies! The girls got to see them too. I was able to get three in the same container. There weren't a ton of them, but they kind of hover in place, so they're not too hard to catch. In fact, Winry also caught one in her hand!
On Thursday we went to St Joseph, Michigan. We were about a half hour from the border, so it seemed a waste to not get one more state in. Also, it was a really cool beach town! They had stair cases painted with some fun things down by the beach, and all the kids climbed onto the floaty frog!
Up on the hill they had a cannon from an old battle ship in the civil war (I think) and some replica cannon balls.
We went to the Chocolate... Eatery... (I forgot the name) for lunch and it was recommended by one of Monica's college roommates who lived in St. Joseph. While we were waiting for our food, Audrey started slapping her mask on the table, and Grayson though it was hilarious!
After I finished eating Grayson was getting a bit grumpy, I so walked around downtown with him. We found these chairs hanging on the wall.
And on the way back to the beach I tried to run the stroller down some train tracks. Semi-successful.
On Wednesday at the beach in Gary there were some seagulls and Winry tried to run up and touch/pet/grab them. She was sad that she couldn't get to them, so at the end of our beach day in St. Joseph I let her feed them some pretzels. She absolutely loved it! I'm sure the seagulls did too.
There was a pier and a lighthouse, so we walked out to see it. Here's our family! Thanks St Joseph, you were fine!
Friday we had to pack up and leave the beach house, so it was time to start the trek back home. We stopped in Ankeny, Iowa, and that night we watched the Olympic opening ceremonies. Good thing they were on, as Monica later discovered that the hotel pool was closed for maintenance.
The next morning before leaving town we went to a farmers market. We got some cookies, cucumbers, yellow green beans (are they still called green beans if they're not green?), corn on the cob, an eye spy bag for the kids in the car, and some cat toys for Jelly.
We continued on our way from the farmers market to Winter Quarters! We went to the church museum thing there and it was pretty cool to see and learn about the pioneers more. The girls got to spin a wagon wheel to see an odometer in action, and they got to pull a handcart. We got to try out the bunk beds from the ships that crossed the ocean as well. I came away thinking that we don't talk about pioneers in church nearly enough, and I'd love to have a pioneer lesson quarterly or something. Also, things worked out just right that we came through on Pioneer Day! The missionaries doing tours got to dress up as pioneers for the day, so that was fun too.
We finished the drive home on Sunday. We stopped for church in Sterling, and then headed for home after. By the last day, driving was no fun anymore, at least for me, even though we only had 4 hours the last day. But we made it! And Jelly was VERY excited to see us when we got home. She loved the toys the girls got for her too. All in all we had a lot of great times, but it was nice to finally make it back home. The front half of the vacation felt like a full vacation itself, and when we got to Gary we commented that it seemed like we should be getting home at that point. It's nice that we were able to have a trip like this, and get to see our family as well! It was definitely a wonderful trip!
Appendix A:
As I went to write the blog for this week (yes, it is the same day as this one was posted) I realized I missed some good pictures from last week. So instead of going back and editing the post and possibly having to change wording, etc. I'm just stuffing them down here to be quick. Welcome to the very first blog post appendix!
Exhibit 1 - While at the pioneer museum they had recreation beds from the ships. I think I even mentioned these beds, but didn't put in the picture. Anyway, this was the amount of space a family would have on the ship. They didn't say anything about family size, so it sounds like you bought a 2 bed ticket and just put everyone in. Our lodging lasted all of a minute, so we're still happy.
Exhibit 2 - In good ol' That-Place Nebraska the dinosaur at the gas station was dressed up! Winry loves these dinosaurs, so there's a decent chance she'd have wanted a picture any way, but this time we couldn't pass it up!
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