day 3: sioux falls, sd--minnesota--wisconsin--illinois--south bend, indiana: a long, late snowy ride

There is no way I could write this last night because it was so late by the time we pulled in to South Bend, Indiana, home of the Fighting Irish. More on that tomorrow (which is really today). Looking back I wish I had taken a picture of our hotel in Sioux Falls before we left because there was so much snow there--the most they've had since sometime in the 60's. It was crazy!

These pictures pretty much sum up our day. Lots of driving, lots of snow around, and lots more driving. (Fortunately we haven't been in any big snowstorms.) I love the above picture of the tractor/snow blower in rural Minnesota!!

I could take pictures of old barns all day!!

Crossing over the mighty (frozen) Mississippi River on the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin.

One thing I didn't think about before this trip is how hard it is to stop and get the boys' wiggles out when it is so chilly outside. It's not like you can stop at a park and let them out to play for a while. Well, you could, but they would be back in less than 2 minutes. So they sit and sit and sit--watching movies (sponge bob saved us this trip!), reading, and eating.

Because we got such a late start in the morning, it was another late night for us. We drove right through Chicago, which brought back memories of our Route 66 trip, and hit a small snow storm as we entered Indiana. It was late when we pulled into our hotel, but thought we were doing ok at 12:30am, but what we didn't realize is that we had entered another time zone, so we were a bit shocked to see the clock read 1:47am when we got to our hotel room! We slept in this morning, to say the least!

p.s. the boys seem to all be doing better--with the exception of Will's awful cough!

day 2: cheyenne, wy to sioux falls, sd: rock on!

Today was a very looooong driving day, but we broke it up with a little bit of fun. I wrote before that we were going to detour through South Dakota to go see Mt. Rushmore, and that's what we did. We drove and drove through the plains of Wyoming, and then suddenly when we crossed into South Dakota we entered the Black Hills, and they were so beautiful--definitely a welcomed change of scenery!!

Back in 1988 there was a big fire in the Black Hills region, which burned millions of acres. I'm guessing that is where all these dead and fallen trees come from. Pictures can't even capture what it really looked like and how beautiful it really is.

I had read about the mountain goats that roam the roads close to the memorial, but didn't think we would really see any, at least this close. We got lucky and happened on this group of about 5 or 6 mountain goats. Note the sign next to the one above!

What are these guys looking at??

Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln. We made it!! It was truly amazing to see. Jake was still sick at this point--maybe you can see the look of "get-me-out-of-here" on his face! After we left there, we drove and drove and drove, clear across South Dakota, to Sioux Falls. It was dark for most of our drive, and it was very foggy. People around there must be used to driving in the dark fog because I would slow down to 40mph, both hands clutched on the wheel at 10 and 2, when cars/trucks/whatever would fly by me at 60 or 70mph. It was a little scary sometimes, to say the least, but we made it safely there just before midnight. By the time we had everyone settled into their beds we caught the re-run of primetime Olympics. Good times!

day 1: riverton, ut.--cheyenne, wy.: on the road again

Spring break for Ben and Jake's school started today at noon, which meant so did our road trip to Washington D.C.; unfortunately, it didn't go exactly as we had planned, but I'm getting ahead of myself...

Today was a big day for Ben and Jake. It was the last day of the term, and for Ben it was Greek Day, a big event for third graders at the end of their studies of ancient Greece. Sadly, Ben didn't attend because he was still home sick. He stayed home with Will and Gpa and Gma Airplane, who are here to see my nephew Clayton get his Eagle Scout on Sunday, while I went to school with Jake to take pictures of the kindergarteners in his class dressed up for Favorite Fairy Tale Character Day. Here is Jake dressed up as Captain Hook and he's slaying the big, bad dragon(?!), Devin.

Miss Muffet was the "substitute" teacher today, and she had quite a colorful group to deal with!

After I took pictures I went home, my brother Darren came to get Gpa and Gma, and then it was a whirlwind getting packed to leave. We were late to pick up Jake at school, who ended up falling asleep in class and was pretty sick when I got there. Just before we got in the car he threw up, and then fell asleep on our way to get Daren at the fire station.

With Jake asleep, Ben reading,

Will with his headphones on already watching a movie and sooooo excited to finally be on the road,

...and Daren in the drivers seat, we were ready to hit the road! We are taking I-80 on our journey out to D.C., and taking a more southern route on our way back. This picture was taken on a long barren stretch of road somewhere in Wyoming. We drove by a huge area of these gargantuan windmills.

We stopped at the golden arches for dinner--we haven't been there since In-n-Out opened, and for good reason--blech!! And then it was a long cold (outside) drive to Cheyenne. At one point just before we got to Laramie it dropped from 13 degrees to 7 degrees in just a minute or two--chilly!!

Once we settled into our room it wasn't long before the twins crashed and Ben stayed up way too late watching the Olympics with us--he's going through his stash of books way too fast--he finished one book (the second Percy Jackson book) and read a whole other book, 39 Clues, all in one day. (Now I'm writing the next day) Last night was awful...now Will's sickness has returned and he threw up twice. I'm pretty sure he kept half of the hotel up with his crying and coughing, but today he seems better. I need a good nights sleep tonight!! Here's to hoping. Today we had a change of plans and are heading up to Mt. Rushmore. I've never been there, so it will be fun.

24-hour bug

HELP!!

I am living in throw-up hell!! Yesterday Jake woke up sick, and although today he is better I kept him home from school. Will and Ben left for school just fine, but Will got off his bus not feeling well, and an hour later we got a call from Ben's school that he had thrown up. When we got home, everyone got in their jammies, and I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening cleaning out "barf bowls" from the both of them. You know they aren't feeling well when they both put themselves to bed before 8pm, with barf bowls close by--please, let this be only a 24-hour bug!!

we heart this guy

A couple weeks ago it was Father's Visiting Day at Ben and Jake's school, and since I was there taking pictures for Jake's kindergarten class, I got this one of Daren and Jake. I also played the proxy father when Daren was gone to Ben's class, and it was a lot of fun.

Jake's drawing of Daren:)

Then just this past Tuesday was Daren's birthday--yea, now I'm only a year older than him instead of two!!

The boys were sad they had to wait until after school for Daren to open his presents, but it all worked out. This is our favorite lemon cake he wanted.

...along with one of his gifts. What else--a Lego fire engine!!

Will helped Daren put the fire engine together. I had offered to make Daren anything he wanted for dinner, and he chose In-n-Out. (That was more like a present for me!) It was an early dinner because he had a fire department meeting and I had my photography class, so we went our separate ways, but that's how things go being married to a fireman. We'll keep him, though, because we really heart this guy!

is there such a thing

When Ben was just 3 years old, Daren took him up to the mountains and tried to teach him how to ski. (Daren LOVES to ski if you didn't know, and couldn't wait to get Ben up there) It didn't take long to figure out that if Ben was going to learn to ski that it would have to come from lessons rather than from Daren. Ben took lessons at Alta when he was four, and then at Snowbird for the next couple seasons. He didn't really like the lessons, so last year at his request, we let him bypass them, and he didn't ski at all. I didn't think we would get him back up on the mountain for a very long time, but he actually asked if he could go when we were heading up last Friday to take the twins to their first ski lessons.

Ben and I skied together for a couple hours while the twins were at their lessons, and this time Daren was the one behind the camera (and he did a great job!).

I took this one above of Ben with my cell phone. You can't really tell how huge his smile is at this point, but we were having a blast. He loved skiing off the trail through the trees, and he tried to follow me going up this small jump when he crashed and his skis went flying off. YARD SALE!! Here he is just putting them back on. Now he asks us when can he go skiing again.

Jake (above) and Will (below) really enjoyed their lessons and can't wait to go back for more.

After skiing we stopped by In-n-Out for dinner and then headed home after what seemed like a perfect day. Little did we know that there was one more surprise waiting at home...

..Ben's Lego Titanic that he designed arrived!!

After this, Ben went on the Lego website again to design the Britanic and the Grand Staircase from the Titanic. That doesn't mean I'm ordering them cuz this little puppy was a pretty penny (or two!), but they are fun for him to design. Is there such a thing as a perfect day? Probably not, but it was about as close to a perfect day as you can get.