Early Thanksgiving at Moms house

As many of you know, my mom and her husband Mike are getting ready to leave to serve an LDS mission in Nepal, India. 

My mom really wanted to have an early Thanksgiving because it is the next big Holiday that she will miss. So that is what we did :)

Both of my sisters and their families were there along with my little brother and his family. Mikes four children and their families also came to celebrate.

The only people missing were my brother Dustin and his family...they live far far away :( We did skype with them though, so that was good.

These are the oldest four granddaughters, aren't they beautiful!

 These two girls, Gracie and Kambree, clamped onto poor little Olivia and wanted to drag her everywhere they went. They enjoyed pretending they were her babysitters.

 Austin and I messing around on Moms piano :)

 We went up early and stayed late as per Moms request :) While we were waiting for the food to cook we helped Mom clean out some of the house. They are having people rent their house while they are gone, so she needed help moving furniture and cleaning.

While cleaning out one of the closets we found this container full of first aide stuff...from my DAD!!! The things in there were at least 10 years old!

Definitely picture worthy.

It was actually really fun going through all of Moms things. We helped her move her cedar chest and ended up emptying it out before it could be moved. Inside was a piece of frosting from her wedding cake...it is 39 years old!! I dared her to lick it, but she wouldn't haha.

We did find her wedding dress though and Paige, my niece MaKady and I tried it on. Aren't we such beauties...

(MaKady)

 (Me)

 (Paige)

 (this is the original...my mom and dad:)

Then we ate...way too much food :)

This is Grandpa Mike making the potatoes, his secret...lots and lots of butter!

And here is my nephew and I...I am teaching him how to eat a cupcake the right way, with a fork of course haha.

After we cleaned , moved furniture, and ate we took family pictures.

Here is mom with some of the boys...I am posting two pictures, just look at Austin's face...that kid has a hard time taking a normal picture.

Then we tried to get a picture of all the grand kids on my Moms side...

Slight problem...Meggan and Brock are missing in this one...

Then Kambree and Gracie were missing for this one. So we gave up.

Now for the adults...

Mike was trying to hide behind Mom :)

It was a fun day. I love spending time with my family. Mom and Mike will enter the MTC on Monday, October 7th and I miss them already. I am sure 18 months will go by really fast...so much can happen when you are literally half way across the world! Good thing we have Skype, too bad they won't have electricity all the time...oh what an adventure we are all in for.

Day #10 and #11--days of driving to HOME!

We left Chicago early and started west. No more toll bridges yeah!!!!

And yes I drove...once in awhile.

We saw this sign that said there was an exit called "Roscoe", that is my fathers name, so we took a picture of it :)

And here we enter Nebraska!

Day #11...this is what we did...watch T.V.

Then we were home! It was an amazing trip full of great adventures and loads of fun memories. We even came in slightly under budget...gotta love that! The kids did so well! They got a long with each other, they weren't cranky, they just enjoyed being with their cousins. I am so glad Shelley's family was able to go on this vacation with us. 

Hope you enjoyed our fun journey to Pennsylvania and beyond :)

 

Day #9...CHICAGO!!!!

So many people gave us a hard time about going to Chicago...It's so dirty...People are always getting murdered there...There is nothing fun to do there...It is so expensive there...and the list went on and on. I will just say this, I LOVED IT!!! We really did our homework and got the kids opinions of what to go do and see. I felt like it was one of the best parts of our trip and I would definitely go back. The only rules you should stick to are #1. Take lots of money (it really was expensive) #2. Stay at a hotel that is not right downtown. Ours was 12 miles out side of the city, and it was great #3. Do not stay out after dark #4. Do not walk under the freeway (this one was for you Shelley:)

We went to the Pier on our first full day there. There is so much to do here. The kids posed in front of a bunch of pirate statues with part of the city as the backdrop.

This is a great photo of the pier. We decided to take a ride on the ginormous Ferris wheel. So much fun...but if you are afraid of heights you might want o avoid this attraction.

 Shelley and her family.

 The girls and I were on one side, Shawn and the little two were on the other side. There was Plexiglas on all the sides of the ride...so no worries about falling out :)

This was our view from the top.

 

Then we went on the swings ride.

We ate lunch at the pier and the kids had their first "Chicago hot dog", they weren't that impressed. Then we went to the children's museum. It was huge inside. As my nephew Everett put it "it was like the Salt Lake City Children's museum on Crack".

 After the museum we went to the botanical gardens. The kids thought it was amazing that outside it was so windy and hot...and inside the garden it was humid and slightly cool. They had these neat water fountains that sprayed water from one flower bed to the other.

 Then we went to the "Willis Tower" or as most know it as "The Sears Tower". We took the little tour and then road the elevator 103 stories up to the observation deck.

 They have this glass hangover that you can look out over the city. It has a glass bottom too, so it feels like you are standing in the air and could fall 103 stories at any time.

 It sort of scared the kids...but really it wasn't that bad haha

  I had to do a handstand in the box to prove I wasn't scared :)

 After this we went back to the pier to get our car and decided to walk to the other end of the pier and take a few pictures.

We went back to the hotel, the kids were so wiped out! We ordered true Chicago style pizza...like $95 worth of pizza and the kids hated it! 

Oh well, now we know if we ever go back there, do not order anything that is authentic Chicago styled food. But on a positive note the hotel had a great swimming pool. The kids swam in it the first night we got in, the morning before we went to the pier, the night we came back from the pier and again the next morning before we began our long drive home.The extremely long drive home :(

Day #8

We drove a lot this day.

 And I can't seem to rotate this picture...but Austin was bored...so he put silly putty all over his face!

We drove from Erie, PA to Kirkland, Ohio to visit my Aunt and Uncle on their mission.

 So of course we took a family picture.
We took a tour of the Newel K Whitney store and a few of the other church sites. The kids thought this checker board game was pretty cool because they used corn cobs to create the pieces on the board.

 We toured the temple also while we were there. It was different than what I thought it would be like. It was a testimony builder in so many ways. 

Then we went to lunch and had to say good bye to my brother and his amazing family! It was a sad, hard day. Many tears were shed :(

Then we drove and drove and drove...heading to Chicago.

  I took this picture just outside of Chicago. It was just a beautiful sunset.

Day #7...time is slipping away!

Today we went to church with my brother and his family.

Afterwards he took us on a little tour of Erie, PA. We were able to see the hospital where he works and the pier. Then we went to the peninsula that goes out into Lake Erie. It is 13.2 miles around it.

The kids loved every second of it!

They thought it was like the ocean, because you couldn't see land on the other side. Plus the waves can get up to 7 feet high and it has it's own tide.

The sunset was gorgeous!!!

And of course it just so happened that Saturday was my "long" run day...I was still in training for the Morgan Valley Half marathon. But because of time spent driving I ended up needing to do 10 miles this day. So I ran along the peninsula...it was amazing! They are a lot closer to sea level then we are in Utah, that alone helped shave 2 minutes off of my time. I'd move there just to run faster haha.

So of course I missed out on most of the water fun :(

But truly, who can go to Lake Erie and not get in it? I didn't have my swimsuit so I just dove in with my running clothes on. It was so refreshing after that long run. It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip.

After a fabulous day we went back to Dustin's house and ate more food :) played games and just relaxed. It was a good day!