Vacation 2011 - Part 1

We recently returned from more than two weeks on the road with six kids. It was a 4,000 mile trip that took us from Washington State to Kansas and back.

I can't wait to share about our trip and update you on our family as well. I have not been a very faithful blogger lately and hope to change that this summer.

We left on June 9th from Western Washington and drove to Wenatchee to spend the first night at my parents house. It was only a three hour drive and just a taste of all the driving we would experience.

The picture below is taken outside of my parents house as we left to drive to Bozeman, Montana.

We have been doing our best to prepare our little ones for this trip. We had taken this same trip about three years ago and so the older kids new what to expect. There were conversations about driving all day in the car and only stopping to eat, get gas, and potty stops. I don't think that they believed us.

The trip from Wenatchee to Bozeman is about 10 hours. At the end of the day I asked Sunshine what she thought of vacation. She said, "I didn't think you meant that we would really be in the car for the whole day." Hee hee, sorry sweetie!

She was a bit anxious about this trip because she has experienced a lot of motion sickness in the past. On day one she did great!

A quick picture after running around at a rest stop in eastern Washington.

I must admit that I LOVE road trips!!! I love to look out the window and see the amazing world that God created for us to enjoy! Stand-Up Dad, on the other hand, enjoys the being there part of road trips, not the road part. He is so amazing! He did most of the driving and stopped the car every time I wanted to take a picture. I asked him to stop often.=)

One thing that we noticed right away was how green everything was. We are used to emerald green colors coming from rainy Western Washington. The green grasses of Spring were evident everywhere. It was absolutely stunning!

Stand-Up Dad made each of our kiddos a travel journal. There were maps that showed our route for each day. He listed facts about each city and region that we were traveling through. There were coloring pages of each state flower, bird and flag. He even added fun facts like, "In Boise, Idaho it is illegal to fish from a giraffe's back."

These books added to the fun and the educational value of our trip. Each day the kids colored, completed word searches and added journal writings about all that they were learning, seeing and experiencing.

More to come. =)

Sweet Momma