We enter Colorado!

 We figured out very quickly that Eliana will NOT sleep in her pack n' play while camping. Who knows why. Toddlers have no rhyme or reason!

Each night, we tucked her in close to us on the air mattress and as soon as her eyes drifted closed, she slept like a log!

She rolled off once or twice onto Samuel's sleeping bag and I hauled her up. She slept through the whole thing:)

Sleeping Beauty on the morning we left:) She's pink because the tent is red!

Zakkai's joyful morning face.

He gets it from his father...

I finally talked Father Thomas into moving and we piled our gear into the van and took off! I didn't realize the time had changed while we were there and was disappointed to realize we were leaving an hour later than I'd hoped. Anxious to see family!

We took a few wrong turns/exits that were poorly marked and our 3 hr 12 min drive Thursday morning to my sister's house took more like 4 1/2 hours. Yuck.

We were immediately greeted by my grandparents, my sister, brother in law and my 2 nieces! Pretty soon my mom and step dad and aunt J and uncle G showed up and we were out the door and ready for our trip up the mountain barely 1 1/2 hours after we'd showed up.

Thankfully we had just enough time to wash the Nebraska dirt off before we left:)

The mountains. Oh, the mountains. They make the most boring drive absolutely amazing! The boys were like, "How in the world did the mountains get there?!"

I said, "God created them." Amazing.

An hour and 15 min later, we pulled up caravan-style to our new "Home away from home." A huge 8 bedroom, 6 bathroom, 2 living room, 2 kitchen-ed retreat! We packed in almost 40 people.

That first day was filled with everyone helping everyone unload cars, finding assigned bedrooms (my sisters did an awesome job planning it all out) and greeting long-lost family members. I have to admit, the most exciting reunion for me was getting to hug my family from Texas. I've miss y'all! :)

My mom and sisters and aunts jumped right in and started making burgers and hotdogs for all of us, while the men did the grillin'. Pretty amazing how much food was pulled together so quickly!

After dinner, my older sisters (who had planned most of the reunion) had a big family meeting where they talked about schedules and things to do and house rules, etc. We were ready for some fun!!!

Too bad some altitude sickness ruined that plan the next day. More on that tomorrow.

For now, enjoy a couple videos of Eliana while traveling last Tuesday.

I was trying to capture her sweet high-pitched voice. She says most things in a 2 toned, 2 syllable way and we wanted it on video before it goes away:) Ignore the creepy voice at the end of the movie; I'm pretty sure that's Ben's book on tape. haha.

I snuck a peek at the boys listening to a book on tape in the back. Samuel loved listening to the books while Zakkai was interested for a little bit and then was ready to move on. Typical!

Hope you're enjoying the trip catch-up!

Camping Day 2!

 Instead of driving straight to CO last Wednesday, we decided to spend a quiet day together as a family. After breakfast, I took the kiddos down to the lake to throw rocks so that Daddy could sneak in another nap. 14 hours of driving will wear you out!

It was so quiet and peaceful down there and the boys loved seeing how far they could throw the rocks.

Eliana decided that looked like a ton of fun and joined right in:)

Her rocks didn't go nearly as far but it was SO cute to watch her try!

My 3 rock throwers:)

I wish these pictures had turned out better~it was such a beautiful day and they all looked so cute down by the water.

Lake Ogallala

Someone waded right in the water in her tennis shoes:)

Getting adventurous...

After Ben woke up, we decided to check out the town of Ogallala. Totally not what they claim to be online. This was their "exciting" western town.

It turned out to be a block long, in the middle of a really random, spread out, ugly town. We drove by a few times and decided to hightale it back for the campsite, with marshmallows and chocolate in tow for s'mores.

This is what Eliana thought of the town...

We spent the afternoon reading while the boys watched a movie from the back of the van. It was really hot out so we couldn't do too much. Later we went back to the lake for round #2 of rock throwing and then finished out our night with hot dogs, corn on the cob and s'mores!!

Tomorrow comes Colorado!

Vacation Day #1!

Oh my goodness. Has it really been almost a week since I last posted?! I admit, while I have missed sharing pictures and stories here, I have not missed being on the computer! There is no love lost for my email or for facebook.

As a matter of fact, I enjoyed having a break from those!

But here we are....back from our Wild West Adventure! We got up and drove over 16 hours straight, through 4 different states yesterday so we could get back and sleep in our very own beds. It felt strange walking in here, almost like it was someone else's house!

We threw everyone straight in bed last night, unloaded 9 days worth of junk from our van and promptly slept anywhere from 10-12 hours each.

We are SO disoriented today with the time change and wondering where half our day went! (sleeping:)

Anyone want to come unpack and do laundry for me?? Anyone?

Okay, nevermind. Instead, I'll share a few pics from our first day of camping. We left at about a quarter til 5am last Tuesday and drove 14 hours to Ogalalla, Nebraska.

It was supposed to be a 12 hour trip.

We hit some potty desperation on the way there and pulled off at an exit, only to find no bathrooms. Luckily, that's no problem for boys!! haha.

Thankfully, the desertous like heat was cooling off by the time we straggled into our campsite by a lake. There was a heavenly breeze and we could tell right away it would be a better campsite than our first one.

We set up our tent~we're pros now! And then we got the grill started right away and tossed on some delicious hobo packets. Mmm!

Eliana ate her own dinner since we wanted to get her right to bed. I think she looks so cute sitting in the big chair:)

She kept daddy company while he got our dinner started!

The campsites had a nice distance between them, unlike the last site and they weren't all filled up since it was a weekday, which was nice. We all settled down to sleep and got our little Miss to sleep by 9pm (a HUGE difference from last time when she didn't settle down til midnight!) and everyone slept like a log!

Well, the kids anyways. I never sleep well the first night in a different place. And it's LOUD out in nature with all the birds and bugs! Thankfully, we had an electric site and could plug in our fan and noisemaker to help the kiddos sleep better.

And maybe us, too:) This is called "roughing it." ha!

The next morning we dined on cereal and homemade granola and got ready for a relaxing day in excited Nebraska. Okay, not.

A typical Zakkai look:)

Pretty girl enjoying some food! She's a camping pro now!

More pictures and stories to come!

Mountain Time

We are alive! We are safely in the mountains of Colorado with lots and LOTS of family(I believe there are at least 40 of us here).

I spent last night and today terribly sick with the altitude sickness and Ben didn't feel himself today but we are feeling a little more like ourselves tonight and are hoping to actually get out of the house and see something tomorrow:)

We celebrated my grandparent's and their 60 years of marriage with a truly beautiful (and emotional) tribute tonight. Dinner all together out at a restaurant, a movie of pictures put together by my mom and aunt, many funny and very emotional stories and tributes told by a lot of us to my grandparents and for those who were not half dead from altitude sickness, cake and ice cream.

And we all are wearing these really cool pins with a picture of their wedding day all weekend!

Pics to come. And stories to tell.

CO, here we come!!!

 I wish that I could say I was headed to join the rest of my family in slumber but....I'm still packing! There's still much to be done, including cleaning up my mess in the kitchen, where I've spent most of the day!

This little stinker slept from 5pm last night to 8 this morning! She was a crab, too, but was better after her nap this afternoon. Hope she's well-rested for our long day tomorrow!

Well-rested enough to fall right to sleep while camping.....:)

The boys were in rare form today and drove me batty! Everyone's a little kooky since we all have been anticipating and gearing up for this big trip.

I just finished packing up the special bins for each of the kiddos! The boys have these (S~blue, Z~green) and Missy has a pink one. Her bin has long lost toys that have been hidden away, borrowed toys, things to color with and keep her, hopefully, entertained for 12 hours.....

The boys have lots of never-read-before books in theirs plus their crayon rolls (I made these for their stockings at Christmas!) with brand new crayons in them.

They each have a red binder with lots of goodies inside!

Stickers and a pencil pouch with highlighters, a pen, sharpened pencil and new colored pencils.

And in plastic sleeves, they have maps of our trip so they can highlight how far we've driven...

Road Trip Bingo

A scavenger hunt game from the same site.

And worksheets from workbooks. Handwriting and matching for Z and math, telling time and writing for S!

Gotta sneak in a little edjamacation!

They also have some blank white paper and a brand-new notebook at the back. Thank goodness for school supply sales for a lot of this!!!

They also have a few new things like this cool license plate game book, this sticker face book and a travel game by Melissa and Doug.

I did tons of research into travel tips, browsed great websites sent to me by my sister and found the best prices I could on these few new things. I've built up the excitement of their special travel bins and haven't allowed them even one peek inside:)

And if all that fails, we have tons of books, books on tape and movies never seen before!

Oh, and don't forget snacks:) I spent all day preparing food! Our house was filled with the aroma of freshly baked granola and homemade granola bars this morning. I also chopped up lots of fresh fruits and veggies and put them all in baggies; easy to dole out to hungry people! We have sandwiches made up for lunch, hobo packets all ready for dinner tomorrow night and muffins ready to pop in the oven in the wee hours of the morning.

4am the Thomas train takes off. CO, here we come!!!