1575 miles later

My view for the three days.

They really did so well! I can't complain at all. These pictures are a little off because well I was driving.  Don't worry this was in wide open spaces.

We left Colorado on July 17th to begin our 23 hour drive across Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia. Mind you we had already driven 3,500 miles this summer so what was 1,500 more? When I look at those numbers I can't believe how much we drove this summer!

Goodbye Horizon Middle SchoolWe had lunch with some of the teacher Mark worked with.  There was a lot of turnover at his school this year. I think at least 8 teacher left. Crazy. It really wasn't awful but we are so happy to have moved on. 

 We stayed with our good friends the Pitcher's Wednesday night.  Mark and I had driven out from Utah 2 days prior so we could clean out his classroom, get the oil changed in the Highlander, and load up the moving truck. Mark's mom kindly drove the Sonata out with Jared and Lydia a day after us.  Jared and Lydia really needed a break. When we were taking about Mark and I leaving Jared had a little breakdown and said he could not travel the next day.  Poor guy! I don't blame him. Luckily Sue had offered to come out a day later so they could have a day to swim and play before three long days of driving.  Our original plan was for Mark to drive the moving van with the Sonata on a trailer. Sue and I would drive the Highlander with Jared and Lydia.  The night before we left Mark and our friend Nate spent 2+ hours trying to get the car on the trailer only to find out that one of the securing chains was broken!!  They were so mad! I felt so bad. Not only did they spend all that time on it but it was basically pouring rain on them the whole time.  It was very frustrating. So our new plan was for me to drive with Jared and Lydia, Sue to drive the Sonata, and Mark to drive the van sans trailer.  It worked out fine and Sue was such a trooper! She had already driven the whole day before to get to Colorado and was not going to drive for three more days. We don't know what we would have done without her being so willing to help us out.

We left a little later then planned Thursday morning since Mark had to drive across town (35 minutes there and 35 minutes back) to drop off the trailer but we were on the road by 9:15 and there we stayed for the next 8+ hours with a little lunch break.  Jared and Lydia actually did really really well in the car.  They were pretty seasoned car travelers by then. They would play for an hour or so then we would watch a movie and by the time the movie was over we had about an hour till lunch.  After lunch they took a 1.5 to 2 hour nap then either watched another show or played or both. They were such troopers.  We are lots of snacks and I listened to lots of my old CD's I hadn't heard in ages.  I was slightly nervous about driving so much by myself. Mark typically drives most of our long road trips but as long as I had songs to sing and snacks I was okay.  Our first night we stayed in Kansas City, Missouri and Missouri was surprisingly a lot prettier than I though it would be.  Once we got to the hotel and ate dinner we headed down to the pool to get some energy out.

Then we repeated this the next day and the day after that. The last day we only had to drive for 6.5 hours so much nicer then 8.5 hours. The second night we stayed in Lexington, Kentucky.  We had light rain showers through most of Kansas and crazy rain through Kentucky and West Virginia.  If someone were to ask me about Kentucky I would say it had a lot more trees and rain than I expected. Each of theses states, except Kansas, were a lot prettier than I expected and had way more trees. It really was a pretty drive for the most part.  And so much corn!! It was kind of crazy how many huge corn fields we drove past.

Kansas

Indiana, corn! 

West Virginia (more rain)

We got to our new place around 2:00 Saturday afternoon. Mark picked up our key from the drop box at the leasing office and met us over here. Mind you we had never set foot in this house.  Mark's friend from Turlock (who lives here) kindly checked it out for us and gave it a green light.  Some men from our new ward were waiting to help us unload.  Sue took Jared and Lydia to a nearby park (so helpful) and I helped unload and direct where to put things. Seeing all our boxes all over was a little overwhelming but I knew we would get it organized. We are so grateful for all the help we were given and how welcome we have felt.  Our cars ran smoothly, we didn't get lost or separated, and we all arrived in good spirits. Were so happy to be here!

Camas Washington

Our last stop on the West Coast was Camas where Mark's sister Susan and her husband Brett live. We visited them there in 2010 and were happy to head back over there. They have since moved into a new house and Jared and Lydia loved playing with them, enjoying their amazing backyard and going kayaking on the lake. When we visited in 2010 they took us out on the kayaks which was my first experience kayaking and I loved it. I was so happy we could do it again. Sadly Mark go sick why we were there and was pretty miserable. We were also in the middle of trying to get our housing set up for Virginia and were able to but we ended up needing to be in Virginia almost 2 weeks earlier than we originally planned so it was a short but sweet visit. The timing was perfect though as Susan's kids, Spencer and Hannah were there with their spouses so we got to visit with them some. It was nice.

Most of our pictures were from the fun we had in the backyard. We played in their fancy kids sprinkler, slid into the baby pool, and picked some blueberries.  Jared found a kids ball and bat and loved playing.  He was really pretty good too.  Mark and I have often talked about how we hope neither one of our kids want to play baseball so we were a little sad he loved it so much. (But we will totally support him if he really wants to do it). We ate ice cream sandwiches and just had some good summer fun.

 Aunt Susan and Uncle Brett are so fun! 

 Brett offerred to "give" Lydia some water in her mouth. She made the funniest faces!

 We loved these hammock chairs! So comfy! 

Ice Cream sandwiches! So good. 

After kayaking we took a little walk in downtown Camas. Mark got sick after that so things were less fun but we are so glad we could see them. Susan and Brett's kids are now all graduated from high school so they seemed to have a lot of fun with Jared and Lydia.  It was cute and fun to see them play with them.

Seattle, Washington

After Medford we drove up to Seattle to se my brother Davin and his wife Tara and meet their cute baby girl Kaylee. She was born in October and we had not gotten to meet her yet.  I was expecting Seattle to be mid 70's with beautiful breezes but it wasn't! It was hot!  But we had some fun anyway and baby Kaylee is super cute.  We played outside, enjoyed a walk in the woods, stopped at the Museum of Flight and checked out Seattle and the Seattle Temple. Our visit there overlapped with my Mom's so we got to visit with her some more.

Cute Cousins:
We are so happy we got to meet Kaylee. Jared was really sweet with baby Kaylee.  Lydia did well too but there were times when she tried to take toys from her.  Jared and Lydia don't have a ton of exposure to little babies so it was fun to watch  them. It was odd to be the ones with the older kids I had to keep quiet for naps.  Jared and Lydia have always been the ones people have been quiet for. They did pretty well with that. They had a really hard time sleeping at night. Seattle is so far North it stays light forever! We all survived though.

Davin and Tara live North of Seattle in Mill Creek.  Jared and Lydia loved playing in their sprinklers. We also spent some time at a splash pad and park nearby. Near their house is a beautiful paved walking path right through a wooded area. Davin went on a "hike"with us on his day off. We started down the path and not 5 minutes in Lydia fell down and scraped her knee.  We were going to just call it good but I wanted to see more the trail so Mark and Davin took her back to the car and cleaned her up then we finished our little walk. I love paths like this and think every city should have them, wooded area or not.

 Lydia, Uncle Davin, Jared 

 Tara was kind enough to take us into Seattle on her day off.  Seattle has really bad traffic, another thing I was not expecting, (clearly I know nothing about this city I didn't even know it had been mostly burned down and rebuilt) but it is so pretty to be there right by the water. We decided the night before we were going to take "Ride the Duck" tour and my Mom was kind enough to take us.  Jared and Lydia were beyond excited to ride in the big duck bus and then to get to go out in the water. Jared of course loved his "quacker" too. I loved hearing the history of the city (seeing as I how I knew nothing about it) and being on the water. So pretty. We walked around for a few hours checking out the main sites: Pikes Market (which I kept calling Pikes Peak because of the mountain in Colorado), the Space Needle, and the disgusting gum wall alley.

These were actually younger kids taking sailing lessons. How fun would that be?  We saw the Sleepless in Seattle house and the whole time we were on the water I kept thinking about the movie "10 Things I Hate About You." It was one of my favorite movies. I still love it.

 Pikes Market:

 Tara got us some delicious donuts at this fun little stand. 

 It was fun to watch them being made in front of us.  

So gross! 

This is not even the main part of it. 

Museum of Flight:
Jared really loves the movie Planes so we spent a morning at this museum.  There are tons of planes on display and real ones o you can walk in outside. We enjoyed checking them out and "flying" them.  Outside they have the original Air Force One, (Eisenhower's) and a British Airways Concorde. Jared was very impressed by the Concorde and wishes he could have gone on it.  There was a little kids section with a helicopter and hot air balloon you could climb on and a hang gliding game. It was a fun place to visit especially for Jared.

 Working int the Control Tower. 

 The Concorde, its amazing how fast it was. 

 Space Section

 Hang gliding

 Seattle Temple:
In all honesty I kind of forgot there was a temple here! When we got to Davin's house we were talking about what we wanted to do and my Mom mentioned it so we decided to check it out. I am so glad we did. The grounds were so pretty. It was fun to go to one I had never seen before (and kind of forgot about).

We are so glad we drove up to Seattle.  It is a very pretty place and we loved visiting Davin and Tara.