Family!!!

We survived 46 HOURS in a van with three kids, driving across the country!!!

We left Virginia on Friday the 15th and arrived in California on Friday the 22nd. We usually traveled around 7 to 8 hours a day and the babies did so good!!! The poor things are probably so confused, but they were little troopers and we are so happy that we got to see family along the way!

Lindsey kept saying, "We're home!" probably hoping to be done with the traveling and wondering where her home was, poor thing. Cooper slept most of the time and took a binkie so well when he was awake. Good Boy!!! I got the girls etch-a-sketches along with tons of other new toys for the trip, but I didn't think they would really know how to use them. Gracie surprised me by creating a floor plan! She had squares and rectangles all over the etch-a-sketch and told me that they were the three kids' rooms and the living room! She is so stinking smart!!! She is also an amazing colorer! She did get upset though when she tried to color Princess Tiana with the black crayon. She said, "She's too black!" because you couldn't see any of her facial features. I taught her how to use the brown crayon for black people and to color really lightly and then she was fine.

We stopped in Indiana to see my Grandma and Aunts and cousins! We got to see our parents and siblings and Grandma Christensen in Brigham City! Then we got to see my Aunt Kathy in Reno! When we left Utah Gracie said, "My will miss them so much!"

Grandma and Granddad brought this little pool for the girls to play in and they loved it! I bet it felt so good after being stuck in carseats for so long! Aunt Heidi and Granny supplied new snacks and toys for the kids, which helped re-energize them for the remainder of the journey.
We were so glad to see everyone!!!

Tim will be doing an internship in California until Mid-October and the kids and I will stay in Idaho in October while he goes back to Virginia to graduate and get our things out of storage and moved to Alabama. Then he'll meet up with us and we'll all travel down to Alabama where Tim will be starting work in Huntsville at Redstone Arsenal. It will be so nice to have a house there and be done traveling.

The Big Boys!!!

We got to visit my Aunt Kathy in Reno! I love this picture of her with Cooper because they're both making the same face! She sure got him laughing and she gave us books, puzzles, a big spiral bound children's songbook, and more! Gracie has been doing puzzles non stop ever since!

Lightning Bugs!

Indiana!!!

I hadn't been to Indiana since I was 2 years old, so it was so fun to get to stop and visit with my Hoosier Family!!! We had such a great time with everybody and were sad to leave. When we left Gracie said, "I don't want to go to California, I want to go back to Great-Grandma's!"

I got to go on a drive with my Grandma and she showed me a couple houses my mom had lived in and her old High School and the hospital she was born at. It was really neat to see all those places. When we got back the girls were outside with Tim and Grandpa Gary hunting lightning bugs! So FUN!!!

I realized I didn't get a picture of Andrea's family all together so I'll have to steal a picture from someone else who was at Aunt Charlene's and got one. :)

Aunt Sarah!!!

We had Sarah come out to help me watch the kids while Tim was gone for work for a week. She was so much help!!! I was able to keep my sanity a bit and the girls were able to get some attention they've been craving. She colored with them and did their hair and I know they loved having her do things with them. She also helped with dishes and things so that I could read stories with them before bed. I can tell you that it would have been quite a different week if I had been there alone, so Thank You Sarah!!!

The Zoo

The Park

Sarah did the girls' hair in cute French Braids! Lindsey was being a stinker and kept hiding her face from the camera.

This is how we found Lindsey after we put her down for a nap!

Sarah did the girls' hair in cute, puffy pigtails!!! They were so cute!

The reason I hadn't had the girls feed the birds at the zoo before was because I was afraid they would fly at them and scare them. We did it anyway when my Mom and Heidi were here and the birds were calm and the girls loved it. We got there right after some field trip kids though, so the birds were pretty full.

I thought it would be fun to let them do it again with Sarah since it went so well the first time but this time it went quite differently. Apparently the birds were a lot more hungry this time because they were landing on the girls and Sarah's arms and flying at them. Needless to say, Sarah and the girls were scared this time.