Trip Out West (Part 2)

For most of the rest of the trip the pictures are self explanatory. We drove to San Diego and stopped at the temple there. We had hoped to be able to go inside, but it was closed for renovations. Then we met my mom and her brother on Coronado to start a real vacation...The kids saw the beach for the first time, got to pet a dolphin at Sea World and just hang out and relax. We were able to spend Friday and part of Saturday with my mom's sister and her family. We also went to the USS Midway and the kids got to climb in all types of airplanes.   We then tackled the 27 hour long car ride home...straight from San Diego to Springfield with a small detour to drop my mom off in Las Vegas. The kids did great, Ben drove through the night and we switched off...I would definitely do it again!

Love my girl

Ari called these the "nibble fish" they eat the dead skin off your hands

Trip out West part 1

We spent 2 weeks traveling out west. It was quite the trip and the kids did amazing! We drove through 10 states (about 4,000 miles), slept in 6 different places (including the car), renewed friendships, and saw prairies, foot hills, mountains, deserts, forests, and an ocean.
I will warn you, I didn't get as many pictures of people as I would have liked. If we were with people it was usually filled with talking and enjoying each others company.

I think Kansas was the only place boring enough to put them both to sleep

There was a beautiful rest stop in Colorado, about an hour outside of Denver.

Ari and Deven loved hiking Bridal Veil Falls. 











We drove up to Salt Lake and met up with Liz and Alan Graden. They were the ones that introduced Ben and me. (Of course this is the only picture I got, the kids were running all over the place!)

In Provo we stayed with Ben's cousin Royal and his family. Our kids had a blast playing together. I didn't get very many fun pictures at all but Deven and Zeke loved building together and all the boys came up with some crazy games.

We then drove to Bakersfield to visit our good friends Rachel and Shiloh Logan.

They had a leopard gecko...one of Ari's favorite animals.

While I was there I was able to do some family history. I was able to find my great-grandfather's obituary and gravestone. 

Then we drove down to San Diego and stopped in LA to visit Amy, a good friend from high school.