Road Trip

 

A couple weeks after we got back from Missouri we hit the road for another adventure.

Dane is interviewing for residency for the next couple months and luckily he was able to schedule 5 of his interviews all in a row so that he didn't have to take five seperate trips to get to all of them.  I was way excited that they were all in driving distance of us because I wanted to come along for the trip!!

 

We left on a Friday morning to our first destination which was West Virginia.  The drive was BEAUTIFUL it was all mountains, tree's, and rivers.  When we got there we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, took a little drive around the town, went swimming at the hotel, and then Dane went to a dinner that they were hosting for all of the applicants that night and me and the kids hung out at the hotel and made some microwave dinners, popcorn, and watched Christmas shows on the Disney channel.  The next morning the resident's wive's hosted a breakfast for all the wives of the applicants.  So me and the kids went to that while Dane went to his interview.  There were 3 resident's wives at the breakfast and 3 of us who's husbands were interviewing for their program and all of us brought kids so it was a little crazy but it was awesome to be able to get a bunch of info from all the resident's wive's about what life is like for them.  Then after breakfast me and Lexi (one of the wives that I met at the breakfast) went and hung out at the mall until our husband's were done interviewing.  I picked Dane up from his interview and we left straight for our next stop in Wisconsin.

 

     It took 10 hours to get to Wisconsin and we were all so tired when we got there.  We got up the next morning and chose a random ward to go visit for sacrament meeting and when we got there we walked in and saw our friends the Spendloves that had moved to Wisconsin from our ward in Richmond a couple years ago.  It was so random and so fun that we just happened to choose to go to their ward and it was SOOO FUN to see them and their kids and catch up with them!   And it was awesome because they invited me and the kids to go hang out at their house while Dane went to another get-together that the program in Wisconsin was hosting Sunday night.   It was way fun but it made me miss Marci all over again when we had to say goodbye!

 

After Wisconsin we drove to Michigan and once again spent our time swimming at the hotel, driving around town, and watching movies at the hotel while Dane interviewed. 

 

We went to Ohio after Michigan and I was able to get together with my new friend Lexi that I met in West Virginia (she lives in Ohio) it was so fun to hang out with her and her daughter and they took us to the imagination station which puts our Childrens Museum in Virginia to shame.  It was AWESOME, when we were done at the imagination station we met up with another resident's wife for lunch downtown.  I loved Ohio but I think it really helped that both the girls I met from there are AWESOME.

 

I picked Dane up from the hospital in Ohio and drove him straight to the airport so that he could fly to Brooklyn, New York and then me and the kids hit the road by ourselves and stayed the night in Pittsburgh. And then got up the next morning and drove to Washington DC and picked up Dane at the airport in DC after his interview in Brooklyn.

 

I have some opinions good and bad of what I thought of all the places we went but I will keep them to myself for now since there's a chance we could end up living in any of those places next year haha.  But I LOOOVED our little road trip so I could see all these new places that I had never been before and spend time together.

Missouri

While Dane was in Missouri Trent (Dane's brother) and Lindsay were SOOO NICE to let Dane invade their house for an entire month!  Dane finished his rotation the weekend before Thanksgiving so me and the kids flew out to Missouri to meet up with Dane and we got to spend Thanksgiving with Trent and Lindsay.  It was so fun to hang out with them and they were awesome hosts they kept us entertained the entire time!

I am in love with Crew he is such a crack-up and I loved watching him and Beck play together.  In this picture I said that I wanted a picture of Beck and Crew together and Crew kept jumping in front of Beck so he was the only one in the picture haha.

Delaney was so dang cute with Quinn the whole time - me and Quinn were both loving how well Delaney took care of her.

 

Crew, Beck, and Kai playing with bugs







I need me a fire-pit



 

One of the days we took the kids to the visitors center in Independence I love hearing all the stories about the early saints.



One cute bunch of kids

 

One of the days we were able to go spend the afternoon at Lindsay's parents farm.  They live right by Adam Ondi Ahman so we met her dad there first and he drove us around, he was an awesome tour guide because he knows a ton about it.  Then we went to their house, they had so many fun things to do at their house you could spend days up there without getting bored.



 

 

 



 These 2 spend many hours playing beyblades and almost everytime it ended it tears because they kept fighting over who the winner was, we all took a shot at trying to explain to them that it didn't matter who won - but lets be honest a lesson on good sportsmanship isn't very effective when coming from any of us in the Church family haha. 

 

 

 One of my favorite things we did was going to the Plaza downtown.  They had it all decked out for Christmas and they had a huge room full of trains for the kids to see and a train for the kids to ride, then we saw Santa and ate this cool little place where your food comes out on a little train.  Beck was in heaven. 

 

Quinn sleeping in her suitcase bed in the hotel on the way home

 

I was worried Trent and Lindsay were going to be so sick of us after being there for a week added to the month they had already had Dane!  And lets be honest they probably were but they sure hid it well if so.  They made it such a fun trip for us I wanted to stay longer!

 

I was dreading the 17 hour drive home Quinn is not always a great traveler so we broke it up into two days and stayed the night in Nashville in between.  We had never been to Nashville and only had a couple hours to explore before we needed to be on the road again but from what little I saw I thought it was a sweet city!   The kids were awesome on the drive and even though it was a long drive I didn't mind it since I felt like I hadn't been able to talk to Dane much in the last couple months. 

 

Thanks again to Trent and Lindsay for such a fun trip!

 

 

Halloween

 

The morning after we got home from Utah Dane left for a month long rotation in Missouri so me and the kids were on our own for 4 weeks.  We missed our dad like crazy, especially on Halloween, Dane gets just as excited about holidays as the kids do so it was a bummer he couldn't be there to go trick-or-treating or to the ward trunk-or-treat with us.  The ward party was the weekend before Halloween and on Halloween we went to Charlottesville and had dinner at my friend Collette's in-laws house and then went trick-or-treating in their super cute neighborhood.  Beck, Ryler, and Benson were hilarious to watch trick-or-treating they would cheer everytime they got candy and I think we were some of the last trick or treaters out in the neighborhood.

 

Family Pictures - Minus 1/4 of the Family

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wish I could do photography like this girl!  A couple months ago my good friend Danielle took our pictures, it was hard to find a time that would work with Dani's crazy schedule and Dane's crazy schedule but we found a day we thought would work which ended up being the day before our flight to Utah.  Unfortunately, Dane ended up having to stay at the hospital really late that night and since he was scheduled to leave for Missouri right after our month in Utah I knew family pictures weren't going to happen and I didn't want to pass up an opening with Danielle so I decided to go ahead and just have her take some of the kids...and I love them!

Her website is daniellehonephotography.squarespace.com

 

http://youtu.be/4F02JWY4Sbc

 

 

GO ROMNEY

 

Beck is doing his part to help get Romney elected by starring in a commercial for him - ok jk but pause this video at 20 seconds and that kid in the stripes waving his flag is Beck!!

Last Couple Weeks In Utah

 

 We finally made it back to Virginia and it feels good to be home but looking at these pictures is REALLY making me miss Utah, after being there for a month I get pretty comfortable with the luxuries of having family around some of the things i'm missing most are: having someone to watch Dancing with the Stars with (my dad loves that show), eating out almost every night, grandparents that think everything my kids do is the cutest thing in the world,  shopping with my mom so we can tag-team the kids, having grandparents that aren't only willing to babysit but make me feel like I'm doing them a favor by letting them babysit haha...the list could go on and on.

 

The last couple weeks we were there we took advantage of every fall and Halloween activity we could find. 

 

We went to the Red Barn in Santaquin to choose some pumpkins at the pumpkin patch

 

 My mom really loved this picture I took of her so I guess I'll put it up

 

 I took this picture to remind us all of how seriously Dane takes not only pumpkin carving but also finding the perfect pumpkin.  All of us walked into the pumpkin patch and had chosen the pumpkins we wanted within about 5 minutes but Dane was worried that the pumpkin patch was holding out on him and not setting out the best pumpkins so he disappeared and went out beyond the pumpkin patch into the field for about 40 minutes just making sure that he got a good look at each and every pumpkin within 5 miles of the pumpkin patch

 We didn't get to see Dane very much while we were there he usually stayed in Salt Lake because he had to be at the U so early but the kids sure got excited when they did get to see him and one night after we drove to Salt Lake to see him Beck cried half the way home because he missed his dad so much and Quinn would wake up every morning hollering for her daddy and when she would see me she would yell "no!"... after all I do for her...

 

Beck must have my mom somewhat wrapped around his little finger because on this particular night I walked in to find Beck laying all cozy and comfy on the couch with my mom putting grapes in his mouth one by one at his command...it's hard knock life when we get back to Virginia and I make Beck actually use his arms to feed himself!  He also thinks that the only reason my mom goes to work is to earn money to give to him.

 

 On conference sunday we went up the canyon and had steak, hotdogs,and smores.  It has been a long time since I had a smore and it was heavenly!

 

 

My mom took a couple days off of work and we went shopping in Park City and to Gardeners Village.  I love Gardeners Village, definitely my favorite Halloween activity

 I was soooo excited that the timing worked out that I was in Utah when my best friend Tessa had her baby shower.  We've been friends since we were six and I think it was our love of the Olsen twins that started the bond that made us best friends all through highschool and college.  Now I've just got to find my way back to Utah so I can actually meet her baby girl!

 

 Just couldn't get enough Gardeners Village, Dane didn't get to go with us the first time and he loves it as much as I do so we got to go up again with Myrna to see all the cute decorations and witches!

 Oh my goodness does Quinn love her daddy, when he met us at Gardeners Village she hadn't seen him in a couple days so she wouldn't let anybody other than Dane even touch her and she kept kissing him over and over.

Halloween bingo



 

Twinners! How cool is this costume we found for my dad!

 

Thanks to our families and friends for making our trip so fun hope we get to come back soon!