Trip Out West: Part 1

On Friday, August 27th, Cody, the kids and I began our super, big, crazy family vacation to visit family out west. We began by picking Cody up at work after lunch and heading to Khan's house outside Cincinnati for a quick visit and dinner. I took a nap while Cody, Khan and Joanna took the kids to their local pool to help wear them out.
I'm pretty sure the water was not very warm.

Aunt Joanna teaching Pepper how to drive the big van.

After a nice pizza dinner, we got the kids ready for bed and packed them into the van for an overnight trip to Wichita, Kansas. We had never tried to drive through the night like this and were not sure what to expect. Luckily, the kids fell asleep after one dvd and stayed asleep until about 1am when we stopped for gas. Then they were both wide awake. After another dvd and a bit of fussiness, they both fell asleep again and stayed that way until we were almost at Aunt Katie's house. So all in all it went well. However, it took Cody and I a while to feel like we really recovered from missing an entire night of sleep. Not my favorite feeling but we had enough distractions to keep us going.

Katie and Bruce have a beautiful home in Wichita that they are trying to sell. Unfortunately, the market has not been kind to them but we got to enjoy it for a day. I fell in love with her amazing pantry. It looks like a regular cabinet until you open it up and it is a huge walk-in pantry room. Suzy did a great job of modeling it for me.

Lyssa was in the process of potty training and was a very cute drama queen.

Pepper and Morgan LOVED hanging out and playing with their awesome cousins.

Alan gave us a little concert with his saxophone. Morgan thought that was pretty awesome.

Since the kids seemed to have extra energy (I have no idea where they got that from,) we took them to the neighborhood pool to have some outdoor fun. That midwest sun was intense!

Tiffany getting her Uncle Cody extra wet. This water was not particularly warm either.

Love Suzy's cute smile.

Morgan, Suzy and Mandie

We spent Saturday night with Katie, Alan, Mandie, Tiffany, Suzy, Lyssa and baby Mason before getting up Sunday bright...or dark and early and heading out to Vernal, Utah.

A nice shot of Pepper when she still thought being in the car was fun.

The morning sun glow on Cody's excited face.

After breakfast, the kids are dressed and ready for a full day of sitting in the car. Yipee!

My excited face! It was a really pretty drive and a beautiful day, so that helped.

Such a sweet little trooper.

Taking a morning snooze.

The many stages of Morgan's morning nap.

It's tough being a little guy trying to sleep in the car.

In Denver, we stopped for lunch at a McDonald's. They didn't have a playplace but they did have this train thing outside that worked pretty well as a playground.

Yummy stinky toes!

We finally arrived to Great-Grandma Jean's house around dinnertime. The kids did really well but were VERY ready to be out the car. There are MANY, MANY more pictures and stories to come so stay tuned.