Here I Am Again!

We are home. Well actually we have been home for a week now. We had a wonderful time on our vacation.

Our trip to Wichita was a bit long. Our youngest, Makayla, was sick throughout the whole trip. She had what we determined was "hand, foot, and mouth disease", which is definitely not something you want your children to have. She had a high fever and sores in her mouth making it hard to impossible to eat.

Once we got to my brother and sister-in-laws house, things were much better. We had a wonderful time together. We went shopping at malls Bailee enjoyed. We spent one day at the zoo. They have a great zoo there.

One thing we did was buy a box of Jelly Belly jelly beans. This particular one was called a "Bean-boozled" box. It contains eight different types of jelly beans. For each of these jelly beans, there is a nasty flavor. Flavors like skunk, pencil shavings, throw up, and booger. I have to say that this was quite an experience. We dumped all the jelly beans into a bowl and then we each took a turn take one jelly bean. What you got is what you got. All but one of my beans was a normal flavor. The one yucky one was the skunk.

SKUNK!! If you have ever been driving down the road and encountered fresh skunk, you will understand what I am saying. That smell that fills your senses became a taste on my tongue. It took quite some time to get rid of the taste. It was fun though. I wished we had video-taped the experience. Watching as each person took a bean and determined whether they really wanted to eat it.

Our trip home was a lot smoother. Everyone was feeling much better and we saw Mount Rushmore. It took longer than we had anticipated, but at 4am Wednesday morning, we arrived home.

We traveled through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Denver, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota. I would not mind living in Montana, Northern Wyoming, and South Dakota. I would not want to live in Nebraska. It is all corn fields. Denver I have to admit that I did not see much and what I did see was at night. If I had not seen Wichita, I would not want to live in Kansas either. If you have ever looked out over the ocean and seen how it just goes on forever, this is what you find in Kansas except of course it is land you see. It goes on forever though.

If you have not taken a road trip lately, I would encourage you to do so. Of course, I realize gas prices are a killer right now. But if you have the means, go. See some of the country you have never seen before. Or maybe just see some of the state you live in that you may have never seen before.

HA! Less than a Month!

So I was at a little family function yesterday and being ribbed about how I do not write in my blog often enough, I thought to myself well I will show them.

I wish I had a picture, but when they pulled out their SRLs, I though better of bringing out my point and click. I know my sister-in-laws got some pictures. I am thinking I will get a few from them and then I will add one.

In other news, my family and I are getting ready for a road trip to Wichita.
This is the advice I have received thus far:
1) DVD player a necessity - As one person said, "How did we survive without portable DVD players?"
2) Bring audio books, because there truly is nothing in Wyoming.
3) Pray you return with your sanity. Some of my friends cannot imagine making this trip with our three girls.

I will let you know how this little venture goes. We leave tomorrow and return a week from Wednesday.

We are very excited. We are going to visit my brother Jake and his family. This moved to Wichita at the beginning of June, but it seems much longer.