summer's end and back to school

With only 18 days until the start of school, we had a lot of summer to cram in after our trip. We started with a 5k. David, Katie and Michael all ran. We had neighbors and cousins running, too.

David...
Michael...

Jacob and Katie ran together...

Here's the family shot! Way to go!

The day after the 5k, Michael and Nelson took off on a High Adventure Trip with the priests. Nine of them went all together. They each built their own wooden boat and floated 44 miles on the Green River in Southern Utah. They worked really hard making their boats and it was so great to see how excited everyone was for this trip. Here is Nelson, Michael Marriott, Michael, and Wes Jacobson up on a hike.

The boats were a little tippy so here are Connor and Michael after they lashed their boats together for more stability. What a trip!! How did Nelson and Michael get so lucky to have another vacation after their vacation?

Do I have funny neighbors or what? I still don't know who left the orphaned child zucchini on my front porch. Thanks to the donor! I love zucchini and we didn't plant any this year!

A summer tradition we have sporadically tried to start is back yard movies. We project a movie onto a giant sheet against the side of the house and invite the neighbors. This night's showing of Harry Potter 5 worked out but other attempts were thwarted by too much wind or sometimes rain. It's been fun. Next we need to try Jaws in the pool...

Look what we had waiting for us when we got back from our trip. When we left they were no more that 8 or 10 inches tall. No squash this year, just corn and 4 tomato plants. The raspberries we planted at the end of last summer are producing berries, too.

Corn from our garden. Wow, I am still amazed that we got this from 5 plus weeks of neglect. My kind of gardening!

Michael is a Senior this year. Every time I say or think it I can't believe he is this old and time has flown by. I took him for Senior yearbook pictures and had to snap a few when we got home, isn't he handsome? I'm not partial at all.

We have been having air soft war mania at our house. Here are Wes, David, Scott, and Joey ready to battle. They set up things to shoot from behind up on the deck, on the basketball court and having a blast. My yard is covered with thousands of tiny plastic bb's. No worry, they collect them when they run out of ammo.

Here is David with Mr. Jacob on the first day of school. I am so excited David has him as a teacher! Score for him! My baby is in 6th grade. It was sad to think that today was the last day I would take a first day of school picture with the teachers. It's hard to believe summer is over and homework is on its way. Katie went to Sophomore day at Orem High yesterday. Now I have two at Orem High. Slow down everybody, I think you are growing up too fast.

Thanks to Suzette for bringing back the first day of school mom's brunch. Here we are eating yummy food and enjoying the start of a new school year, once again.

The Drive Home

Michael took his turn driving the motorhome. I don't think I would've dared do that when I was 17. I am used to it now, after this long of a trip. Tune in to the end of this entry for some WOW facts....

On the way home, we stopped at the Little Rock Central High School visitors center. This is where so much went on in 1957 when they started desegregation in schools.

And now, on to the ho hum, what will we do next in the motorhome, we have 3 days after all.

Hair...
Slap Jack....

Eating...(this happened a lot)

Looking out the window at the country's changing landscape (this is Oklahoma)

Adding states to our window map of all of the places we have visited...

(tune in below for the results...)

We only made 2 stops on the way home, Central High and Four Corners. Here is everyone standing in different states. They discovered a while ago that the monument was not actually in the right spot. It looks like it has been fixed, though. We took the GPS and walked around, walking over all of the state lines.

The boys in 4 different states at the same time, so fun.

And now for the final tally...

35 Days

6168 Miles

130 Hours of driving

30 States

2 Canadian Provinces

1 Experience of a Lifetime

It's good to be home!

Washington DC - day 4

For those of you that missed the Boston day, I posted it later and it probably got lost after New York if you want to check it out. For those of you sick and tired of reading every gorey detail, well, you have probably stopped reading. I am getting tired myself of keeping up. I may need a respite when we get home. We had such a great time at the zoo and the boys missed it so we went back the next day to see it again, it was that good. Here is a baby ape, born in January.
Remember the orangutan's? They have these towers with ropes between the indoor houses and the animals can travel between them any time they want. There aren't nets or anything. The signs say they won't fall or jump, apparently they don't. The ropes go across the walkways right over your head. It was so cool!

Next, we had tickets to go on a tour of the Capital building. After our tour, we went to Jason Chaffetz' office in the House of Representatives and got tickets to the gallery to see what really goes on, in person.

Then we went to the Library of congress. This is a really beautiful building.

Next we walked to the Supreme Court.

Here we are in front of the bench.

The kids can't stand one more nice picture so here's one that not so serious.

As we drove away, we passed the DC Temple. For our final stop, we went to the house I lived in before I moved to Alaska. 9908 Lakepointe Drive, Burke Virginia. It was really a thrill for me. I was almost 6 when we moved and so this is the first house I really have a lot of memories from. We walked all around and I told stories about swing sets, floating boats, fireflies, turtles, bee stings, big wheels, sand boxes and trick-or-treating. It was the perfect last stop to our great adventure.

The GPS sending us HOME!!!!

Washington DC - Day 3

The morning subway ride.




We started the day walking through the Smithsonian Sculpture Garden. This is a fountain in the middle of it. The kids can't resist water. The shoes are off in no time flat, they dunk their heads and then security's feathers get ruffled. Sorry, it's just who we are.

There were a few key items we wanted to see before spending most of the day at the Air and Space Museum so on the way we stopped at Natural History and saw the Hope Diamond. 45 carats of flawless blue beauty. Then on to American History.

They had a podium in front of a screen, with teleprompters for you to read, just like you were giving your Presidential inaguration speech. Here's David feeling like the president.

Next we had to see Dorothy's ruby slippers. We also saw Oscar the grouch, Muhamed Ali's gloves and Julia Child's kitchen.

There was a section on inventions and David tried out the windsurfer. It is harder than it looks.

Finally, lunch at the most efficient McDonalds in the world, and on to the Air and Space Museum. This is one of the Apollo lunar landers. The program was scrapped before this one was able to be used. Because they don't have to worry about air friction or aerodynamics, this looks a little elementary-school-science-projectish. Kinda funny for something that probably cost a kajillion dollars to build.

Here we are! Can you tell who is who? We were all standing in front of a heat sensor camera and it projected the image on a screen. There are some extra people standing around, but Nelson is the 2nd one on the left, I'm next to him with the cold nose (air-conditioning), then a stranger, then Michael. Katie is in front of Nelson, then David in front of her with cold ears and then Caroline to the right. How cool is that?!

There was a giant room filled with science experiments having to do with flight. We spent some time in here, it was really fun.

At this point, we split up because we (Caroline) had to see the giant pandas at the National Zoo. The boys stayed behind to spend more time in the Air and Space Museum and then they went back to the Natural History Museum to see a giant squid, skeletons, stuffed animals and walked through an exhibit filled with live butterflies. I am sorry I missed the butterflies but the zoo was great.

Here is 4 year old Tai, the giant panda.

Katie loves meerkats and she got to get up close and personal. He was really cute and would just stare you in the face.

Little did we realize all of these animals would just stare you in the face. Here are the girls up next to a great ape. It was so cool. He just sat there, looking around, not bothered that you were so close (ok, it was us that weren't bothered, but there was glass between us).

This guy was the funniest! This orangutan had the funniest facial expressions. He leaned his forehead against the glass and looked all around. He was checking out Caroline. We saw many other fun and interesting animals. Sorry Hogle Zoo, but you have been put to shame, this zoo rocks.

The escalator down into the subway at the zoo stop is super long and steep. this is looking up from the bottom. Quick picture, here's our train!

We met up with the boys at the bus station and went home for hot tubbing, spaghetti dinner, and Caroline went to the outdoor movie showing of Pirates 2. This campground has it all. Too bad we just sightsee all day or we could enjoy it, just kidding.