December 30th, 2009 - January 3rd, 2010

So we drove our car home. Scott needed a vehicle for the next 5 months of his rotations, so this worked out perfectly. It has been a pleasant experience thus far, finding a parking if not directly in front of our building, on our street every night since we've been back. We toured the highways from Vegas to Utah and stopped for 4 days to play with family. Next we drove through the rest of Utah, through Wyoming stopping in Cheyenne for Chipotle and then stopping the first night in Scottsbluff Nebraska...home of the Cabelo's headquarters. The weather was blizzardish with the highways brewing with flowing snow and roll over accidents all along the way. We were safely protected the entire trip. It truly is a miracle, we didn't slide once

One of the scariest roads that we encountered.

This is in Nebraska. There were some pretty amazing barns and fields and trains that we saw through this area. Beautiful.

Now that's what I call a stuffed car...and sweet sisters. Oh how we love them.

Must haves for our trip across the country included...The Princess and the Frog soundtrack, lots of pipe cleaners for custom jewlery from our cuties and "car mobiles", smarties, pez, markers, notebooks, playdoh, stickers and a promise that we would stop at motels that had an indoor pool to get wiggles out after driving ALL day. The girls were unbelievably happy this whole trip, needing to stop less for potty breaks than their old parents.

We headed out early the next morn through the rest of Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana, picked up a few goodies for New Years Eve and ended our day in Moline, Illinois.

After a swim, the girls took a bath, put on pj's and we were all handed our can of silly string to start blasting at midnight. It was a fun silly string fight, and I promise you that a hotel is the only place I would let such fights take place. It was a mess. The girls loved it. It was fun to watch the broadcast from Las Vegas and New York. It made us feel much more at home, being in an unfamiliar city and only having the choice of Dominos Pizza and wings for dinner. And just for the memory, I opened the fridge in the motel room to put something in it and not only was it not plugged in, but there was a moldy dessert in it and it smelled so badly...funny how these little incidents can make us not want to ever live in an entire state. However, we did love the Notre Dame area in Indiana. Beautiful area, nice people and we heard that if you are married, you qualify for 2 years of free housing if you attend a church services. We may take the state up on that offer.

Paisley spun webs just like Spiderman with her blue string and actually aimed and got me, right up the nostril standing 2 feet away. It was painful.

Scotty had fun too. Once again, he doesn't need a boy with these rowdy girls he's got.

The next day we headed through the rest of Illinois and into Ohio, where we stopped in Sandusky at Castaway Bay, an indoor water park by Cedar Pointe that we had visited once in 2005 for a Parmenter Family Reunion. We had so much fun, we HAD to go back! We stayed the night there, swimming until 10pm and then ended our night with a Brownie Obsession at TGIFridays. The next morning it had reached such cold temps that our battery was dead, so after an enjoyable trip to WalMart, Scott and the girls decided that they wanted to stay another night and swim some more. It didn't take much to convince me! We kind of went crazy in Walmart, since we hadn't been in one in so long, everything was so cheap, we kind of went overboard, grabbing food and sale toys with our Christmas Money. The lady at checkout was appalled when I had chose to spend 3.99 per lb. on grapes heaven forbid. lol. I'm pretty sure my kids hadn't had a fruit in like 3 days, so it was worth it to me...less $ than a Happy Meal I might add...

Soooo excited to go swimming.

Ella's favorite ride. She loves a good thrill.

Ella went on this ride, continually from the time we got there, until we left. Scott and I had to take turns. (This is the water ride that I went down, 7 months pregnant with Paisley in 2005)

We had a fun, relaxing night, swimming and just being together. I did laundry for half the price than I do in NY and the girls attended a Hot Chocolate and Bedtime Story with Snoopy in the lobby before bed. I love Castaway Bay. I am SO over the education packed, stressful vacations that require so much energy to cram everything in. I was all about the all inclusive destination. Plus it was like 10 degrees outside, snowing and we were indoors at a water park, so fun.

A random house off the highway in Pennsylvania, near Penn State. I took more pictures of the area for you Tara...I'll have to send them.

We then made our way to NYC, finishing up Ohio, passing through Pennsylvania and then finally arriving home, finding an awesome parking. It was a good ending to a very fun family road trip. We would do it again in a heartbeat. We are thinking a RV would be seriously fun next time. Anyone wanna come!?!

So here are some approximate stats:

4 days of driving between 10 and 12 hours of driving per day

5 nights

37 hours of driving

Around 2200 Miles