The MOVE.

Before I start and finish this super long post about the rest of our journey across the U.S., I want to say:

I wish I had taken a picture....but we completely filled up the largest moving truck Penske has to offer (26 ft!). How in the world did we get so much stuff?? And.... that was after months of me going through and organizing and getting rid of and selling ALOT.

We had so many friends that helped watched the boys, clean, and pack. Thank you! Also a big thank you to my parents and youngest brother that conveniently were passing through from being in the Palmyra Pageant, who basically loaded us up, and then drove our truck, pulling our Saturn, and traveling with our cat to SLC so we could do the following:

We made it just a few hours down the road the first day, to stop in Chicago to stay the night with some good friends that used to live across from us in Indiana. Our due dates are 2 days apart and at the time, we thought we were both having boys. Oh how much fun it would be to still live close to each other!

When planning out the trip, I tried to sandwich long travel days between short or sightseeing days. After the short trip to Chicago, we had a longer trip to Minnesota to play with cousins.

Our van reached a big milestone along the way!

Family picture at the 200,000 mile mark.

As part of a goodbye gift, our friends gave us some snacks for the ride. Lunchables were perfect! I hadn't thought to introduce them to the boys but they loved them. And after traveling most the summer--even before we moved, we knocked alot of little trips off our bucket list--they needed something new, other then the regular car food.

Cousin time was a treat! And a welcomed 2 day pit stop.

After Minnesota, we had a long driving day to get to the Badlands.

We stayed the night in a KOA and then woke up to check it out. It was a whole different kind of beautiful but we loved it.

So Crocs aren't the best hiking shoes....

And I could probably say the same about Flip Flops...and a pregnant belly (just over 29 weeks).

It was a gorgeous day and really, for July-- not hot at all! While on our St. Louis trip in June (hope to blog about that sometime), Brycen discovered the free "Junior Ranger" program at National Parks.  Here, he is showing off his newest badge.

We saw advertisements for the Wall Drug Store though out the entire state of South Dakota. Couldn't tell you more than what this picture does but hey, we saw it!

After the Badlands, we journeyed on to Bear Country USA. It costs a pretty penny to get in but it was fun! To do at least once.

You basically drive through their open exhibits. Quite different, for sure.

 

Our 3rd stop of the day was Mount Rushmore (Badlands then Bear Country then Mount Rushmore). It was a very full day, the fullest of the trip. Things just lined up that way AND we wanted to get to my Aunt's house in Montana that night. It was....alot.

As evident by the kiddos and their pure exhaustion.

We debated whether to wake Brycen up but he had been asking about the "people mountain" all day and of course the badge he could earn, so it's a good thing we did.

Cian slept right through it all and didn't seem to mind. He even transferred back into the van asleep and remained asleep for another 3 hours!

What a neat monument to see and it was the first time for all my boys (well, Bryce and Brycen at least).

A beautiful Wyoming Sunset!!

We found the furthest west Steak N Shake we could, to use the other half of our goodbye gift.

We sure love their milkshakes!

**this is where the Chipmunk segment comes in chronologically**

On our way to Cody, Wyoming.

We stayed a night in Cody so I (and the kiddos) could attend my first Rodeo! After all, it's the "Rodeo City of the World"!

Sad to say, the free bus ride and suckers proved to be the best part of the night.

They invited all the kids to come out and try to be one of two that successfully fetches a bow off a calf. Luckily, Brycen just liked the chance to run around.

The rest of the rodeo through, was a bust. Not one cowboy lasted  the 8 seconds needed on the bull and all the other things just weren't....great.

Oh, well! We moved on!

To Yellowstone National Park

Okay...Beautiful or what?? (It did have a funny smell though...)

They were really, nearly perfect travelers.

We timed it pretty well to see Old Faithful. We ended up waiting only 15 minutes on a very warm day. Definitely beats missing it and having to wait another 2 hours (give or take whenever it feels like going off)! It was really cool to see and I LOVE Brycen's nonchalant "I want to sit down...and have no problem doing so right here...between two complete strangers" :) I really don't know how we can be related sometimes...

Yup, no way we could've made the next time! We were scheduled to get to Bryce's aunt's that evening in Idaho.

Just some bison along the road.

And a bear.

Visiting and staying with family was one of the best ways to break up the drive.

Another was seeing a best friend/roommate from college. Thanks SO MUCH for lunch! P.S. I love how our children's expressions are basically mirror images.

Being Silly.

Haha! Brycen's solution to the bright sunshine.

Cian's ROAR!!! We finally arrived in good ol' SLC to pick up our truck, car, and cat. As well as the boys did in the car, Cian had his moments. My absolute favorite went like this: Cian: "Mommy, I need to tell you something". Me: "Okay sweetheart". Cian: "GET ME OUT!!!" Cian also learned to use potty breaks to his advantage and when he wanted out, he insisted he had to go...every 30 minutes. The pregnant lady's bladder and he got along great.

My Mom treated Bryce for his birthday and gave him a ticket to see "Wicked!" I happily paid my half to tag along. It was a wonderful evening.

We loved our 3 days out of the car at Grandma and Grandpa's house!

But the day came, that it was time to finally get to Oregon--however, not before we made one last stop at another Aunt's house in Idaho. They had snakes and made the boys' day for sure.

 We arrived in Oregon (another thanks to Bryce's dad for helping drive the last leg of the trip, SLC to Portland!) on Friday, August 1st-11 days after leaving Indiana, to start our biggest, latest adventure yet and it has been a good one.