Washington, D.C. Trip

Our family decided to take a little trip to Washington, D.C. We were going to meet up with some of my family and see all the great sights. We spent the first night in St. Louis and let the kids go up in The Arch. The next day we drove through seven states and still didn't make it to DC.

It was very hot and humid and we did a lot of walking everyday. It felt like we walked 10 miles each day. The kids were real troopers. The boys walked everywhere, while Amita and Melody took turns in the stroller, and I packed Reagan.

We saw all the monuments, The White House, The Smithsonian's, and Arlington National Cemetery.

The Air and Space Museum was one of the kids favorite places. While there, Ben got to go up on a stage and show all the clothing an astronaut wears when going on a space walk. Everything from a space diaper to a helmet.

We also went to Mt. Vernon and spent a day.  It was awesome to see the home and life of such a great man as George Washington. The kids got to dress up like kids back them and do lots of other activities.

We decided to spend a day at the National Zoo. It turned out really well because it was cloudy and rainy that day, so we didn't have to endure the heat anymore.  Benjamin's favorite animal and favorite part of the trip was getting to see the Asian Otters.  

Oregon Coast Trip

I found out my Idaho family was taking a trip to the Oregon Coast and I decided to join them at the last minute. I ended up taking Melody and Benjamin, while Amita and Carter stayed with Isaiah. It was so fun to see the family.
This is a picture of the beach closet to our beach house. It was a long hike of stairs to get down to it. The weather was chill and I ended up having to buy jackets for the kids and I, but it was a nice break from the Missouri heat.

We got to the beach house late in the evening, but still had time to walk the beach before it got to dark. Benjamin had a blast chasing the waves.

Jeff and Annette's daughter Mackenzie came with us. She was Melody's buddy.

We spent one whole day on the beach at a place with lots of tide pools. The kids had so much fun exploring and making discoveries.

Melody liked to haul buckets of water from the ocean to a hole she had dug by our chairs.

We also spent one day driving down the coast seeing all the sights.

Here is Nan, all bundled up from the cold wind.

Just a fun picture of some of the brothers and sisters. FYI: I am eight months pregnant on this trip.

Springfield, Illinois

Our little family decided to take a trip to Springfield, Illinois. We were going to go to a friends wedding, plus it was Benjamin's special birthday. (For those of you who don't know what a special birthday is it is when you turn the age of our birthday date. Like Ben turned 8 on the 8th).

Poor Benjamin ended up waking up sick on his birthday, but he was a really trooper about it. We got to Springfield way to early to check into our hotel, so we walked around the Lincoln History Museum for a few hours.
Once we got to our hotel, Ben went right to bed and stayed there. We did get him to muster up a smile for his birthday picture and he open his presents. As soon as they were opened, he went right back to sleep.

I was hoping to get a picture with all the kids in their nice clothes, but with Ben being sick it just didn't happen. But here is one with the girls in their fancy dresses.

Natural Bridge

On our way home from Florida, we stopped at a natural bridge in Arkansas. We had a lot of fun taking pictures around the rock formations.
The mountain men of the family.

Amita being a rock climber.

Florida Trip

Isaiah and I have been planning a Florida trip for some time this winter. We were thinking in January, when on a Wednesday we decided why wait, we should go now, so Friday we packed up and headed to Panama City Beach to spend a week.

The crazy think was we had some close friends, whom also decided to do an impromptu trip to Florida at the same time. We ended up only 3 miles from them. It was really fun to hang out with them while we were there.

Some highlights from our trip were:
miniature golfing
snorkeling
seeing dolphins and stingrays
chasing crabs on the beach
Benjamin diving for hermit crabs

The boys with their sand octopus.

Melody loved playing in the sand, but would get so mad when a wave would come up and get her.

Our condo was on the 23rd floor, so we had an awesome view.

There is just something about the ocean that is just magnificent. We had a great trip. I am glad we didn't wait and just did it.

Utah Trip: Salt Lake

After our stay in Delta, we drove up to Salt Lake and stayed a few days. We did so much fun stuff and didn't get to do a lot we had planned. There just wasn't enough time to fit it all in.

Some of the highlights were:

riding the trax

eating at the Mayan

visiting temple square

lots of swimming at the hotel

Hogel Zoo

Isaiah went hiking with all his brothers one afternoon, so my mom and I took the kids to the zoo. We had a lot of fun. The kids' favorite part was a bird show we got to watch, then afterwards they got to have their picture taken with a golden eagle. This was also my first time driving in a large city, so the day ended up being quite the adventure.

Here is a five generation picture with my mom, and grandma.

Saturday morning, we got up and walked a few blocks to a huge farmers market. It was so fun to see all the neat things for sell. The kids each got a little balloon animal made. Amita's was a little turtle, Carter's was a mouse, and Benjamin had a ladybug.

This is a picture of Isaiah's brother, Jacob and his wife Christine walking with Melody. One of the main reason we made the trip out west was to attend their reception/bbq.
It was so nice to get to visit them. Christine is such a wonderful person, and I am glad she is part of the family (it is nice not being the only sister-in-law any more).

Isaiah and Helaman found a little cherry tree in the park where the bbq was. They climbed it and through the cherries down to the kids, who were total thrilled with the treat.

Melody eating the cherries. She was so mad then Dad and Helaman stopped picking them.

We left the bbq and headed home that afternoon. For dinner we stopped at a rest area and ate peanut butter sandwiches. There were tons of prairie dogs running around. The kids had so much fun feeding them their sandwiches from the top of the rock.

Utah Trip: Delta

Isaiah & I decided to make a family journey to Utah to visit family we have out there. The trip was awesome. Everyday was jammed packed with fun adventures. The kids traveled really well for how long of a drive it is (24 hours). We chose to drive through the night, so Melody would sleep a large portion of it. We also had installed a dvd player in the truck, but sad to say it only worked twice and then the rest of the trip we had to survive the old fashion way.

Leaving Missouri it was hot, but once we got into the Rockies it turned cold and stormy. We had to stop and do a wardrobe change. You can see the storm behind us. We spent the first few days in Delta with my family. Everyone landed at my sisters house, and we ended up with 32 people there. Lets just say every inch of floor space was taken. Of those 32 people, 10 were kids under the age of 8.

Isaiah took the three oldest kids hiking up Oak City Canyon by himself. They had a great time.

Carter pretending to touch the cactus.

They ended up hiking to the top of a mountain. What a beautiful view.

They also found this giant mushroom. We could barely fit two of them in a large garbage bag.


Everyone had brought four wheelers to go riding. The first day we went to an old volcano out on the desert. It was a lot of fun.

This is the trailer of bikes and quads Slade and March brought from Missouri. It was quite a sight to see.

Grandpa and Daxton getting ready to go riding.

On the back side of the volcano was this awesome lava flow. Isaiah and I with the kids hiked to the top of it. It was so a incredible thing to see.

It was hot out in the desert, so we had to have a watermelon brake. Melody and Elisa loved it.

At lunch time, everyone crammed under this little cedar tree to try and get some shade. Lets just say by the end of the day everyone was dirty from sitting in the sand and hot.

The next day everyone went up to Oak City Canyon and rode around. Benjamin got to ride with his best buddy Brooke on her little four wheeler. They were so cute together.

Anniversary: Hot Springs, AR

Isaiah and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary on June 2. It is crazy how fast time has flown by. Since Melody was old enough to leave over night, we decided to take a little trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Our dear friend Jeannie was kind enough to watch the kids for us. We ended up staying a really cute bed & breakfast. We had never stayed at one before and it was a lot of fun. It was really neat to have breakfast with the other guests and get to know them.

The only way to actually get into the hot springs water is to go through a bath house. So Isaiah and I got up and went to one at 7am one morning. The whole processes takes about 1.5 hours. You start by soaking in a bath tub, then you do a sitz bath. After that you do a steam room and then you get wrapped in hot towels. Last is a shower and then a massage. It was a very interesting experience.

This is one of the few places the hot springs water runs out and is open to the public. It comes out of the ground at 140 degrees, so you can hardly stand to touch it.

There were lots of hiking trails, so we spent one morning just hiking through the beautiful forest. We ended up hiking to this tower. The view from it was spectacular.

We had a great trip and the kids did really well for Jeannie.

St. Louis: animals, science & tornados

On our second day in St. Louis we went to the zoo during the morning. It threatened to rain on us all morning, but it didn't start raining until we were just leaving. The zoo wasn't very crowded, which made it really enjoyable to walk around with the kids.

They boys had so much fun goofing off. Isaiah ended up taking them to a 4-d dinosaur movie, which they loved.

Melody loved all the animals. She would get as close as she possible could, then she would make the animal noise over and over. She was really happy the whole time.

Amita wasn't her usually happy self this morning. She was really quite and gloomy. I couldn't get her to hardly smile.

After the zoo, we went to the Science Center. We were thinking it was going to be way better then the little one that is in Springfield. We were really disappointed with it. It was so crowded you could hardly let the kids just walk by themselves. All the exhibits had long lines. We ended up only staying about an hour and then we were ready to leave. The coolest thing there was the dinosaures that moved.

After the Science Center, we went back to the hotel and had a good rest. I decided that I wanted a coffee, so we walked around downtown and found a Starbucks. After we had gotten our coffee and were walking back to the hotel, the tornado sirens went off. We finished walking to the hotel and went up to our room were we turned on the TV. They were saying a tornado in east St. Louis had been reported. Our hotel room had a balcony, so we opened to door to it and watched the storm roll in. We never saw the tornado, but the rain poured so hard that we couldn't even see the hotel across the street. It was totally awesome and a great way to ended our trip.