2,280 Miles

We drove from UT to CO for graduation and then just continued on eastward from there, with all of our stuff being driven separately in an Old Dominion truck. We decided to take things a little bit leisurely so that we weren't wearing ourselves out with mega drives every day. (Except somehow it still kind of felt like that...)

For starters, we stayed an extra day in CO after graduation and I'M SO GLAD WE DID. We got to go to the Grandview Ward again and see old friends and spend more time with the Terry's and the Sessions that night. We just loved our time in CO and it was so nice to relive that for a day. Sister Golding leaned over to me during Relief Society and said, "You just fit right back in, it's like you've come home!" And I thought, "You know, this ward really is like coming home." 

It happened to be the Sunday that Brother and Sister Hillier were giving their going away talks before their departure to serve over the Salt Lake City mission too, which was a big bonus. I always really enjoyed her Sunday School lessons while we were there and it was great to hear from her one last time and so special to be there to sing "God Be With You Till We Meet Again" with the ward at the end of Sacrament meeting. 

Nicole and Janet Tway fought over who got to hold Spencer just like they used to do with Jack and Ben. Janet had him in Relief Society, but she had to stand up in the front for a couple of minutes, so Nicole leaned over before Janet went up and whispered, "Janet, want me to take him?" Janet gave Nicole an are-you-kidding-me eye roll and said, "pff!" before taking Spencer up with her. Oh man, I just love that ward! (And apparently President Monson does too since he has told stories involving people in that ward twice now.)

I'm super grateful to Nicole and Boone for taking such good care of us while we stayed there for two nights. Their kids were adorable with the boys and we felt truly pampered. They are great people, I'm really lucky to know them. It was also really nice to see the Sessions again. I will never forget Brandi spending hours with me trying to clean my apartment before moving from Colorado. These women really took me under their wings during those two years that we were there.

To Omaha we go! We drove from Parker to Omaha to stay with my Dad's cousin's family. It happened to be Cameron's birthday that day, so we tried to make it fun for him by decorating the inside and outside of the car and having him open his presents along the way. He had also been saying for a couple of months that he wanted a "popcorn cake" for his birthday so Jayce and I whipped that up the night before at the Terry's and brought it out at the Schmutz's.

 It ended up raining, so the back of our car looked reeeaaaaal good until we washed it all off a couple of days later! We did get a lot of honks though, which was pretty fun!

Carrie even put up some birthday decorations for Cameron. The Schmutz's are the best. We're big fans.

Next we went to Nauvoo, IL and got to stay with Jayce's Aunt and Uncle who are there serving a mission. This is their 7th or 8th year doing this mission in Nauvoo, so they know the area like pros now! It was nice to spend some time with Bill and Debbie. We had hoped to have more time there, but we didn't get there as early as we had hoped. The days always ended up being longer than anticipated, but we rolled with it!

We made it in time to go to the Blacksmith's and to go get a Nauvoo brick at the red brick store.

  

Cameron took the picture of us in front of the temple. He's really into taking pictures these days.

Debbie was really missing her newest grandbaby who she had yet to meet, so Spencer was able to give her just a little taste of home.

We got to watch one of the rehearsals for the Young Performing Missionaries that night. Well worth staying up passed bedtime, they were darling.

Cameron really liked "the girl in the yellow dress" and I found these stalker picture of her on my phone later...!

She came over to meet him at one point and he told her, "Hi."

Sunset on the Mississippi!

The graves of Joseph, Emma, and Hyrum Smith. Typically a place of real reverence and sacredness for most LDS families. It was everything we could do to keep them from climbing on the tombstones and throwing tantrums at this point. Maybe we'll have better luck next time!

And then that night they crashed and I woke up to them like this the next morning!

To Tennessee we go! This was the only night we stayed in a hotel and a location with a pool was a must. The boys quite liked the pool, and watching the weather channel until they feel asleep that night.

At some point in the trip I looked up to check on the boys in the review mirror and saw Jack like this:

We had all just been quite for a little while. Nothing really going on, but for some reason Jack just had his mad face on. It cracked me up. He stayed like that for quite some time.

A couple other notes about the trip. One being that Jayce and I talked to each other through walkie talkies when we needed to and that was great. Totally recommend it to anyone who does a cross country move where you and your spouse have to split between two cars! It was a lot easier than a cell phone. 

Also, we of course just barely made it to the house in time for people to show up and help us unload the truck because as always, things took a little longer than expected. In fact, the missionaries rode up on their bikes as we pulled into the drive way so my first time seeing the house didn't really go as planned because everything was so chaotic. A couple of days later Jayce took me outside and said, "I didn't get to do this when we first arrived, but this is what I had envisioned doing when we got here." And he swept me off of my feet and walked me through the front door and said, "Welcome home!" Cute man. :-)

And then we had to face this:

But Jack was ecstatic when we unpacked one of the toy boxes. Ever since we left Santaquin he had been saying, "And then we're going to go to Georgia and I can play with my transformer." It helped him keep confirming to himself that we were going to see all of our stuff in the boxes again I think. Well, he finally got his transformer!