Road Trip #2 (Ilinois, Iowa, Nebraska)

We left the children's museum around 4 and headed through Illinois.  After the kids naps, we googled best parks in the upcoming city (Bloomington) and found this gem with a splash pad to get the wiggles out.   

Too much fun to take many pics.

  We tried a new place to eat and loved Culvers.  Unfortunately, that means we will now have to eat there many times since we have one in AZ and I never stopped in because I didn't know what it was.  The shakes were GREAT!

Maya joined in on the shake suckin.

We drove a couple more hours to Nauvoo and stayed at a house right by the temple.  It took us a while to pick where we wanted to sleep to be near our kids with so many rooms and beds in this house.  We finally got the kids down and took a midnight stroll to see the gorgeous edifice.

In the morning, Dave and I took turns doing initatories.  I really love this temple.  IT is so different and such a great symbol of our pioneer heritage.  Loved it.

We tried out the oxen ride first.  Did you know that the women only spent one day in the wagon when they had their babies becasue it was so uncomfortable.  My question is HOW did they walk 12 miles the day after birthing a baby (or better yet . . . HOW did they walk 12 miles the day BEFORE birthing a baby?!?) Strong women!

This absolutely loved (despite the heat!) the little log cabin.  They had pioneer dress ups, laundry wash bins, clothes pins and irons, little tin dishes and tea sets, a fire place with metal pots and pans.  Everything a pioneers heart would desire.  These little ones went to town.  Daddy and I tried to join in on the play, but they were already "Dave" and "Jamie" and they asked us to get out of the way while they played mom and dad.  We talked to the sister missionaries and played some pioneer games until we could bear the heat no more.

On our way out of Nauvoo, we drove down the trail of tears and looked at the Mighty Mississippi.  We ate lunch in Keokuk and then drove on.  The kids napped until Des Moines.  

In googling things to do in Des Moines, the #1 hit was repeatedly the capitol building.  I thought. . .'yeah right, BORING'.  But because I joked with Dave about it, we ended up taking the exit and driving up to it.  It truly did not disappoint.  It looked like a building straight out of Europe.  We snapped a bunch of pics and I taught the kids about the Revolutionary war and Civil war as they played around the monuments they had there. 

Once again we googled best parks and found a great one (with a splash pad).  We were planning on swimming at a hotel later that night, but our hours were fading, so when we saw the man made "beach" off the Missouri River, we decided to take a dip there.  It was so warm and quite dirty, but the kids loved splashing and playing and Jackson and I swam out to the ropes.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset at the 'beach' even if it wasn't Miami :)

The kids were asleep when we arrived in Omaha, so we took a little detour for the Winter Quarters temple (I'm working on my 100 goals in 1000 days and I am up to 15 temples!)

We stopped in a Super 8 which had a free breakfast and crashed for 6 hours.  We got up early, ate and headed to church 2 1/2 hours away.  Dave had to speed and he calculated it cost $8.00 to go to church going 85 mph rather than 70.  We did make it on time for the sacrament (despite the GPS malfunction) in Kearney Nebraska.  There they had an archway museum, which we visited for a minute.  If you get a chance, it looked like a great museum.  The museum is built as a bridge over the freeway so you can't miss it :)

We drove 5 hours to Denver.  Now is a good time to talk about WHAT the kids did in the car.  People told me I was crazy to take 3 little ones cross country, but the kids did SO well.  Even better than I expected.  I packed an entire suitcase (which we checked) full of road trip items.  I got the trays to go over their laps.  I wrapped about 15 gifts and labeled them with a sticker and when they got it.  They were good about waiting until it was time to open them.  I got Jackson 2 workbooks and he independently read the instructions and did EVERY SINGLE PAGE in both books.  I kept asking if they wanted to watch a movie and he would say "No, thanks!"  They watched only 1 movie the entire 35 hours in the car!  I was shocked.  Dave and I listened to an entire Grisham novel.  We listened to The Twits with Jackson along with a few other kids stories.  We started listening to Junie B Jones which he LOVED, but felt like it was a super bad influence.  The language and the negative attitude . . .anyone else?  Do they get better?  So we turned it off.  I loved that every time the word STUPID came up Hallie would remind us that "We don't say too-pid" but then when she would get angry she would swear "TOO-PID" to let us know she wasn't happy.    Hallie loved browsing through book after book (I brought 15+ books from the library for Jackson to read). Hallie napped everyday and the day Jackson didn't nap I had a princess puzzle for Hallie that Jackson meticulously colored for Hallie during her nap.   I had several road trip games or songs ready, but they never acted interested nor needed them.  We did eat lots of snacks (also packed in the suitcase I checked).

Mariah was a little angel.  She would nurse and play in her carseat happily and fall asleep easily.  Jackson would entertain her from the back seat sometimes.  She was happy and content and smiley and perfectly enjoyable.  The only 'hard part' I can remember was when I lost her favorite binky in the car and she couldn't get to sleep with her '2nd choice binky' at Nauvoo.  Luckily, Dave found it as he cleaned out the car and we were 'good' for the rest of the trip :)

Thank goodness for google, pinterest and other such modern conveniences for making this trip such a success.   Not to mention patient and loving husband and children!