Salina, KS to HOME!

It takes 13 hours of driving from Salina, KS to get to our home in Monroe, UT. With added bathroom breaks, food breaks and construction stops, we knew that we had to leave as early as possible. We packed a breakfast for the road, and then we woke everyone up at 6 AM to hit the road in their pajamas. 

We did breakfast, changed everyone's clothes and then Lucy promptly fell asleep!

We had to travel back through the Colorado Rockies...which we were a bit nervous for...after Quinn threw up on the way out. We bought Cooper and Quinn arm bands to help with nausea, and we pulled out the throw up bucket we had acquired. Quinn promptly made it into a hat.

It was a long, long trip through Colorado!! We were so glad to see this Utah sign. Thankfully, I was able to help Scott out with driving on this trip (I am not a distance driver--I sleep SO easily in the car), but the last dayI got a bad sickness on the way home. I drove for about 3 hours early this morning, but I just felt terrible, and Scott had to drive the rest of the time! He didn't complain once!

Turns out, sitting in the car with circulating air for 4 days makes sicknesses pass around more quickly! On the way home, after moaning and kicking my seat for an hour, Cooper finally threw up and then promptly fell asleep.

An hour away from home, Quinn complained of an upset stomach and then had diarrhea in his pants (do you know how hard it is to find a bathroom along I-70 West? They are few and far between!) We finally stopped at the public restroom to clean up Quinn with wipes and hand sanitizer...there were no sinks or running water. My germaphobe Quinn declared that I should just throw away his clothes because "that's dross". Scott and I got everyone taken care of, looked at each other, and said, "let's get home!"

MISSOURI!

We found a couple wards in Columbia, MO, so we made plans to get to the 9:00 ward. We wanted to do breakfast as quickly and efficiently (and cleanly) as possible, so we sent Scott down to continental breakfast, and he brought back breakfast for all of us!

We were able to go to the ward in Columbia, MO--in the same church building my dad attended in the 1970s while he was getting his PhD!

After church, we drove about an hour to Independence. There was a picnic area between the church building and the Independence Visitor's Center. We quickly set up a picnic lunch there!

To be honest, the visitor's center in Independence was a bit underwhelming. After seeing all the church sites--and all the sites in Utah, there was a bit of a repeat in displays. We kind of zoomed through the displays. There was a room in there that had historical pictures of church sites in the early 1900's, when the church reacquired them, and that was pretty cool!

Our next stop was about 30 minutes down the road--Liberty Jail, MO. This site was the place where Liberty Jail was located when Joseph was imprisoned here for 6 months. When the church sent missionaries to look at the site, they took measurements of the original jail, but it eventually collapsed. Since that time, they have built the visitor's center over the site and reconstructed the jail from those missionary's measurements.

We decided we had time to do one more thing. We talked about doing Haun's Mill, but we were warned that the roads are washed out many months of the year. So we decided on Richmond's Pioneer Cemetery--where a monument for the Three Witnesses stands and Oliver Cowdery's grave is located.

In 1911, this monument was erected and dedicated by President Joseph F. Smith.

Part of the Whitmer family's graves. On the far right are the Whitmer parents (including Mary Whitmer) and on the far left is Jacob Whitmer (one of the eight witnesses of The Book of Mormon).

After the cemetery, we hit the road again for Salina, Kansas. We only had about a 3 hour drive...totally manageable!

I guess we made one more stop...at a Wendy's! It was time for a bathroom break and a diaper change! We got the deal of the week when we found out kids meals were only $1.99. We got a very cheap dinner, and had 5 very happy kids!

Tennessee to Missouri!

We left our hotel early the next morning for another full day on the road! It was almost a 10 hour drive from Knoxville, TN to Columbia, MO.

We stopped for lunch at a rest stop in Kentucky. The mosquitoes and gnats were unbelievable! If our van hadn't had problems overheating, I would have moved all of us to the van! Cooper couldn't handle the gnats. The humidity was so thick, and the bugs went toward anything damp--including our eyes, ears and mouths. Cooper finally couldn't take it anymore and he ate almost his whole lunch curled up in a ball, with his eyes closed. It was probably the quickest lunch we had on the trip!

MISSOURI!!!!!!

The state of affairs after dinner--we were ready to get there!!!

North Carolina to Tennessee!

Leaving the beach and all our family was hard. The rest of the family stayed together a little longer to see Oak Island Lighthouse and take a ferry--things we would have loved to do, but we just couldn't do it time-wise! (It rained the entire day at the beach--just down poured! In fact, the forecast predicted thunderstorms every single day for the next week at the beach! We were lucky that we chose to go to the beach the week we did!)

We were going to go home through Raleigh and go out to eat at a favorite restaurant of mine, but we discovered it was faster to go through Charlotte. After leaving family and all that packing...we decided it wasn't worth it! We just wanted to get to the next destination! We went the shorter route and ate lunch at a Subway in small-town NC!

We drove the entire length of the state, and then we finally reached TENNESSEE!

It was a 7.5 hour car drive to our hotel in Knoxville, TN! It was a long first day in the car...and this is the only picture that was taken!

We were SO excited to be at the hotel!!!

4th of July/Last Day at the Beach!

Uncle Tom took the three oldest girls to the end of the island!

Tom claimed we needed to have an All American breakfast on the 4th of July. We went to Waffle House! It was a cheap, good breakfast! Everyone got waffles, minus me, but the waffles were worth the trip!

The last day we were at the beach was a little bit stormy. The rip tides were really bad that day, so the lifeguards had everyone on warning and we were only allowed in the water up to our knees. Luckily, the kids were able to boogie board one more time! They got really good at it!

Lucy fell in love with the water on the last day! She kept going down, would hop back up and say, "Water, water, water, woah!"

Hot tub, day 2!

The water and waves were so bad that they brought in a lot of jelly fish! We were on the look out that last day and had to take care of two that washed up right by our families.

Aunt Amy had 4th of July painting crafts for everyone to do!

We went to take family pictures, and Peter hopped in our picture! (This is payback for South Dakota 2015...when Macey wanted to join Julie's family and refused to come in our family picture!)

We went back in for a late dinner, ice cream bars and fireworks!

We ran into our good friends from Raleigh! Their daughter was staying right up the road from us, and they came to visit her for a few days! We were so surprised to see them, but we are glad we got to visit!