Tuesday

On Tuesday, we went to Jarrett's favorite restaurant from high school. We have to stop every time we're in Wichita.

After that, it was off towards Grove, Oklahoma. On the way, we passed through the little town that Jarrett lived in when he was a kid. It's definitly a small town. There was a baseball game going on near these signs and when we stopped to take pictures, everyone waved.

This is their old house and barn. When Jarrett was a kid, none of the trees were here. It was a really cute little house.

As we drove on, the heat was crazy. It was 107 outside but inside of the RV it was a balmy 99. It was miserable. I had contractions through the entire drive, the baby doesn't seem to like the heat.

Jarrett stopped near our campsite to fill up the RV and came back with these.

Monday

Monday morning, the kids and I went exploring through the RV park. The Concordia RV site is also their airport and veterans center, so there are a couple of old tanks on the site. The kids had a great time climbing all over them.

In the afternoon, we headed to Wichita to Jarrett's mom's house. We bought more fireworks on the way and the kids were excited to set them off.

Jarrett's mom lives on a lake and the kids always have a great time in the water. They can't swim in it but it's fun for wading.

Midnight sat on the dock and watched.

As we were playing, a tiny duckling swam up to shore and started waddling towards us. Just as I got done telling the kids not to touch it and scare it, it walked into Riley's hands. Apparently ducks don't scare as easily as you'd think.

The boys held it also and then we tried to return it to it's duck family. We found the family and brought it down but it was obviously the runt of the family. The other ducklings were twice it's size and could swim much better. The mama duck tried to bring him with but he couldn't keep up and kept coming back to shore.

We kept him with us through the fireworks, ducks really don't like loud noises! Actually, neither does Kelly.

James doesn't have that problem!

We looked up baby duck diets and found out that they eat mostly worms and soft bugs. Unfortunately, we didn't have either of those. We had no idea what to do with him!


As we were looking for the duck's family, one of the neighbors had told us that the geese will sometimes adopt abandoned ducks. After the show, we took the duckling down to shore near the geese. He must have been really hungry by that point because he squeaked like crazy! Sure enough, the geese swam up as soon as they heard him. We're looking forward to checking on him when we go back to Wichita again.

Sunday

We pulled into Concordia, KS around lunchtime and met up with Jarrett's family. This is the little town where his mom grew up. a lot of his family is still here. The kids played for a little while on the playground and then came back for a nap, we wanted to make sure that they could stay up late for the fireworks.

Every year, Jarrett's family does a softball game as a fundraiser for the fireworks in honor of Jarrett's grandpa. The show is always on the third of July in a local park. The family sets off tons of fireworks before we go to the show. Riley and James LOVED setting off the fireworks. Kelly was pretty nervous about it but had fun watching.

One of the rockets tipped over accidentally and grazed Riley's leg. We were so thankful it wasn't worse, she ended up with just a tiny scratch.

The show was wonderful. You're able to sit so close to where they set them off that the fireworks are directly overhead.

Saturday

On the road again....

We started off this trip a full 24 hours later than we had planned. So we ended up staying where we had planned, we just stayed there a day later. We left Parker around 5 on Saturday and stayed the night in Colby, KS. It was another Wal-Mart stay, the kids think it's funny that we stay there because I hate Wal-Mart.

We have a new addition to the RV this trip. Pepper is very confused but finally seems to be enjoying herself. She spent the first hour of the trip with her hair on end and a wild look in her eyes, laying on Kelly's lap. If she doesn't do well, we're going to drop her off in Kansas with Jarrett's mom but so far she seems to be okay.

Our plan for this trip is to start in Concordia, KS for their 4th of July Celebration (it's actually on the 3rd). Then it's off through Oklahoma, Louisianna and Texas. Jarrett is excited to go to Corpus Chriti. After that we'll be back in Kansas to help Jarrett's mom move and then on to Arizona for a trade show for Jarrett.

Thursday

In the morning, we went to the KOA playground. There were lots of kids around, we had fun making new friends. The slide had a ton of static electricity, Kelly's hair stood on end everytime he went down.

After that, it was into the car for a LONG day of driving. Our destination was Nebraska, so that we could end up on Kansas for Jarrett's family reunion on Friday. The beginning of the drive was amazing. Utah was just beautiful.

We stopped to get the Wyoming sign. We missed quite a few on this trip because it was hard to stop with the RV and the Jeep.

We've been through Wyoming before, on a trip back from South Dakota. That time, the wind had been so strong that it ripped the awning off of the RV. I was worried about running into the same type of thing but this time, the trouble was the heat. It was so hot in Wyoming, and just hilly enough, that we overheated every twenty minutes or so. For a large part of the trip, Jarrett could only go about 35 mph.

By the time we got to Cheyenne, we had decided to drop the RV off at home. Going all the way into Castle Rock would only add an hour onto our drive time and we'd easily make it up when we were able to drive the speed limit again. It was a sad end to the trip. We didn't tell the kids where we were going, the were shocked when they got out to see the new campsite and we were home! I tried to get pictures but none of them came out- the kids were so excited, they couldn't stop moving.

Riley was sad that the trip was ending. James was happy to see his stuffed animals and his room. Kelly was scared to sleep alone, he had gotten used to big brother. He was tired enough to finally crash though, they were pretty happy to have their comfortable beds back.

Deja Vu

Almost a year ago, last October, we went to Lake Tahoe and stayed for a couple of days. On our way back, we stopped in Elko, Nevada for a night. In the morning, we woke up to frigid weather, so the kids and I ran to the store and bought warm clothes, then went to McDonalds to wait for Jarrett.

This trip, we got off the highway becuase Jarrett was getting tired. I took the kids into a McDonalds to let off some steam.

Funny, isn't it? James immediatly recognized that we had been there and taken pictures. It's funny to see how much older they look less than a year later.

Wednesday

We decided to stay on in Salt Lake another day so that Jarrett could get some work done. The kids and I took off to the Children's museum. I would have rather taken them to the lake but I had mentioned the museum and they were super-excited, so that's what we did.

They had a blast. They did some construction,

Put on a play,

Climbed a rock wall,

Did some shopping,

Worked on a farm,

Delivered the mail,

Gassed up a car,

And flew a helicopter.

I think I'm going to install one of these in our time out spot at home. It's a life vest that they anchored to the wall. Kelly strapped himself in and was completely stuck!

After the museum, we went back to the RV park to swim and have a movie night. We watched Up, the kids liked it but it scared James a bit. Jarrett and I had planned on everyone being so tired, they would fall asleep right after the movie but things didn't really go as planned. The kids couldn't sleep. They whispered to each other and bounced around until 11:00. Tomorrow is our longest day of driving, 10 hours, and I'm guessing they're going to be tired and grumpy!