Cruise America #2- Driving days, Kansas and Independence, MO

I know I'm way behind, but these past few days we have not had internet, which has been great to focus on other things and not internet! I'm going to post a lot of pictures and probably just caption bunch of them since there are so many.
 

These were the rest of the pictures from Snowflake on the zip line and at Margaret McClecve Hancock's cabin.





A pit stop for dinner in New Mexico. We drove all the way to Amarillo that night and with the time change, we got in around 1AM. It was a long night....but nice drive. As soon as we crossed the border into Texas, it smelled like cows! We all worked out before we left Amarillo that morning. It was nice to move our bodies after sitting for so long.

Wyatt waiting for his mom at a gift store in Lawrence, KS

Jeremy fit the RV into Tom and Erin's driveway with his mad backup skills!

The new book! I'm enjoying it, but have anxiety reading it as well. Wyatt read it in about two days. 

A frog we found at night that Wyatt named "Jumper"

One of my little fish children, Scotty, out in the water of Lake Clinton. The swimming was a nice reprieve from the heat, especially since our AC wasn't working in the back of the RV. It was getting into the 90's in there! Driving through Oklahoma, we had the kids ride with my parents to get them in some AC because they were getting overheated. 

Cute kids in front of Erin and Tom's house. We loved staying with them, especially the kids since they could sleep with AC and get spoiled by her cooking of  chocolate chip pancakes, strawberries and whip cream. 

Atalie is awesome at Selfies and took this one at the lake. 

Homemade ice cream from Sylas and Maddie's in Lawrence. Good stuff!

Atalie and Grayson. He loved having his cousins come to visit and we loved being with them!
     

Endless amounts of corn fields and soy beans all through Kansas, Illinois and Indiana. 

My cute co pilot. Since he got glasses about a month ago, he was able to read in the car and not get sick! If any of you know Jeremy, you know he gets motion sickness very easily.



 
Some fun things to do at the Independence, MO visitor's center. The missionaries were so awesome there. We had Sister Moss take us on a tour of the Church History part of the Visitor's Center. It is amazing what the Saint endured while in Missouri and yet they didn't lose faith. They kept going. The Savior is the reason we do what we do. We are trying to be more like him. I know that if we all tried to be more like the Savior, we can make the world a better place.

 The missionaries have a fun tradition to tell people coming through to close their eyes and whatever language of Book of Mormon that they pick will be the language they will learn on their missions. Some of the languages like Panguaian (sp?), we haven't even heard of!

Cruise America!

Well, after a very hectic week of being at Girls Camp, Jeremy working, the boys camping with Gramma and trying to get everything ready and cleaned up (Jeremy did a lot while I was gone including getting groceries, and going to Target), we actually left home right about on time Saturday morning at 5am. We had to stop a few times to fix a vent cover that was loose but so far nothing serious has been going on. We are so thankful for that. It is now Day three and we just crossed over into Oklahoma, so in honor of being in OK, we decided to watch the movie, Oklahoma!

Saturday, our first big stop was at the Grand Canyon! Our kids have never seen it and were very impressed by the "Big Ditch." We got there right about 4:30, walked around a bit and then made some delicious gourmet tostadas and burritos. AS we were walking back to the RV to make dinner, we saw a female Elk grazing in the parking lot! It was very cool since she was only about ten feet away from us and very nonplussed about so many humans watching her as she ate. After dinner, I had the kids run up and down the parking lot row, with that same Elk watching us as she chomped away, to get some energy out and blood flowing. The weather was perfect. Not too hot, with some dark looming clouds to our south. As we left the park, we saw more Elk, even a full grown one with his big antlers and a teenage boy one with his. They are beautiful animals.

Driving towards the 40, we saw tons of lightning! What a show we got as we drove all the way to Snowflake. Rain included. The cooler weather was much appreciated since the AC in the main part of the RV isn't blowing cold air. We are hoping to get it checked in Kansas tonight.

We got Snowflake around 10PM to a warm greeting from our Flake family. They let us park in their driveway and the teenagers went out into the pasture to use their zipline with Mckay and Abe in the dark. All we could here was the zip going back and forth and the kids laughing the whole way!.

After a good night sleep, we ate a yummy breakfast casserole with Pam and Shon and got ready for church. Jeremy and were trouble shooting the AC, but to no avail. Sacrament meeting was wonderful.  I'm so grateful to be able to go to church anywhere in the world and know that I will be able to take the Sacrament. We got to hear from a sweet young woman who talked about family unity. The next speaker was a young man who is getting ready to leave on his mission soon to Colorado. He talked about the good examples of friends he had who helped him get ready for a mission. After that there was a beautiful rendition of The Lord is My Shepherd by a family. Their teenage son sang while the dad played the violin and the mom accompanied them on the piano. The spirit was strong! Another young woman spoke who just recently got back from her mission in Salt Lake City Utah. We found out she actually served with a friend of ours from Denmark!

After sacrament, Uncle Shon drove us to the temple in Snowflake. It was fun to go by there and take the kids. The girls hadn't been since they were 3 and 1. It was built in 2002 when my grandparents lived there still. We will see lots of temples on this trip and I am so grateful to know that I am sealed to my family forever thanks to the temple (For more info on temples, check out lds.org).

A cool moth on the temple that was the size of the palm of my hand. 

Snowflake also has an old log cabin where my 4th great grandmother lived with her 13 children! She was asked to move there from Utah with her husband and children to help settle that part of Arizona. She was a midwife and helped deliver over 1400 babies! Her name is Margaret McCleve Hancock. My mom and Aunt Pam told us some stories on the front porch of the cabin to share with us what a hard working, loving woman she was.

Adventures in Dating!

This past semester, I have been taking a Religion class through BYU-I that has focused all on The Family: A Proclamation to the World (click here to read it). It has been really wonderful to focus more on my role as a wife and mother and to see the good I can do in the world with this knowledge (hopefully!).

For my capstone project, I was to spend 6-8 hours on something that had to do with the family, like memorizing the Proclamation or creating a blog or something. I chose to blog about how Jeremy and I are trying to improve our relationship, particularly through regular dates. Since I have gone back to school and have a myriad of other responsibilities, it has been hard to make time to date my awesome husband. The kids have lots of things and he's been working a lot lately. The extra money has been nice, but I realized we needed to spend more time together, just the two of us. I think he was feeling this way as well. Taking this class has reminded me that my spouse comes first before my children. I think we forget that as parents when we get wrapped up in all the extracurricular things. School has been a bit overwhelming for me as well and I felt like I couldn't take the time to have any fun! Boy did I need some fun in my life!

After making the decision to relax a little on the school front (I still have straight A's), I decided it was time to take action and plan some things with Jeremy.

First off, our anniversary was in September. We've been married for 17 years! Since Jeremy had been working a little more, we decided to ask his parents to watch our kids so we could drive down on a Sunday evening after church and spend the night down by Disneyland. This is not feasible for most people, but for us it was a great escape. So wherever you live, plan a little retreat for you and your significant other. The next day, we slept in, worked out together, had breakfast on the hotel and hung out in our room until checkout time. Then we went to a movie (Everest) and headed to Disneyland for Mickey's Halloween party. We had a great time! We needed that time to relax together and not worry about any thing else. I always wish things like that could be longer, but real life was calling. It was totally worth it and I have made a pact to make sure we get away, even for a few days, each year.

For our next date, we got a tip on how to get free tickets to the BYU vs. UCLA game. We weren't going to be able to go otherwise because we didn't want to spend that kind of money on tickets. We even helped my parents and my sister and her husband get them as well. We jumped in our van after picking up some dinner on the way and headed down to Pasadena for the game. This isn't something we do on a regular basis, so to have two weekends in a row of fun, semi pricey dates, was a good jump start to more regular dating.

We parked about two miles away from the field and after ward, we walked all the way back, chatting and holding hands. I even bought us BYU shirts just for the occasion.
I know these may not seem realistic and we do not go on dates like this often, but they were fun and not worrying about the expense so much has been really helpful. I learned that dating my husband was worth more than the money we would spend on the dates.

Another form of dates for my husband and me is to make sure we attend the temple at least once together each month. He has been going almost weekly for the past four months (a huge blessing to our family) but we weren't really going together. Planning this at the beginning of the month is KEY! Otherwise it doesn't happen and we are scrambling at the end of the month trying to squeeze it in.
I always tell my husband that every girl loves a man with a plan.
We have tried dividing up dating responsibilities with who is in charge and who's going to plan, but that didn't really work for us. Looking ahead at each week, we make a plan for a date even if we don't know what we will do for it.

We found this really great website called Dating Divas that has given us lots of other ideas, for dates, complete with a book we printed off with a "big" date for each month of the year.

Jeremy and I love each other so much. Why would we not want to put each other first? I want to challenge each of you to rekindle your marriage. Make daily rituals like kissing each other good bye in front of your kids the norm. Let your kids see what a great relationship they can have someday.
A marriage class we went to that was put on by the BYU alumni in the area was given by Mark Ogletree. It was hilarious and fun and another way to help us take a look at what we are doing each day to let our spouse know we love them. He was the one that suggested daily rituals. Even if you don't feel like it, make sure your spouse knows you love them before they walk out that door. Make sure you take notice when they come each day after "slaying dragons." These small and simple things will make each of you happier. He also suggested praying morning and night together, having fun together and connecting through rituals. The rituals he mentioned are: greeting rituals (gross your kids out), talk rituals (not at 11PM. Do it where you won't be interrupted and don't talk about kids or money), and dating rituals (husbands usually have that responsibility).

I hope by writing this post, someone somewhere will have a desire to make their marriage even better than it already is. It is worth it. Marriage is hard and life is hard. Why not make sure you are having fun with the person that will be with you through all those hard times? And make sure to gross your kids out every so often with how much you "love" each other!

Atalie's face says it all!

Photo credits of last two pictures from Mette Griffith photography. Check her out on Instagram @mettegriffithphotography.

Easter

Here are just a smattering of pictures from Easter at my parent's home.  I feel like Easter sort of snuck up on me this year and I was a bit ill prepared.  I don't make a big deal about Easter baskets or anything,  especially since we do an easter egg hunt and Gramma's (and one in the desert with Nana).  I love this time of year that reminds me of the Savior and what he has done for us.  I love the Savior.  I know he died for me, suffered for me and also was resurected for me.  I love trying to teach my children about this amazing sacrifice that I will never fully understand, but I know the atonement is real and that it helps me get through my trials. I love spending time with my family and see my kids have fun with their cousins.  I'm so grateful that we can see them on a semi regular basis and that we live close to both grandparents.  It truly is a blessing.

Dying eggs in Gramma and Gramp's backyard

Jeremy getting in on  the action. Unfortunately his didn't turn out the way he wanted :)