Update

Hello Friends and Family,
 We are all safe and doing well. We continue to have all kinds of experiences! We have a few different reasons for our lack of posts! We lost our camera battery for awhile and our main Computer with all of our pics is broken. We"re waiting to transfer all our pics to this computer. I swear nothing can be smooth sailing. It always seems to find a way to get complicated. Why is that?  We have so much to share with you. I spent most the evening down loading so many pictures from phones, our old camera, new camera and Carstons Ipod.  Nothing like a lot of work to make you want to skip it altogether. As soon as I get free WiFI or were at the beginning of the month on our internet usage I will be posting like crazy! That's if something else doesn't go wrong.

 I have been quite emotional lately as we are quickly approaching the end of our Journey. We are all anxious to get home for different reasons. All of us look forward to saying Hello again to all our friends and family! I am so excited to get back to my bath tub. Corey has mentioned his big black bed that he is missing. I think I have heard alot of us talk  about space. Space to get a break from one another. Funny that I have been so emotional though. A couple of nights ago I could not sleep from all the emotion I was feeling, so I got up and wrote my little family a letter. I thought I would share it with you because it explains my emotion so well.

 Please keep in mind that I am not that great with grammar. So please ignore all the mistakes.

Day 138- Friday May 20th

Wow my heart feels as if it is going to explode with emotion! It is 1:41 in the morning. Big day tomorrow.  Boston sights and of course the End of the world.

 So many thoughts. Our trip is over! We are through ! It is over and I am sad! Yes we still have some great things ahead ,but I feel the end approaching quickly. How can I be sad? This has been so hard in so many ways. But oh, the intensity of all  the different emotions. The moment I lay in my bed months ago with a force of emotion convincing me of our importance of beginning this journey.
The preparation- the planning- the faith- the courage- the fear- the what, where and whys- the anticipation- the friends- the searching for our R.V. – the renting of our home! The preparing of our home. Cleaning, painting ,packing.  Corey quitting his job- the opening of our savings from our crawl space! The emotions of the boys, most excited some not. The extended families emotion.  All the different responses. The negative responses. The hurtful responses.  The pulling the boys out of the only school we have ever known and all there friends. Saying goodbye to friends, sports, scouts! The cold morning we left with our excitement our fears our unknowns.  Saying goodbye and hello at the same time. Goodbye to everything at home. Comforts, familiarity, friends, family, routine. Hello to the world, new places ,new people, showers ,oh the nightmare of showering from beginning to end! Fighting, crying, laughing, eating, watching, riding, enjoying, quitting, not quitting, sorry’s , new friends, generosity so many people have been so generous to us. Complete strangers inviting us into there homes.  Excitement, disappointment, gratitude. The constant strength of the gospel no matter where we go in this world. He is the same! His gospel is the same! In poor areas in rich areas in colored areas in Spanish areas in all areas! Seeing so many things, the way everyday people live day in and day out. Rich people, poor people, hungry people, crazy people,kind people, sad people, happy people, all kinds of color people, different religion people.
Everything must come to an end. I am reminded of our journeys beginning, we must say goodbye again and hello again. Goodbye to our home on wheels that has kept us safe,dry,warm, cool, fed and comfortable. It has taken us to see this side of our beautiful world. It did not have much room to offer us but it has given me so much room in my memories!  It kept us safe in Oregon on the icy, icy roads, And warm in the cold, cold parking lot of the gas station and Methodist parking lot. It drove us down the breathtaking coast that made me feel like I was in a movie moment. It took us to Disney land where we went on the tower of terror over and over and over. It took us to San Fransisco's down town up and down the hills! It took us to Arizona to see our family and friends. It took us through  New Mexico where we stayed in the dump station of all rv stations. It took us through many ghettos and luckily kept on moving right on through. Texas, so so cold not my favorite stop. I wanted to quit and go home. My husband helped us stay strong. We didn’t quit we stayed the course and I am so glad we did. It has taken us to so many WalMarts! Thank you so much Walmart you have been our home away from home. It has taken us to all the beauty in Florida. Remember our friend at the gas station. I hope he never gives up.What about New Orleans?Oh I love that dirty old place ,the personality is too much! What about our fight with the bridge? luckily we won and we have the battle scars to show for it. Memphis, I am a rocker through and through! Mississippi, Alabama, Football Football and more football, North Carolina south Carolina. We have missed so many natural disasters and got to see first hand the destruction and help in that recovery. Washington D.C. New York ! Philadelphia, Boston. My Caleb boy learned how to read, My baby girl Addy learned how to walk. We had the birds and the bees talk with Codey, Carston read a whole book series and has started writing his own book, Colton helped us get to the majority of our destinations, He is our golden ticket to the golden corral, Chick-fil-a forever and ever! And so many laughs. All right now close the windows! I am semi Retired! I have no doubt boys that you will eventually get your dog or dogs! Thank  you my dear dear family for so many memories I know most of you our anxiously waiting for it to  be over. But I sometimes wish we were just driving out of Boise now instead of driving in.

So many other things we need to say good bye too now. And we will say hello again to friends family our home, our future job, our sports, scouts, school activities.

This has been the most amazing experience. I have so much fullness in my heart ! We have not much money left, and not much R.V. left. But I am so ,so thankful and do not question for a second the importance of this trip. We did it guys. Shacka lamano we did it! It wasn’t always easy and it wasn’t always fun, But we did it. I am so thankful to all of you for these last 5 months. Thank you for letting me have you completely for this short time. Now you can be free again and have your own space and comforts again.

So much more to remember forever and ever! We have so many things around us that remind us of how fragile life is. We never know what tomorrow will bring. We have a family member with a  terminal diagnosis that will soon be taken away from his family. We have family who is fighting to have many, many more memories with there little boy Mitchell. We have a dear , dear friend who has just begun his fight with Cancer so he can have more memories with his family.  We may not have much money but we have memories! Memories that can never be taken away from us never ever ever!

Now our trip is definitely not over just yet. We still have the best to come. All of the church History. Yippee

We love you all and our so thankful for all the prayers, phone calls, support and love.

Family Therapy

Update

We're back!!!  As many of you know we are very, very behind on our blog, actually about a month. We've received a lot of phone calls asking us about our location in relation to the tornado's. We've had several scary and close calls both in Atlanta and Virginia. We were able to witness the destruction first hand in Raleigh, NC and spend a few days volunteering w/ some amazing, courageous people. We feel very blessed as we have felt the loving, guiding hand of the Lord in our life. We are currently in Washington DC and have had some very special experiences as a family this past month. We look forward to sharing them as we continue to catch up on the blog.

Florida

It seems like ever since we left Boise, Idaho on January 3rd we've been chasing the sunshine and warm weather. The cold can start to wear on you after a while as many of you know, couple that with being in a space of  about 200 sq ft day in and day out and you've got the formula for some on edge, grumpy boarder line crazy moments. Sooooo, after our fun time at the U of Alabama we decided to make a mad dash for the sunny beaches of Florida. We'd received a tip from a friend that the most beautiful beaches were in Destin, Fl. It was a ways away but we decided that we had to have some sun or it was heavy medication time! We drove all night and arrived in Destin about 2am, parked in the Home Depot parking lot got a few hours of sleep and anxiously awaited the sunrise so we could hit the beach. Could it really be that easy..........nope! When we got up it was about 42 degrees, gale force winds that shook the RV and the forecast called for another week of torrential rains.....Par for the course! Two ways to go, curse the weather, scream a couple I told you so's, ask ourselves repeatedly why we came on this trip......or throw on the loin clothes and hit the beach. We opted for both!

Brave Boys led by a fearless little girl!!

After a long day of surfing

After getting some feeling back in our extremities we sat down for a family pow wow around the space heater. This was not what we had anticipated! We reflected back on the videos of traveling families we had watched prior to leaving Boise, you know..  the happy, clean, smiley families, frolicking through the meadows, laughing uncontrollable, hugging each other, not wanting the trip to ever stop! What were we doing wrong, so far the only videos I could see our family being apart of was a special documentary airing on the Jerry Springer Show!! Family therapy seemed inevitable and I wasn't sure if we were all going to go back to Boise in the same vehicle. We had to find sunshine and fast!!!  We got in the RV with a renewed determination and headed south. We drove until we found sunshine, it took us 12 hours and we ended up in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Addy's face sum's it all up!!!

We decided to take the money we were going to spend suing the families for misrepresentation on the "The Perfect family, takes a perfect vacation across America" video and spend it on some real family therapy at Bush Gardens and Sea World. Money well spent!! Family crisis averted!!

One thing Ally and I have noticed is that we can't ride the rides like we used to. This was Ally after the boys took her on the "Death Spiral", a picture is worth a thousand words. I was consoling her behind the camera.

Where's the Barf Bag??? In the end, the "Death Spiral" sent everyone to the restroom!! Of course the boys went on it about 25 times.

Colton....."Why did I do that".."I'm going to die"!!

After living in the RV for 4 months

we've got good at checking each other for fleas!

Brotherly Love

Sea World

Colton on the far left. He felt pretty special to be apart of the show. He still sleeps in his costume.

Addy Loved seeing the animals

Shamu soaked us!!

Codey got to be in a parade

Addy enjoying the parade. Only Addy could get away with this outfit



We found a great place to stay. It had a pool, bike paths, showers, electricity, running water, and clean toilets. We were in heaven!!

Addy's first bike ride..didn't like the hat!!

Orlando Temple

We were just going to stop and reverently walk around the grounds and take some family pictures, but....... once again it turned into an Addy photo shoot!! Ally get's mad anytime someone stops us and says what a handsome little boy we have so as a result Addy wears the biggest, brightest bow's I've ever seen, sometimes I think she looses her balance due to the bow's. We could probably do a whole blog just on Bow's.