Shout out for Jill

You all MUST see these pictures and see the genius that is my cousin-in-law Jill Oaks. I'm telling you. CLICK HERE. Do it. You must.

Road Trip - Summary

There's something so neat about driving cross country and seeing the landscape gradually change. The thick green foliage of the east slowly melts into more sparse but still green hills and towns and cities whose landscape gradually flattens into browner meadows and plains, but then slowly rises again, giving birth to desert mountain foothills and eventually the majestic Rocky Mountains hosting both high and low desert landscape, sagebrush and pine trees, some lakes, and gorgeous red canyons. All of this between two beautiful coasts of ocean. It's amazing to experience.

Since we'd already driven cross-country on I-80 from west to east on our move from AZ to PA and since we drove to the reunion on I-70 (grrrrrr, Kansas), we decided to see more sites and add more states to our list by going back on I-90.

After that breakfast together, we all got going our separate ways. We had quite a journey ahead of us, so we got started. Luckily, we got to bring Mark's brother Michael back with us to spend the summer with us, so that sort of extended our fun reunion/vacation.

The drive from Vernal out of Utah and into Wyoming was actually quite scenic. It was winding and mountainous (not my favorite) but very pretty. It was the Flaming Gorge area and we saw some great vistas.

Mount Rushmore

One of the things we wanted to see by going this different route was Mount Rushmore. It was pretty exciting to see in person! I think it's one of those places most people would like to see but it's really kind of in the middle of nowhere, so I'm glad we got to see it.

Our kids were both not feeling well (it'd been a long trip, tummies get sensitive to emotional stuff like going separate ways from cousins (especially for Thing 2), winding roads, not the best sleep or eating, etc.) and so it was a bit of a quick stroll and a bit worry-filled since it seemed we might have to find a place to throw up pretty quickly. It was hot, we were a bit dehydrated, and it was fairly crowded (I had no idea it would be that crowded--I mean it's in South Dakota!).

We got there around sunset. It was really neat to see it in person.

Our family at Mt. Rushmore
We have visited A LOT of states just this year!
24 so far!

Neat!

Us with Uncle Michael (who is also a big fan of road tripping)

After visiting Rushmore, we were pretty much done for the day since both kids weren't feeling great. We stopped to eat but ended up getting take out since Thing 2 threw up in the restaurant (we had a bag, thank goodness). I spent a good portion of the time we were waiting for food calling area hotels and motels trying to find A. vacancy and B. a decent rate.

We found a mom-and-pop motel in Rapid City, SD. The room was old and quaint (in an old way). They even folded the toilet paper into a fan, so not too shabby. But the outdated quaintness of the motel together with our road tripping ways just begged for all kinds of Tommy Boy quotes. So we obliged. I even did a "fat guy in a little suit" dance upon entering the motel. We were all a bit punch drunk by then anyway.


We got 2 double beds. With the kids not feeling great, I stayed close but at the bottom of the bed perpendicular to their feet. Since the kids were nauseous, I briefly joked about getting in bed with Mark and Michael, but Mark said that would be too West Virginia and Michael said he'd sleep in the van.

After a fitful sleep and a pretty icky "breakfast" from "Ma and Pa," we were on the road again. The kids were pretty mellow but seemed to be perking up more. They're such good travelers. I feel badly they didn't feel well. That's no fun on vacation, away from home. We drove through the rather large state of South Dakota and not-small Minnesota.

Pretty landscape

We saw about 162 billboards for Wall Drug and now wish we'd stopped to see what the hoopla was about, especially since several of our clients have since asked, "Did you see Wall Drug?" We figured it was just a drug store (which it apparently is), but it seems to be some kind of big deal. I think it's because it's the only store in the area for about, oh, 500 miles? We had a clue about its popularity and appeal when we got to Wisconsin and parked near a van with a car carrier and a bumper sticker that boasted "We visited Wall Drug!" Oh well.

Wisconsin

We stayed in Wisconsin that night and the next morning we went to a mausoleum in Madison to pay our respects to Chris Farley. Finding his tomb was a bit like being a team on the Amazing Race, the team that is right by it, then walks away and spends 15 minutes looking all over the wrong places for it and then realizing it's right where they started.



After visiting Mr. Farley, we found a Wisconsin chalet where we sampled A LOT of cheeses. And really good ones, too. White cheddar with cranberries, VERY sharp cheddar, cheddar with jalapeno, pepper jack, green olive jack, tomato basil, even a chocolate cheese! We got to sample summer sausages and pretzels with yummy mustards. We even got some good root beer. Fun place!

Me, Thing 2, Thing 1, Uncle Michael
Sampling cheese in WI

Chicago

From there, we drove to Chicago. We're all about food, so we wanted to eat some deep dish pizza in the Windy City. We saw all kinds of things. We drove along Lake Michigan.

We saw Wrigley Field (very cool).

We got some delicious deep dish pizza

YUM!

Lou Malnati's

We saw the "L" (stands for elevated train)--see how we're driving underneath it?

We saw White Sox Park, too.

It was pretty neat to visit Chicago. We checked out the skyline, spotted the Sears Tower, got a sense of the city. We'd like to explore it with someone who know it well. For a quick visit, not bad! Heck, Mark even found a potential client. No lie.

After visiting Chicago, we drove as far as we could before nightfall/rain fall. We stayed in Ohio but not very far into it. We still had a long drive ahead of us the next day, but at least we got home the next day (hurrah!). I kept thinking I'd want to get some stuff done online every night at the hotel, but I'd be so tired, I'd just go to sleep. (Hence my catching up in many posts now). Plus we hadn't taken the camera uploading cable.

Pittsburgh

The next day we stopped in Pittsburgh (which is actually kind of a pretty city) on our way home. Our kids, Thing 2 especially, are really into birds. So we stopped at the National Aviary!

It was really neat to see bald eagles up close! Eagles are HUGE!

Visiting the penguins

Walking around with cool birds

Feeding nectar to the Lorries!

Hey! Thing 2 is as big as an Emperor Penguin!

A toucan! So cool. Thing 2 is pretty excited about this, too.

Huge owl as part of the "Birds of Flight" outdoor show

An exhausted couple of kids--apparently relaxed enough to sleep once we got back to PA

Tally of States visted:

Mark - 39
Stacy - 36
Thing 1 - 32
Thing 2- 31

We're glad to be home and have become fairly reclusive homebodies as we work on our yard (WOW, is it looking nice!). I have post-vacation let down, too, I think. It was a great trip. It was so nice to see everyone, to get away, to attend the reunion. Oprah did not come through. It's time to pay the piper, so we're back to the grind. Thankfully, we're having a beautiful summer and we have Michael with us and we're getting so much done. I'll post more about that later.

In Summary:

Miles Driven: 5186
Number of days we closed our clinic: 12
Gas/Tolls, Hotels, Food: $1675.16
Visiting with Family: Priceless

Sneak Peek at Pictures

Here is a sneak peek at some of the wonderful pictures captured at our photo shoot (I don't even know for sure on all of these who took what since they're on various blogs--hopefully all we family members don't mind sharing!). I know there's a site that April told us about that sounds like it will work great for all of us to upload and share our pictures (thanks, April!).

But first, some candids:

Pope Great Grandkids

At the cemetery visiting Great Grandfather's grave
(April took this picture and I think it's gorgeous!)

Don't ask.

Thing 1 kissing that slimy frog

This is a candid (a candid!!) of Thing 2 captured by my cousin-in-law April Oaks -- is she talented or what? And he is a HANDSOME boy. I just love him!

I love this picture. It's another one of those times where I saw April with the camera and thought, "Brilliant! This is the kind of picture we'll always be glad that she took." This is a picture of Grandma Great's hallway wall. Is that a grandma's house or what! I love it.

Thing 1 with Maggie -- oldest and youngest grandchild on Mark's side of the family
(though #9 arrives in a couple of months). Beautiful girls!

The whole clan (well, most everyone anyway--some people were there on different days and April is taking the picture so she's not in it either)

NOW, the Photo Shoot Pictures--we are all so excited to see the real thing from the Jill's much more professional eye and equipment (be sure to check out Jill Oaks's and April Oaks's blogs to see the wonderful work they do) since these are the mere shots from our wimpy point-and-shoot digital cameras:

The brothers -- they're all so cute.
Mine is the 2nd one from the right. Yummy!

All the boys -- from Grandpa on down

Grandma and the girls (even the one in Lindsay's belly is a girl)-- amazing when you consider that Vivian has been the lone woman in the family with a husband and 6 sons!

I love this picture! I'm so glad they thought to take one like this (see, my mind doesn't think of these things but I love it when I see it!). The grandkids! Cousins! Isn't that SO CUTE?! Dang, we make cute kids.

Gary and Vivian and the grandkids


I like this picture. Something about it. They obviously weren't ready for the picture so I like the very natural, fun expressions on everyone's faces.

The original clan -- together again for the first time in over 10 years

Bill Watterson, Beware

Every summer one of the local newspaper sponsors a program where children can get a free ticket to Hershey Park if the complete a series of activities. Nearly all of them are newspaper related, like looking at a baseball box score and counting the runs, or pretending to spend money on items in the classified ads. Stacy spent a good portion of the afternoon working on all of the activities so the kids could meet the deadline, which is just one of the many things she does around here to make things nice and fun for all of us. (Thank you, Stacy for making sure we have such great things to do and enjoy around here!)

Anyway, one of the activities was to write a comic strip talking about a road trip. Thing 1, fresh off our marathon trip, was inspired to mostly mark the passing of time. Thing 2, ever the imaginative one, decided a submarine trip to Texas to see scorpions would be a great idea. Here they are. Enjoy!

Road Trip

Texas Trip

Road Trip - Part 4 (or Family Reunion)

So a big reason for the trip was to attend a family reunion hosted by Mark's 83-year-old grandmother in Vernal, UT. Mark's side of the family hadn't all been together in over 10 years. And it's pretty neat that our kids get to visit their great grandmother. So, we've really wanted to attend this and have been trying really hard to be able to do it. Not easy, but worth it. And very fun.

Since the cost of flying our family out there and getting a rental car was about the same cost (if not cheaper) as gas and hotels on a cross-country road trip, we opted for less hassle and more flexibility. We drove. Flying has become such a hassle--it seems it's only worth it for international travel anymore. We thought we might be crazy doing this big road trip, but we saw lots of people (most in RVs, but some in cars, too) who continue to road trip. It was neat to see. And it really is a lot of fun.

The family reunion was great. It's interesting--it's a very different kind of get together from what it's like with my side of the family in just about every way. And I've noticed that pretty much all of my SILs and CILs have said the same thing. There seems to be something unique about the Popes. It was so great to see everyone and it went by way too fast.

I have a TON of awesome pictures and narrowing them down for this post is a feat. I still have loads I want to share. Very soon, I'm hitting my percentage limit on here for picture uploads. Ugh. But I want to share! So here goes.

Friday

Introductions

We took some time the first day to all introduce ourselves and tell what we're up to. This was one of my favorite things we did and I was hoping we'd do it again the next day when more people joined us. It was nice to know who was who and get caught up. I've grown up in such a "Big, Fat, Portuguese" Family where everyone knows everyone that it was strange to me to see cousins who weren't sure who their cousins were, but the reunion was a good way to at least get down the family tree a bit.

Since the is the first family reunion I've been to ever, most of what I knew about these kinds of things comes from movies or reading other people's blogs. I thought there'd be some sort of contest or honorable mention for being the ones who traveled the farthest, but nope. It's actually a toss-up/tie between us and Scott and Lindsay (I think they might technically be farther mileage-wise, but they flew on frequent flier tickets and we drove and that's gotta count for something!! :P) . If I have my facts down right, most everyone else came from a less-than-one-day's-drive (UT or somewhere west of UT or at least a neighboring state).

This is Thing 1 and her cousin Patrick working on catching that poor frog. Our daughter is a tomboy. Don't let the dress fool you--she likes wearing them not because she's girly-girl (she's not), but because they're quick and easy to put on and go play! If it involves getting muddy, frogs, or sports, she's in! She played in every sport, rain or shine, joining games with adults (along with Thing 2) like nobody's business. And people thought they might be shy . . . pah!

Mark with another new niece--happy Maggie!

Look at that look of delight in holding a slimy frog!

Here's Jess and me again. Oh yeah, and my father-in-law jumped in, too. ;)

These two felt quite comfortable with each other quite quickly. Here they are wrestling!

More gangsta signs? Goofy kids . . .

Such cute cousins!On top of the big rock at the playground

After a full afternoon of playing and talking, we went back to the motel and swam in the pool for a bit.

Thing 2 and Andrew

Patrick and Thing 1

Tanner and Thing 2

The brothers (well, 5 of them anyway--Scott got there the next day) hanging out poolside

Saturday

The next morning, the very first thing our kids and Patrick and Andrew did was get together to play in our hotel room. Once we all got ready, we went back to the park/playground and had breakfast.

It was very tricky getting Noah in a picture with our kids for some reason, so I'm glad he's in this one. How fun is this?

Me with my very tall sisters-in-law.
Check it out--I'm barely past their shoulders!

These three snuck off to play some Bakugon for a while!

I was really excited to spend some in-person time with the Oaks families!

Jill, April, me -- we all married into the family around the same time (Jill and April married brothers who are Mark's cousins)

All the sisters-in-law--aren't we cute?

All the brothers together catching up. I got a picture of them all out on the field playing catch, too, but it's pretty far away to see.

Grandma Pope reserved a horse and carriage for rides for the kids

Fun, eh?


I really enjoyed teaching and playing Scruble!

After a full day of playing and talking and catching up, we all went to the cemetery to visit Great Grandfather's grave. Amy the Great (as we call her) had all the children take flowers to the grave.

That evening, we went to Grandma Pope's (Amy the Great's) house for another of my favorite parts of the reunion--having Mark's side of the family together for family pictures! It was really neat to all be together taking such fun pictures. It was even a little emotional for me. I can hardly WAIT to see the pictures. Jill and April did such a good job of getting everyone together and posing us and taking charge and getting so much done before sunset and making us laugh. From what I can tell, the picture are going to be great.

Uncharacteristically, I didn't take my camera out. I took NO pictures during that time. During the photo shoot, I simply wanted to enjoy having it done without worrying about trying to get extra pictures. It was fun and kind of relaxing in a way, too, to not worry about the pictures. But I'm so glad that some of my SILs got some pics during the photo shoot, because it gives us a sneak peek into how GREAT the pictures look! I'll be sure to post them once we get them.

After the photo shoot, we took pictures with Grandma Great.

Mark's grandma, Mark, Me, Thing 1, Thing 2

With the great grands
With Mark and the kids

Back at the motel, the festivities continued into the night. Mark drove all his brothers to a local restaurant and they all got ice cream and appetizers and enjoyed having fun with one another. I'm guessing none of them took pictures of that. :P

The cousins who were still awake got together in our room for more fun and games (and when, at 11:15, it was time to break up the party, they were not excited to call it a night).

These 4 laughed and played and got along fabulously the ENTIRE time.

They played games like Bakugon and Apples to Apples Jr.

We had our own girls' party on the next bed during all of this. I love this picture! And I love late night talking! We tried to get a hold of all the other womenfolk but they were either with babies or asleep or we couldn't get a hold of them.

The next morning, we all went out to breakfast to get a little more time together (we were trying to get as much time as possible together). It was sad to all go our separate ways. We really enjoyed being with everyone--something we don't get to do very often at all, even in smaller family groups. We really do hope siblings will come visit us soon--we'd love to host them!

I have so many pictures of these 4 that I had to narrow them down and it's so hard to choose! We've got a lot of cute pictures with Maggie, Emmy, Isaac, and Noah on the other posts (Em, I had a time and a half trying to get one of Isaac, Noah, and our kids at the park that day--if you got one, can I please have a copy? Thanks!)

Cousins - nice, smiling picture

Cousins - goofy face picture