Our trip started with a stop at Devil's Tower in Wyoming...
and a picnic lunch in the parkling lot. Multiple people commented (kind things only) as they walked by, and one little lady took our picture (hehe, it still make me laugh) because she thought it was just perfect to see us doing just what families should do.
When the kids needed a break from the car we looked for scenic stops like this one at a beautiful river in South Dakota.
Then we took the Wildlife Loop (added an extra 3 hours to our trip, but totally worth it) on our way to Mount Rushmore.
Fed the wild donkeys...
and had buffalo stampeding by our car!
It was a pretty amazing drive. The mountain tunnels were my favorite.
The next day we went to Carthage and Nauvoo. Eric was a little disappointed that the kids weren't really interested in it, but he got over it and got to see almost everything he wanted to. He could have spent days there!
We played at the park
The old guys (eric, curt, matt, and alan) played some b-ball with a bunch of 11 year olds...and won! (shocker! ;))
Visited with Nana
Then we were off to Chicago. Multiple people told us we needed to go to Lou Malnati's for pizza while we were in Chicago. It would have been fun to acutally GO there, but our kids had had enough adventure for the day, and so we all opted to eat in.
We went to the Lincoln Park zoo! The kids (especially Jack) loved it!
But it was very very hot! Addie and Ellie were ready to be done a long time before Jack was, but that's pretty much always how it goes.
We visited a couple of Eric's cousins
On our last day in Chicago, we headed to the beach.
These kids were in heaven! Eric and I both felt like we could have stayed all day and watched them play! I'll have to upload a video of them playing later...sheer joy! It was very windy and a little chilly, but perfect for just running around.
We stopped at Oz park on the way back to the hotel. VERY fun!
Then we said goodbye! I know everyone LOOKS happy in this pic, but we were all sad to go.
After that, Eric got in a cab and headed to the airport. I got lost trying to drive my enormous car out of the city and had to have Amber talk me out of there, but after that it was smooth sailing! I would add more pics from the drive home, but blogger isn't letting me. The kids and I took it slow. We stopped at lots of beautiful rest stops on the way and played our hearts out (which means they caught as many bugs as they could) before getting back in the car. Addie left her blanket at one of the rest stops in Nebraska :( I thought maybe that would help her stop sucking her thumb, but when we got home she just chose a new blanket to be 'her' blankie. On the last day of the drive we were going to stop in Cheyenne just for fun to end our vacation right (which means swimming at a hotel and eating popcorn while watching disney channel). We were all super excited about it! When we got to Cheyenne we stopped in to get a room and the lady at the front desk informed me that all hotels there were booked because of a concert that night for frontier days (except for one sketchy hotel that she said she wouldn't even send her ex husband to). We decided to head on to Laramie and have our last night of fun there. They were 100% booked too! I couldn't see the point in stopping in Rawlins (which is 1 1/2 hours from Rock Springs) so we just headed home. We were all bummed about how it ended, but we had a blast while it lasted!
