All my dreams are coming true.....

This is what Jacob said this morning as we were leaving Texas! First he got to see a cactus, then we saw a prairie dog town. We were on our way to see a meteor crater and when we stopped to get gas we found a stick bug in the car :) This was all Jake's idea of heaven.

The meteor crater is in Odessa Texas, not far from Midland which is the home of President Bush. We didn't get to go into the museum, we were there to early and it wasn't open. But we did get to walk around the crater hole which is huge. It isn't very deep because over the years dirt has been blown into it, but you can still very mush see the impact area.

After the crater we hopped back in the car and drove almost 4 hours to Carlsbad Caverns. OMG we LOVED the cavern!!! We have seen several caves, including Mamouth cave but this one is spectacular!!! It has the biggest open area of any cave in the US. We took pictures but they just don't show anywhere near how beautiful it was. And the mountains were the cavern is are awesome too! We had such a good time, the boys were all taking pictures.

We drove through Roswell but we didn't stop. It was fun to see the gift shop with alien merchandice. They had a UFO museum and a McDonalds playland that was shaped like a UFO. The street lamps had black slanted eyes to make them look like aliens.

We got into Albuquerque around 9:30 and all the boys are in bed. We have another really busy day tomorrow. We will see a few things here in New Mexico before we head to the Grand Canyon.

The stars at night.....

Are big and bright...deep in the heart of Texas. We have been singing this song today. We woke up this morning in Arkansas, got breakfast at Waffle House then drove over to DeGray lake. It was very pretty and nice just to walk around in the wooded area by the water. David and the boys made some mini movies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzDADIwTQHA

I took a few pictures then we drove for 9 hours. Texas is very interesting, not exactly what I was expecting. It is very green and I loved the cactus all along the sides of the road. And you know the old cowboy movies with the high signs with the ranch names on them, well a lot of people have them in front of their driveways!

Got to get on the road early tomorrow, so I will say good night now.

We are in Arkansas!!!!

It has been a long day! We started about 8:30 this morning. The boys traveled pretty well, no major problems. Jacob was feeling a little confined but we stopped in Memphis at Mud Island river park to see the Mississippi river. They have a small replica of the Mississippi that the kids got to wade in. On the way to the Mississippi we listened to Tom Sawyer on audio book. Then we stopped in Little Rock for dinner at a great mexican place called Juanita's.

Cool facts about the Mississippi

Its over 2300 feet long.

It is the biggest river in volume but it isn't the longest in the US. The Missouri is the longest.

It ranges from 20 feet wide to 4 miles wide.

It starts in Minnesota and goes all the way to the gulf of Mexico.

On our way......

I can't believe that today is the day!! And I am on the computer blogging instead of rushing to get everything done. Making a list sure does help, and maybe the fact that I have been planning all summer might have something to do with it too :) We packed the car last night. Just have to put a few things in this morning.

Hope to on and blogging again tonight.

Almost ready.....

We have only the rest of the evening and tomorrow to get everything done. I am pretty much on track with packing and getting things together. Tomorrow I will take the frog to a friend from Davids work. Then tomorrow night I will take the dog to another friend. So he is getting a little vacation too :) Jody has been watching him for me since he was a tiny puppy.

So today was spent getting the car washed, getting cash from the bank, more laundry, sweeping and scrubbing the floor (before you feel to sorry for me, Michael scrubbed the floor and Anthony swept). I also finished up the packing for the boys. I had the idea to put all the clothes for each day in a zip lock bag. So I could easily pull out a days worth of clothes for each of them. Most of our overnight stays are only one night and I thought it would be a huge pain to drag everything into the hotel every night. So I am also packing an overnight bag. Each morning when we load the car back up I just have to grab a zippy bag for each boy. It sounds good in theory, I am waiting to see if it actually works. Off to put the boys to bed.....

Forces of Nature....

We are only 11 days from our big trip!!! Everything is coming together because I keep making lists. I am a worrier by nature and tend to stuggle to keep things on track. I am doing better with this trip than I expected. Still...the thought of so much time in the car with the boys scares me. I have made a few lessons about the places we will visit and I will print out reading and math worksheets. They also have DS's and TV for the drive. David has loaded up the IPOD with lots of books on tape. Mark Twain, Harry Potter and Douglas Adams are a few he has added. I hope this is enought to keep then busy and entertained. They are all pretty good car riders but we may be pushing it a little bit :)

Now for the title of my post.......

http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080818/ap_on_re_us/grand_canyon_flooding

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jJKVQEtp-N1l7AIyKVgxPeB9iaCQD92FBLL80

I hope someone isn't trying to tell us something!

A NO school day.

Today the kids from our county went back to school so we decided to take the day off. Last year on the first day of school for everyone else I took Jacob to IHOP and we decided then that it should become a tradition! So today we all went to IHOP to celebrate NOT going back to school :)