Ahhhh...

Alison again...

It's a beautiful thing to sit still once in a while. On this trip, it happens every few weeks and just feels like a treat. When we are on the move, a typical day goes like this. Wake up pretty early, the girls head to the showers and then when we get back, the boys. Someone has to wait in the rv with Lily so she doesn't howl in here and get us in trouble. Then the girls get ready while the boys are gone (more space) and then we all start packing up. No small project, let me tell you. All unsecured items find homes,much sewage finds a new home, and sweeping, and stashing...the list goes on. Around here the phrase "a place for everything and everything in its place" has a whole new meaning. During all of this, Christian has been up much earlier than us and working as well. Then we drive. And on this leg of the trip where chain restaurants rarely exist, we find whatever sounds edible to eat or stop long enough to heat something up on the stove. When each gas stop every 150 miles costs around $80, we try to be extremely cost-conscious. Each gas stop entails about 15 minutes of work for the boys as they jack up the back of the rv to get gas in. Christian uses stops to get work done and also has to balance driving with answering calls. The girls are working faithfully on their school during the drive as long as we aren't on crazy mountain roads because stomachs, school, and rv's on curves are not a terrific combination. After most of a day, we begin to solidify our destination and start looking for campgrounds with good reviews. We finally arrive, perhaps make dinner, clean up dinner (an hour project), probably use the campground's laundry facilities, charge all our rectangles (iPods, computers, ipads, phones), and start tearing down our living space to sleep. Then, one at a time we begin getting ready for bed. In this space, that takes about an hour. There, that's probably way more than you wanted to know, but gives perhaps a glimpse.
We are currently in Idaho and loving every minute of it; well, almost every minute. Christian is away from us at a business convention in Atlanta so we feel a little off having been five so tightly joined for all this time. We are super happy to be here of all places so far. We are just a Teton Pass away from Jackson Hole, Wyoming which is the first place that really feels like the Old West, somehow. It's tucked down between the Tetons and Yellowstone and very eclectic and cool. Our teeny town of Victor has 800 people and some AMAZING food. No chain anything. Only markets for food and real chefs at the few restaurants that are still open past September. No one believes us that God is giving them this weather because we asked Him for it. It's in the 60's during the day and 20's at night. Space heaters and long johns are two of my favorite things.
Today we climbed a mountain. I try so hard to be a good sport and keep up with these people, but I really should have conditioned with them before we left. :o[ They keep trying to tell me the altitude is to blame. "Don't feel bad, Momma!" they say, as I pant like an elderly person. But, in my defense, we went almost four miles (two of which were severely uphill) and we were at 9750 feet! And I do smile periodically!

By the end of the week we will be back on the road. Five states left!!! We will be looking for a Walmart pretty quick-like since Momma needs a new pillow. Somehow, I can't find it within myself to clean and use the one Lily POOPED on! There is great debate over whether or not that was intentional or not.

Tomorrow is Justin's nineteenth birthday. Wow! I really don't have words about that. This trip is so bittersweet in that this has been a dream of ours for almost 20 years and we are really doing it, yet when it is over and we go home, we say goodbye to life as we have known it and send our son off to the real world. Was it wise to have gotten as close as we are? I know it was beyond the best thing, but even now to write about it takes me to a place I really can't go...deep breath...
Maybe tomorrow we'll go feed some baby bears! We shall see what my son cooks up for a birthday wish! For now, I will go start the bedtime process...

Hello again!
There is soooooo much to talk about.
The Badlands were epic, for real.

When we first got out, we saw some huge goats, and they walked right up by us, it was crazy! Kyrsten and I wanted to like walk up and pet them, but everyone was shouting at us "NOOO THESE GOATS ARE DANGEROUS!" So we didn't. I think Kyrsten and I were forgetting that we weren't at the petting farm (:

We also got to see prairie dogs, they were the cutest little guys ever and they were everywhere! They were yelling at us, a whole bunch though because Kyrsten and I charged them. I just wanted to hold them, they're so adorable.
It is hard to even explain the badlands without pictures because it is so different from anywhere I've ever been! There were wild buffaloes just crossing the road and coyotes were just running around everywhere around. We got right up next to the buffaloes (safely inside Mable). They are SO big in person! Seriously, their heads are like way huge. They look kind of like wild things. It was crazy.

And then on Thursday we were supposed to be on our way to Yellowstone. But the brakes on the RV started acting kind of funny. We decided that that was something we definitely wanted to get checked out before we started going several hundred miles. So we did, and apparently our brake pads were almost gone they were so worn through and the guy said it'd take him several hours to get the brake pads changed. We were right by Wall Drug, and we had Lily, so we did everything that Wall Drug had to offer. We went shopping for Justin's birthday present, and he ended up with some pretty hardcore cowboy boots! They are super awesome, and he wears them 24/7...This morning, he even went to the shower in the boots haha :)

We ended up sitting for hours in an arcade at Wall Drug, which was fine with us kids :) We were at Wall Drug about 7 hours, it was surprisingly nice to get a break from the RV for a bit though.

Then on Friday we drove and drove and drove. I think we ended up being in the RV like 13 hours, or some craziness like that. It got a little monotonous. At night we were driving in North Dakota, and we were seriously out in the middle of nowhere without any cities nearby, or streetlights or anything, we didn't have phone service for like 4 hours, and we just prayed and prayed that nothing would go wrong with the RV because we'd be out there awhile before anyone found us.
But all of that was worth it to get to Yellowstone, which was where we were at all day today! It was crazy there, we saw Old Faithful and about a billion other geysers. We also saw more buffaloes and we also got to see elk right up close! We are going again tomorrow because we are going to do more hiking and whatnot. It will be pretty awesome, I bet.
I will blog some more stuff later!! Kbye!

Yeeeeehaaawwww!!!!

Howdy!
(For everyone who doesn't speak cowboy, I believe that means "Hello") :)
I think my mom updated this last when we were in Mississippi. It has been about 6 days, and a whole bunch has happened because...WE ARE FINALLY OUT WEST!!
Last week while we were in Mississippi, I came down with a chest cold. That was a bummer, and a couple family members were extremely scared of catching it.

They were crazy, like before they'd sit on the couch, "Mom, Addie sat here 3 days ago, do you think I'm going to catch her cold?" or, "Mom, Addie touched the faucet in the bathroom, do you think I'm gonna get sick?" They were like that for days. My goodness, you'd think I had the black plague! And even after all that, Kyrsten caught it, but hers only lasted a day. So we are all back to 100%-- thank you, Jesus!

Last Wednesday and Thursday we were in Arkansas. We were hoping to just spend one night, Wednesday, and jet in the morning, but something was wrong with our refrigerator. So we went to an RV store, and the guy didn't have the part in, so he ordered the part to come in the next day. We had all of Wednesday to hang out in Arkansas. I think we just like went to Walmart and stuff, nothing super exciting.

On Friday, we got our refrigerator all taken care of. So we took off towards Oklahoma. We got through Oklahoma and half of Kansas in a day.

The campground we stayed at in Kansas was so lame! There aren't exactly a ton of options out there :) The campground people told us to park right out in their front yard. Literally. That was awkward. In their bathrooms the hot water ran out mid-shower, and they had a window right in front of the showers, and there was an RV parked right next to that window. There wasn't even an area to get dressed, except in front of that dumb window. Whoever designed that has some issues, I believe. Haha.

On Saturday, we were driving through Kansas when all of the sudden...Dorothy ran out of the field!! Haha I'm just kidding, that would've been awesome though. Anyway, all the sudden, a chunk of the RV goes flying off into the wind!! We were on the Highway so we couldn't even go back and get it. So we pulled off the road and saw that a 2 foot by 2 foot piece of the paneling on the outside of the RV was just gone. We found the nearest Home Depot, and us ladies sat in the RV for the day while the boys fixed it up. They bought some fancy sheet metal and a new drill, and cut a piece to fit the bare spot. What bright young men. It looks lovely.

We decided to keep on heading towards Colorado that night, because we really wanted to go to New Life Church in Colorado Springs the next morning!
So dad, being the good sport that he is, drove and drove until we got to Colorado Springs! I went to sleep about 2 hours before we got there the night before, so the next morning I woke up in the Rocky Mountains, it was beautiful. We had to get up very early and quickly pack up so we could get to church on time, but it was so worth it! The worship was great and the sermon was great, I would love to go back there.

Right after church we hopped back in the RV and started driving some more. We stopped for a little bit to go to Cabelas...are you aware of how awesome Cabelas is?? I wasn't, but I love that place now! It is like a zoo, except that everything is dead! There's guns and meat and animals...does it get any better than that? Nope, I don't think so. :) we didn't sleep at a campground last night, we stayed at Walmart in their parking lot. That is called dry camping, and when you dry camp, you don't have any electricity or shower. So we only do it when absolutely necessary. We all wore thermal underwear to sleep last night because we didn't have heat and it was in the 40's. We all looked like superheros gone bad or something, I can only imagine what people would've thought if they would've seen us all of us like that.
I have some more stuff to write about, but I am gonna have to wait until another day. So I will talk at you all later, thanks for the comments and stuff, we love you all!