We're in Seattle waiting for our last plane ride. :)

On the plane in Portland.

We are at the Portland Airport getting ready to head to Seattle - we will be home by 7:00 if all the planes are on time.

We're in Portland. Going to Seattle in the morning.

Eating at Olive Garden - Yes, yes, YES!!! :)

Eating pizza at a Pizza Hut in Brattleboro, Vermont.

We're fixing to go through New Hampshire on our way to Boston.

We are back in the USA - eating dinner at Applebee's.

We will be in Canada later today so our cell phones will be off. We will be leaving Fort Wayne, IN, soon, after not so good a nights sleep.

WooHoo - Beat Kerry at his favorite game!

So, we all took a relaxing last day in Branson. We headed down to Branson Landing so Mom and Kerry could practice taking pictures using all the techniques he showed her on her camera and to buy Dad some fudge.

On the way back we ate at Fuddruckers, stopped at Wal-Mart to get food for the road and then headed back to the condo.

Mom, Dad, Kerry and I played 42 for hours and thoroughly enjoyed it. Kerry likes to say he loves to play 42 whether he wins or not - which is a good because Dad and I beat him! I love to play the game also, but I really like to win.

Tomorrow we head out to Rogers to see Matt and Marlo for a day and a half and then will head up north again

SDC

Silver Dollar City (SDC) was AWESOME!! Once we had gotten there at opening time (9:30) we saw the SDC clog dancers. (better dancing than i've seen in quite some time.) then we kept walking a little ways and saw a blacksmiths forge. (SDC has alot of people who work on things like glassblowing, metalworking, etc.) The guy that i saw at the blacksmith's forge was making a knife out of a railroad spike. (at the bottom of the picture is a spike the like the one that was used to make all the knives exept the top one. The top one was made of re-bar and the blacksmith said that it was a letteropener because saying that a blade made of re-bar was an insult to knives. the second down was made with a standard twist+some cuts in the spike prior to heating. the third down was made with a pineapple pattern in the handle. :) i memorized the steps to making one of those. the fourth down was made with a standard twist.) My dad bought one of the pinapple handdled ones for me. :) (thanks dad!!) I stayed at the blacksmith's shop until my uncle matt and his family came back to get me around lunchtime. we ate lunch then did some rides. Then after closing time SDC has a show in an ampatheater that we went to. The one we saw was a Country Music show. after that we went home. :) awesome day!!!!!!!

SHOPPING!!!

Mom and I spent a wonderful day shopping - just the two of us. We got fresh vegetables at a nearby vegetable stand. We took another "scenic tour" getting down to Old Branson :-), ate at Fuddruckers, went to a scrapbook store, hit the 2 outlet malls and ran by Wal-Mart to get a few other items before getting home to fix dinner!

Grandpa had Kenneth drive him to Wal-Mart to get some practice driving in a high congestion area and they had lunch at Subway. Kerry and Abigail stayed at the condo and just rested all day.

Kenneth and Abigail hung out at the pool for awhile and got red, but had a good time. This evening we all watched FireProof with mom and dad and just rested.

Tomorrow we are up for more shopping, swimming, hanging out! Can't wait until Matt and his family get here on Wednesday night!

Finally - Branson

Sunday we arrived in Branson about 4:30, met mom and dad at the condo. We unloaded and then took Kerry and Dad out to dinner at Cracker Barrel for Father's Day.

Mom, Abigail and I went to Wal-Mart to get the groceries and then we just hung out. Kenneth tried out the pool before it closed and the guys sat around reading and talking.

It is now Monday morning....everyone is up - sort of - Mom and I are going shopping, Grandpa is going to have Kenneth drive him up to Wal-Mart to get the tires balanced on the Suburban and Kerry and Abigail are going to veg in the condo.

Dinner's in the crockpot so we are out of here for a full day of fun. Talk to you later.

On the Road AGAIN

Saturday was spent on the road ALL day! We left Sam's house at 6:40 ET and arrived in Mt. Vernon, IL about 10 pm CT. Kerry drove for most of it - except for a few hours when I drove and took us on a "scenic tour" that we weren't supposed to be on. At least I recognized that I thought I was on the wrong road and stopped to figure it out rather than just driving and driving until Kerry woke up - that counts for something - right?

We went through West Virginia,

Kentucky,

Indiana and Illinois in one day.

"Scenic Tour" or "Lost"?

On Thursday we got to attend Richelle's moving up ceremony celebrating the end of 5th grade.

After that we went to visit some friends who have just moved to Virginia Beach from Sitka. We had a great time hanging out at the pool with them.

We then headed back to the house....only.....we went the wrong way on a road and ended up in downtown Norfolk.....Google maps only works well when you put accurate information into it!

Kerry decided he was lost for the first time in his life. His definition of lost is you don't know where you are and you don't know how to get where you are going. A scenic tour on the other hand is when you know where you are supposed to be or how to get back to there, you just aren't there at the moment.

John wasn't to sure about being in the van with his aunt and uncle for the first time ever and getting lost. He said, "I don't know WHAT road we are on. I'd like to go home now."

NRA Museum

On Wednesday before heading to Virginia Beach, we drove to Fairfax to see the NRA museum. This was probably Kenneth's most exciting day yet.

After the museum we headed toward Virginia Beach. It took us awhile to get there because we got distracted by things like Costco and IKEA off the side of the highway and kept taking detours!

Two left on the race----but only one came back :-)

But, we finally made it to my brother's house in Virginia Beach and had a good time hanging out for our first night there.

Sam and John throwing the football around.

Museum Day

Ok, so I took a few days off of posting - sorry - didn't realize anyone was actually following and would notice :-) !

Since my last entry, we have done quite a lot. On Tuesday, we explored some museums in DC. We went to the Air and Space Museum. Kenneth wanted to take Abigail through the flight simulators that he had done last year during CloseUp.

After that, we went to the Freer and Sackler museums/gallery. Both of these had Japanese exhibits that Abigail wanted to see.

We left uncle sam's this morning. :( we're now headed 2 branson, mo. We will stay @ the branson condo for a week. (im missing alot of u. Some more than others, but. . . . :) ) we are having a ton of fun though!!!

Washington DC

We had a wonderful day walking and walking and walking and walking.......(get the picture) around DC today.

We are becoming pros on the Metro (thanks to our time in Chicago a few years ago, this was a very easy thing for us to pick up). We took the train into DC and had lunch at Union Station (yes, we had a late start!). Then we did the rounds of the Monuments - a very neat experience. It has been very nice to be seeing this as a family since Kerry and Kenneth just did this trip last year with CloseUp and have had lots of their favorite things to share with Abigail and I - they also know where all the bathrooms are already!

We actually didn't get to go up on the Lincoln Memorial because someone left their backpack up there and they cleared the whole place out just as we got to the steps!

Kerry, Abigail and even Kenneth have taken some great pictures of all the sites.

Tomorrow we are going to hit the museums.

Abigail also got to visit her first GO club tonight and have some lessons and then play a few games against her instructor. She really enjoyed that and is hitting very strongly that since next year's US GO Congress will be held in Colorado Springs, that she should get to go visit her relatives down there next summer around that time.....

Philadelphia - Philly Cheesesteaks - Friends- History and ChinaTown

We had the BEST time in Philadelphia yesterday. We had our first Philly cheesesteaks which were absolutely delicious! Had a great time with our friend Connie- thanks for giving us the tour and hanging out with us Connie!

    We enjoyed seeing the historical landmarks, Liberty Bell, Franklin Square, etc. There were a few other surprises we encountered that we weren't expecting, but we had a great time overall.

Another highlight today was when we walked right past ChinaTown on our way to City Hall.  Abigail was almost beside herself with joy about being that close, so we actually went down the street a little way and let her go into a gift shop where she got herself a few fans and a scroll with a cherry blossom tree on it - yes, I know that is not the Japanese term, but that is what I know it as!  For those of you who don't know - Abigail is obsessed with Asian things, so this was a huge thing for her to experience.

We headed down the road and had dinner in Maryland then kept driving. We drove around a little in DC to see it at night with all the lights and then got to our hotel about Midnight. Needless to say, we all slept very well.

We r eating dinner @ the George Washington University.

The national museum of american history has little/no cell siginal. . .

We're in DC now.

We're up and getting ready.

Finally.....sleep!

We'll we made it to our hotel in NJ.  Since it was raining in NY, we did more of a driving tour than the walking tour we had planned.  So, we are settling in for the night.  We've had our swimming time, ordered a pizza and are planning an early night!  

Tomorrow - Philadelphia!

Well we're in New Jersey - very tired but were going to go swimming.

Getting the car, and retreiving the map

Ok. So we get off the plane, go to the bathroom, get our breakfast at dunkin’ donuts, and get on the shuttle to the car rental building. Once we get there our driver (Jose) helps us get our luggage out of the shuttle and into the building. After we tip Jose we go inside and sit down while dad goes to the counter to get our car. After a while we go outside to find a 2009 Blue Dodge Caravan waiting for us. So we load up and are just about ready to go in less than 1 minute when this lady comes up to the side of the van and says, “Excuse me, but I think this is OUR car. See on this little slip of paper the rental agency gave us it has the license plate number of this car.” Then dad says, “Maybe, but the agent called us out here and said this was our car.” (Dad and the Lady went off to dispute it with the Agent.) We got the car.

            So we’ve situated ourselves in the car and are headed down the highway at something around 70 MPH, when I hear dad say, “…Kenneth has a map in his suitcase that has everything marked up on it.” (Now, a Dodge Caravan has those “stow-and-go” seats. And when we were loading up the suitcases in the BACK of the Van, Abigail started arguing with me over who’s bag went in first, well I ended up putting my bag in first and that means that my suitcase is on the bottom in the back of the van moving down the highway at 70 MPH…. – I bet you can guess what dad said next…) Yep! Your RIGHT! He said, “Kenneth go get the map.” So I had to get up and go to the back of the van, fold down half of the back seat and pull up my suitcase. Yeah. Fun. J really it was. (Abigail was freaking out the whole time…) LOL and can you guess where in my suitcase this map was? That’s Right. The VERY bottom. It was the first thing that I put into my suitcase. J

Just landed in boston. *yawn* morning.

LA2Boston

On the plan getting ready to fly from LA2Boston. I'm tired.

We've boarded the flight 2 boston. C u in the morning!!!

Flight to LAX

On the way to LA. ;-)

LAX

So, we get off our flight at LAX and ask them how we get from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4.  We are told to wait in this little cordoned off area for a shuttle.  Suddenly the lady rushes us and a few others down a hall, out a door and tells us to go down these steps outside the building to the bus.  Ok, not to weird...what's bizarre though is while we are heading down the hallway I hear someone call out my name!  One of the teachers for KGH is sitting in the boarding area and happens to see us - talk about a small world.

So, back to the shuttle....we start driving in this little bus (it didn't seem quite so little until we were driving along side a very LARGE plane and our shuttle didn't even come up to the bottom of the plane!) right down the same area the planes are driving around on!  Just a little unusual - but no fear!  They have little signs up on the road that say "Stop for Aircraft"  Just a little reminder I guess to the bus drivers in case they get bored and decide to play chicken with the planes.  I'll try to get Kerry to post a picture of one of those signs.

      HAHA - You THINK????

The shuttle then takes us to a "sterile area", we pick up more passengers and then they drop us off and have us wait in this little enclosed area....still right next to the runway where these LARGE planes are making their way past us.  Finally another bus picks us up and takes us to another "Sterile area" where we head into Terminal 4 for our wait for the next flight.

:) safe landing in L.A.!!! we r now waiting 4 our red eye flight 2 boston.

On the plane again to LA.

We just boarded our connecting flight 2 L.A. we will be departing shortly. prayers 4 safe travel please. :) we'll update u from L.A.

Flight to Seattle

On the plane to Seattle - still excited about starting the trip!

SEATAC

As you can see from the previous posts ---Kerry set things up so we can post to the blog from our cell phones.  That makes it really convienent for posting, but it also means we get to translate from teen text language!

So, things have gone very well so far.  We arrived in Seattle a little earlier than planned, have eaten lunch - I of course had the Mango Salsa Chicken salad at Qdoba's.  I love eating there anytime we are in the Seattle Airport.

After eating lunch, we had to make our way to the N Terminal.  Since we are carrying 8 bags between us, Kerry very thoughtfully stopped and got us a SmartCarte to help us move all the bags.  However, when we got to the elevator/escalator area, the elevator was temporarily out of order!    So, Kerry and Kenneth broke all escalator rules and put the cart on the escalator with Kerry going down backwards holding it up and Kenneth squatting down behind it holding on the  other end of the cart!  But, we made it to the train with no mishaps.

Now, we are just hanging out snoozing, chatting, etc. waiting for the next flight.  We got a great view of the Alaska Airlines plane that has the paint job designed by Sitkan High School student Hannah, but didn't get to fly on it.

We r here @ seatac for 1.75 more hours. Then we leave 4 L.A. Once we get 2 L.A. we will switch 2 american airlines and fly 2 boston.

We just landed in seattle. Its 1257 local time.

We just landed in Seattle.

On the plane in sitka

I love texting :)

Hi

awesome

25 hours!

We head to the airport in about 24 hours and take off in approximately 25 hours! I believe everyone's suitcases are actually packed and we are just checking off the last minute things to put in the carry-ons.

Actually we are all just taking carry-ons - no checked baggage. We didn't want to arrive in Boston and need to start driving but have to wait around for lost luggage. And then after we made the decision to just take carry-ons, the airlines started charging even for the first checked bag....so, 1 small suitcase and one other bag for each of us. It is actually working better than I thought it would. Spacesaver bags are great for getting lots of things packed in a small space.

We made up notes for the kids to put in all the newspapers they deliver to let their customers know that they would be gone and who the substitute carrier would be. It paid off because Abigail received a VERY big tip from one of her customers (needless to say she will be buying dinner for us along the way :-) ). Kenneth has a note to stop in and see one of his customers for a tip, so they are very excited about that.

Well, still have a few loose ends to tie up so until then.....

Packing

It helps to pack your overnight bag a few days before you leave and then to live out of it - that way you discover all the things that you would be sorry you forgot to take on your trip. Like your toothbrush.

The Route

So, our next 3 weeks will loosely follow this plan (yes - plan! I am a planner after all!)-

Friday - Leave Sitka, fly to Seattle then to LAX and then overnight to Boston.

Saturday - Arrive in Massachusetts early morning - drive through Rhode Island, Connecticut and into Manhattan. From Manhattan, we will head to New Jersey.

Sunday - We plan to explore Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with a friend and then head to the DC area, catching Delaware and Maryland on the way.

Monday - Wednesday - Exploring DC - Kerry and Kenneth went to DC last year for CloseUp and are excited about showing stuff to Abigail and I.

Wednesday-Friday - Head to Virginia to visit family and catch up with some friends who just moved down there. We plan to see Jamestown while in the area.

Saturday - Head toward Branson - catching West Virginia on the way.

Sunday-Saturday - A week relaxing in Branson.

Sunday-Monday - Visiting family in Rogers, AR.

Tuesday - Heading North - plan to catch Indiana and check it off our list.

Wednesday - Drive through Ohio, Michigan and into Canada to Niagara Falls. Since this will be Canada Day, we will get to see a fireworks display over the Falls.

Thursday - Drive through New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and back into Massachusetts.

Friday - Monday - Explore Boston and other areas, including Maine.

Monday - Tuesday - Start the 2 day trip home.

I didn't give lots of detail on our itinerary...this will keep from spoiling the daily surprise of where we've been and what we've done each day. :-)

Down to 73 hours now...

My mom's description of my attitude/mood right now is fairly accurate. I never really get very excited about a trip untill the day/night before we leave. Then I'm so energized I have a little difficulty sleeping.... Anyway figured i'd add to the countdown of hours. T-73 hours!

83 HOURS

Well, we head off the island in about 83 hours and are all in various stages of excitement.

I, of course, am trying to make sure all the details are in place, the suitcases are being packed by their respective owners, the house is clean and ready for the house/dog/church sitters, the TRIP FOLDER is organized with all the reservations, maps and other important documents. And at the same time, I am trying to do all my regular tasks at work and at home - just your typical mom type activities.

Kerry is probably just waiting for the trip to start, hoping his cold goes away before he gets on the plane, and wishing I would chill out.

Kenneth - well, Kenneth is a typical teenage boy...."trip? yeah, we leave some time and are gone for a while and it should be fun"

Abigail - typical pre-teen...."YES! I'm getting off the island! Gonna go shopping....what else are we doing?"

Just kidding! We are all very excited and have been looking forward to this trip for quite a while. The kids have lists of things things they want to do and places they want to see. Kerry and I are looking forward to seeing new areas and seeing friends and family.

Our goal with this blog is to try to enter something daily about what we have done and post pictures of our trip.

We leave on Friday, June 12 and will keep you up to date on our excursion and all the excitement that goes with traveling across country for 24 days with 2 teenagers, a laid back dad and a detail oriented mom!