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.