Catching up on 2009 - Driving to D.C.

We've had a great Christmas and New Year's break, and were able to enjoy all the time off because of the snow storm and the holidays. Can't believe it's a new year, so before it gets too far along we need to catch up on what happened in 2009 between our posts of leaving Shanghai in July and our Winter Wonderland post two weeks ago. Thanks to a boring Sugar Bowl blowout, we have time to put some pictures and work on this.

The day we flew back to the U.S., we flew the "unfriendly skies" of United from Shanghai to San Francisco. Morgan and the three girls had the four seats in the middle section and I was on the aisle seat across the aisle in the same row. As a flight attendant came walking through to check for seat belts while we were taxiing, she saw Morgan and the girls and let out a grunt as she closed her eyes and looked at my section and said, "Oh great, kids..." I replied sternly back to her "and they're very cute, aren't they." To the attendant's credit, she was wonderful to us and the kids had a great flight.

We split up in S.F., Morgan and the girls flew to my parents' home while I flew to D.C. to sign into my new job. After a couple of days, I flew out to catch back up with my four ladies. On the flight out of Washington Reagan Airport, I had a beautiful view of D.C. The goose bumps just hit all over as I looked at the city that makes our country free and great... welcome back to America!

The vacation plan:

1. Stay with Tim's parents and attend Morgan's grandparents' family reunion

2. Wyoming for a visit with Morgan's family

3. Kansas/Oklahoma to visit more family

4. Indiana to visit friends from Shanghai

5. Ohio to pick up Binx and visit family

All totaled: 3,000 miles, 2 adults, 3 children in car seats, a dog, and our luggage all in a Toyota Camry.

Reloading the car after one of our stops. All this fit in our trunk...

After the trunk was packed...

Adayla posing for a picture

The car was the girls' playground...

and bedroom...

After not having a car for two years, the girls were thrilled to have their own "taxi." They called us "shifu" (what we called the taxi drivers in China) whenever we drove them anywhere.

Tim's parents took the girls to Thanksgiving Point where among other things they could get pony rides

Hanging out at Morgan's Mom's parents with lots of their cousins... two shown here. You have to watch Max, he'll steal your shake!

A bridge across Provo Creek...

Then it was up to Wyoming for a visit with Big Grandpa

where Ryann found one of her favorite things... water slides!

She found another fun water activity... playing in the sand mud while the big kids went power tubing

Corde showed us how to do it...

while Jeremy tried to kill us...

Morgan holding on for dear life

We camped out here overnight (we being everyone except for Dad and Tim who drove home to sleep in a bed). Little Bridger is very used to the camping lifestyle where he marks his territory.

Cropping the picture reveals how much Bridger enjoys this activity. Good height and distance Bridger! Tim says he has no idea how he'd deal with little boys, they're just so different!

After two days of sun and water, the girls were wiped out. Thankfully Julionna has a couple of shoulders to lean on...

and Corde has a shoulder for Ryann as well!

One day Corde took us out to see his horses. Adayla and Tally were so excited to see all of the horses. In fact, Tally asked "Untle Tord, is this your cow?"We stopped to see this dig site that was discovered while building I-90. Native Americans chased buffalo into this pit where they fell to their death or were trapped and crippled for easy kills. The site is recovering bones and provides insights into their hunting practices and culture.

I'm sure Native Americans were smarter than to tease rattlesnakes, but for the rest of us dumb Americans we need signs telling us not to do so

Built teepee, found squaw, here we are!

It was so much fun bonding with Bridger

But it was time to get on the road again

The drive to Kansas was filled with windmills... something that changed in the two years since we last drove this stretch of highway.

At Grandma and Grandpa's house in Wichita, Adayla and Tally were able to ride the same toys that Morgan's Dad did back in the day, and Morgan and her siblings rode as well.

How many miles have these tires seen?

Grandma's wall of pictures of her great-grandkids...

Grandma was so excited for Ryann's visit that she put up a place marker for her picture...

We then drove with Grandma and Grandpa from Wichita to visit Shayla and Brigham down in Oklahoma to hang out with big Max again...

Shay took us to a great "old school" playground. I remember slides like this. I think the danger of such slides made them that much more fun. The girls loved this slide.

The pictures don't capture how frickin' hot it was there... 108 during the day and mid-90's at night. Fortunately Brig had a fun way for the kids to cool down while jumping on the trampoline...

Shayla "holding" Avalon while the rest of the kids play...

Water! While cheese just makes food taste better, water just makes games that much more fun!

Then it was time to get on the road again... destination: Jasper, Indiana to visit some special friends that had also just moved from Shanghai: Kathleen, Liam and Collin (yes Jeff, you're excluded from the list because of your business trips back to China).

Jasper is a cute little German town suspended in time. From the German-American banks to the Maypole in the center of town. Kathleen took us to one of the main hang-outs in town, and the most popular restaurant in town, German restaurant the Schnitzelbank or "the Schnitz" for short!

It was amazingly busy for a summer weekday lunch, we can only imagine what it's like for a weekend dinner. Good food, great atmosphere, and outstanding company... who needs chain restaurants?

Some of the cutest to watch was Collin and Ryann. Collin was a very generous host, making sure that Ryann was taken care of.

If we could just clone a litte Collin and preserve him just this size... he is just so cute.

The next stop on our trip was Cincinnati, Ohio to be reunited with our little dog Binx and visit Bryan and Chelsie and their little boy Maddox.

Bryan helped Tim further re-acclimate into American culture by taking him to the King's Island amusement park with Bryan's two brothers Andy/Drew and Ethan. Tim grew up with sister-park King's Dominion in Virginia and was excited to get to ride the Beast.

Tim remembers amusement parks having a minimum height requirement to ride the rides, but now now there are height AND weight requirements, courteously enforced by this example outside of the ride. You can either sit in the test seat to see if you fit, or if you think you're boarderline you can look at the employee and if you're as big or bigger than she is, you can't ride the ride. The boy in the picture is wondering if he'll be able to make it.

After doing research for a case study in my MBA program for Coke vs Pepsi in the 21st century, I found that on average 30% of all Americans beverage consumption is soda. But I was shocked to see a 20-ounce bottle of Coke for $3.75!

The ultimate in water rides...

Question: How do you know if a pilot is in the same room as you?

Answer: He'll tell you!

Did you know that Tim is a pilot? :-)

How cool are these rides? No sitting required for this ride...

While we were able to "fit" into our rides early in the day...

After 10,000+ calories acquired from potato wedges, pizza, chili dogs, Coke, funnel cakes...

and ice cream! We proved that our minds are still youthful, but our bodies aren't so much any more as there was no way that we could stay the whole day and continue to ride the rides without "losing" all that good grease and fat we had consumed throughout the day. The problem with only going to an amusement park once a year is that I feel the need to eat everything I can in one day.

This was military appreciation week at the park and somehow they associate appreciating the military with hosting... Oliver North.

The time was short and we had to get on the road again. Binx and his cousin Maddox played one more time before saying goodbye. They had become such good buddies over the last two years, it was almost sad to make them say goodbye.

The funny story of reuniting with Binx was that the girls were so excited to see Binx that we somehow forgot one small detail... that they knew what Binx looked like. Adayla was 2 1/2 when we left Binx at Bryan and Chelsie's house and Tally was only 1. When we walked into their home, the dogs were very excited and putting on a great show. Tally was so excited to see her dog... and asked, "Which dog is our dog?!" It was so cute. The rest of our time there she repeatedly reminded Maddox "you are not our dog."

We reloaded the car and added Binx and his stuff to the mix and were on our way to Washington D.C. That's how quickly 27 days go.