Family Road Trip Part 1

We began out trip late Thursday evening after work to get a head start on the 8 hr drive to Colorado Springs.

We finally made it out of town around 7 pm and drove into Goodland, Ks at nearly 10 pm. About 2 hrs into the drive our girls started asking the dreaded question..."when are we gonna be there?"...and we knew then it could be a long week!

The next morning we woke up and it was snowing. The girls were very excited to see snow, but we were not since it would most likely slow down our travel time. Fortunately, it didn't seem to last and once we were an hour or so into Colorado it had pretty much stopped.

We were very thankful that we broke up the drive to Colorado Springs as we were able to get there by noon on Friday. We ate at this really cool restaurant that had a actual plane built into the building and we were able to eat in the plane...and play in the cockpit.

We then went to tour the Cave of the Winds that afternoon.

We chose a hotel in Manitou Springs, just outside of Colorado Springs and after settling into our room and resting for a little bit, we went down and had dinner at a fondue place in downtown Manitou Springs. It was a really fun experience to enjoy as a family.

It was EXTREMELY cold in Colorado and on Saturday we were not able to go do the sightseeing activities we had planner because it was just too cold to be outside. So, we improvised and found a mall where the girls and I got pedicures.

Chris was very patient and to reward him we found a local spa and set him up for an massage appointment. While Chris was at his appointment, the girls and I headed to Target to stock up on a few supplies, including a couple of long sleeved shirts. We were not expecting such cold weather and we had clearly not packed enough warm clothes.

That evening we met up with my good friend Lauren and her husband Adam for dinner at a local eatery. We enjoyed seeing her and meeting Adam, as it had been long overdue.

Once we were done with supper, we headed back to the hotel to let the girls swim in the pool before hitting the sack early as we planned to leave the next morning extremely early!

We had the vehicle packed with everything except the clothes we were going to wear, which made it super easy for getting up at 4:15 AM. Our goal was to scoop up the kids and hopefully get some driving time in while the kids slept in the car. Unfortunately they didn't fall right back to sleep as we originally hoped for and both Maddie and Brooke fought car sickness with all the curves and elevation changes that come along with driving in the mountains.

Sunday was our long driving day as we were going from Colorado Springs through Utah and down to Las Vegas. It was over a twelve hour drive with bathroom breaks and we went from frigid 12 degrees in the mountains to 88 degrees in Vegas...so we did a lot of shedding of clothes throughout the day. The mountains were beautiful and we saw them at sunrise, which was awesome!

We made a quick stop at Grand Junction, CO for gas and to get the girls changed out of their pj's before heading into Utah. Maddie had asked to change seats with me at Grand Junction and I had informed her that she would have to keep daddy company since I would be in the back an most likely fall asleep. She assured me that she would, but when I woke up...I woke up to a car full of sleeping kids! Maddie had apparently gone to sleep about 15 min after the other two girls and I had, leaving Chris to fend for himself to stay awake by eating twizzlers and guzzling energy drinks.

I immediately switched seats back and saw why it was so difficult to drive in Utah. It is the most barren country EVER! It was canyons on the right...

and barren land on the left.

 There were no towns along the highway, which surprised us as it was Interatate 70 and ever exit said "no services available". It was a good thing that we had filled up with gas before we left Grand Junction because I'm not sure what we would have done. There was no signs of life at all...no towns...no houses....no trees...nothing! And to say driving in Kansas is boring...I would have given anything to have been driving in the plains at that moment...at least it's green! We had packed fixings for a lunch, which came in handy at this point, since there was no pulling over for a happy meal anywhere.

 The drive was much more bearable once we got to Salina, UT (ironic, huh!)

 and we made good time getting into Las Vegas around 5:30 pm that evening. We were thankful that we had gotten up early and the kids did relatively well on such a long day of driving. We were thankful for iPads and vehicle DVD players, as they kept our kiddos well entertained throughout the day. I don't know how we managed road trips before them!

Well...that is the start to our first family road trip. Stay tuned for more!

Our First Family Road Trip

Back in early October, we packed up our car and set out for our first family road trip!

This trip was planned specifically at this time of year because for several years I have been wanting to go to the International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta in Albequerque, New Mexico. For one... I thought it would be an unbelievable sight to see in person and ever since I became interested in photography I have wanted to take pictures of the beauty of hundreds of hot air balloons lifting off the ground and floating in the sky.

This was our first family vacation with just Chris, the girls and I. In planning, we started talking about how close we were going to be to the grand canyon and since Chris and the girls had never seen it, we decided to add that destination onto our plans. And once we decided to go over into Arizona, we realized we were only 4 hours away from Las Vegas! Now most of you know that Chris and I have been to Vegas many times and that we feel very strongly about that not being a place to take your kids. However, because we have been to Vegas so many times we have developed a close friendship with a couple that live there and they have never met our kids. So we broke our cardinal rule about not taking kids to Vegas and added that as a "brief" stop on our trip to visit our good friends Rey, Karen and their son Ryan.

When deciding how we should get back home, we figured it was easier and more fun to essentially make a loop and come home going through Colorado Springs and that way I could visit my friend Lauren who lives there.

In all the planning and mapping out of our road trip and determining what we wanted to accomplish at each of our destinations as well as taking into effect the most effective driving solution...we ended up flipping our trip around and heading through Colorado Springs first. We then traveled through Utah to Las Vegas, from there to Arizona and the Grand Canyon and onto our original destination of Albequerque to finish the trip off by seeing the beautiful balloons!

We made this trip in just 10 days.

I can't wait to tell you more about it and all the fun experiences we had...but that will have to wait til next post.

Stay tuned...and I promise there will be pictures!

A Different Look at the Johnson's

We had a few changes around here that has given a couple of us a different look about them...

Brooke lost her very first tooth!

And she was so proud...she couldn't wait to put her tooth under her pillow for the tooth fairy.   Another milestone for this family that has come and gone for each one of my kids. *sigh*

And additionally...on Monday she chopped of all of her hair for the first time...

And now she has such a cute little bob! She is growing up way to fast!

Speaking of growing up too fast...our Maddie now has braces!

She was so excited (yes, I said excited) to get braces. She has been so good about cleaning them and making sure she doesn't eat anything she isn't suppose to. (I wonder how long that will last?). But she looks so much older with them.

It is just so hard for me to face the fact that my kiddos are really growing up.

Summer...in a LONG nutshell

There is so much I want to post about our summer.  I think this is the longest post I have every written...so prepare yourself.  Grab a cup of coffee, sit down and enjoy!  :)

Let's go back to where we left off at our last post....the month of May.  Our family got to do something fun and exciting this year at the end of May.   We were able to go to the farm and experience wheat harvest up close and personal.

Growing up in Kansas, Chris and I both have been exposed to harvest time...but neither one of us are farm kids...so we have never been required to go out and help with the intense process of harvesting wheat!  Typically harvest time occurs in the first couple weeks of June.  However, this year, with all the dry and hot weather in Kansas, harvest came early...and the combines were in the fields just shortly after Memorial Day!

My friend Amber was kind enough to invite our family out one evening to ride in the combine and allow us to experience what harvest is really all about.

Everyone got their turn riding in the combine one by one with Amber's dad.  However, Waco, Amber husband kept the girls busy in the "mule" while the others took their turn in the combine.  I think Ashlyn liked the mule more than she did the combine...probably because Waco was kind enough to let her drive it.   I know what your thinking...SCARY!  He was a brave man.

Chris and I enjoyed this experience probably as much as the girls did.

Can you tell this boy wasn't raised on a farm?

After the girls each got their "ride" in the combine, it unfortunately had a part break and they had to shut down harvest that evening early.  While Amber's dad, Waco and Chris worked on fixing the piece that was broken...I took the opportunity to get some fun pictures...

We even drove out into the wheat to get some pictures out there as well.

One of the funniest things that happened that evening was when we drove the mule out into the wheat field to get our pictures.  Maddie was the one driving and as she puts her foot on the pedal and starts off....out of nowhere, she starts singing the Dierks Bentley country song...."5-1-5-0, somebody call the po po".  It was hilarious considering she was was the one driving!

Wheat harvest is honestly a beautiful sight to see!  We were so glad we got to be a part of it this year!

The month of June was crazy busy with ballgames!  Maddie joined the Shocker's softball team this year and played with all her friends from school.

We were so proud of Maddie...our #03!

Unfortunately, the Shockers did not win any of their games...this was their first season with the girls actually pitching the ball.  Needless to say...we had a lot of "walks".  But that is okay...they had so much fun and learned a lot.  Next year will be even better!

This year at our church's VBS... the kids were challenged to raise a specific amount of money for a family from our church that has just gone into missions overseas.  The challenge was that if they were able to raise enough money, Deb, one of the VBS volunteers, would shave her hair.  Well, the kids were able to meet the challenge and Ashlyn was one of the kids picked to help shave off her hair.  She thought that was pretty cool!

June also consisted of church camp.  Maddie and Ashlyn have gone for a few years now, but this was Brooke's first year to be able to go!   Brooke had a blast a day camp and I was able to go along and enjoy it with her.  Her favorite things were learning and singing about God...

...and playing with worms!

That was NOT mommy's favorite part!

One of the best parts of camp is making friends and spending the week with them.  When I was a little girl, my friend Dulcinea and I would look forward to camp each year...because that was the only time we got to see each other.   This is a picture of Dulcinea and I one year at church camp...

I think it is so neat that the girls get to go to the same church camp that I went to as a kid.   It was really exciting for Maddie to share that experience with her best friend Madi this year, who was able to go with her to camp.  We took this picture right before I left after dropping them off for the week.  I love how it resembles the picture of me above.

The months of July and August were much less busy and we were able to do some of the fun things that you only are able to do in the summertime...like go to the lake and to the pool!

We had to pick and choose our days because this was one of the hottest summers in years and shockingly, some days were just too hot to be outdoors at all!  But we were able to make it to the lake a couple times...

Our first trip out was just us five and Maddie got to drive the jet ski by herself for the first time! 

The other trip we brought Maddie's bestie Madi and her sister Emma out with us.

The girls took turns riding the Jet Ski with Chris...

Chris had fun with an older rider that was not scared to go fast and make lots of waves...

 ...and he took advantage of it!  However, I think Emma enjoyed it just as much as he did!

In the meantime...I enjoyed watching from the sidelines.  I even was able to get a picture with two of my favorite people...

This July was a milestone birthday for Chris' mom!  She turned the big 6-0!   We had a birthday party for her and I was in charge of making the cake.  As if I don't need another hobby...but cake making has been something that I've been dabbling with off and on.  This was the most challenging cake I have ever made...but I was pleased with how it turned out. 

 It was very appropriate for Pam...since she is an avid quilter.  That is even a picture of her quilt that was transferred onto fondant.  Everything was edible on the cake except the pins in the pin cushion.  

Her party was a complete surprise, which was very difficult to pull off as Pam really is the one that "holds us all together" and the one that plans all the parties and events.  She was even a good sport when all the kids wrapped her up in crate paper.

Plus...it was a good chance to get a picture of her with the grandkids, most of which were there.

That's all of them except for three!

Because of the extreme hot and dry summer, the sunflowers were blooming earlier than normal and Maddie and I found a beautiful sunflower field that we were able to go out and take some pictures in...

I absolutely adore sunflowers!  But nothing can beat a huge beautiful field of them!

Brooke and I were able to spend an afternoon together with my friend Katie and her daughter Faith.  We went to the Salina Community Theater and saw their production of Cinderella! 

  The girls even got to take their picture with Cinderella herself!

As I said before...we finally were able to spend some time in the pool as well late this summer.  

I think this was the only moment of relaxation we got...before all the kids started jumping in.

And of course...Madi joined us at the pool too!  

If you haven't noticed...Maddie and her best friend Madi are inseparable.   They were hanging out with each other the entire summer.  They are two goofy girls!  Here they are dancing to the Cha Cha Slide...

They finally allowed Ashlyn to join in...

So goofy!

Brooke, on the other hand, didn't have a desire to dance along with them...she was doing her own thing...

This picture makes me laugh every time I see it...Brookie in her own world, doing her own thing!

When August rolled around, I was able to have one quick relaxing day away with my girlfriends.  My friend Jill turned 30 this year and planned a fun spa day in Hays.  When she planned it a year ago, she had no idea that it would also be sort of a going away party as well as celebrating her birthday.  Jill ended up moving right before our trip to south-westish Kansas for her husband's new job.  So, this was a great way for us to get to see her and hang out with her since we won't be able to do that as often.  Our friend Dana moved earlier this year and it just isn't the same without her and Jill nearby!  

This is the four of us getting ready to leave town and head to Hays...Jess, Katie, Julie and I.

The Rock Haven spa in Hays is awesome and so reasonably priced.  We enjoyed a day of relaxation with soaking in the hot tub, massages and pedicures.

Hopefully we can make it a tradition to go there at least once a year...and maybe Dana will be able to join us next time and then it will be complete!  Thanks Jill for the great idea...it was perfect before getting back into normal school year routine.

And, speaking of school year... that is where I will end my post today.  School is back in session and this year was a momentous occasion for the Johnson's...as we sent our last kiddo off to Kindergarten.  UGH!  That is so hard for me to accept!

Maddie and Ashlyn started a day before Brooke.  So, now we officially have a 5th grader and a 3rd grader...

and one in Kindergarten... sniff.. sniff...

She was so brave on her first day.  She had her back pack on and was ready to go.

Hello Kitty...are you surprised?

And she was so excited to ride the bus. 

So...now we begin the next chapter...with our three little ladies!