Trips

When someone says the "more the merrier" I take that as an invitation! These may happen...

1. San Vito lo capo, Italy, 2018

  

2.  Hawaii, 2019

Vegas Baby !

this is where I will be for the next 6 days !

 

I can't wait to nap at this pool

 



up all night, sleep by the pool. that's the plan, YOLO 

travel

i hope

I hope someday my children do this for me. I read this in Readers Digest and thought it was great

travel tips

i HAVE to remember some of these

5 days off !

It has been a long time since i have had 5 days off in a row, yes i did just go to New York but it really wasn't a "true" vacation. I am looking forward to doing nothing or making last minute plans, cooking thanksgiving dinner, black friday shopping and napping

December 1st

• stayed in my pajamas all day
• last day off and i don't feel good, i am not happy about this

November 30

• stayed in my pajamas until 5
• dinner at mamma mia's with Char & Paul, Debbie, Mavis & Phil, Dan & Micailly, Aubri & sheena, Steve and I

November 29

• up at 4:30, we went to Walmart, Menards, Art Van, Kohls, Payless, JcPenny, Younkers and Target
• 9:20, home and napped until noon
• meat raffle, tina's first time and she won

November 28

• got up to walk a 5k Ipeturkey for hunger with Tina and Sheena
• put the turkey in at 10:30
• watched some james bond
• 12, aubri made cornucopia
• 1:15 ham went in oven
• 2:00 potato peeling
• 2:30 hummus making, veggie tray
• 3:30 cranberry sauce out, stuffing made
• 4:00 DINNER ! Martin almost killed himself by sitting in a chair that totally collapsed. It wasn't funny at first but we eventually laughed about it
• full bellies and we still managed to eat pie
• 8:00 over to Mavis' to visit with everyone, Paul & Char are home from Montreal
• 9 pm, i did not want to go shopping, Aubri wanted to run to Ulta. We then his Best Buy and Target

November 27

• woke up, not in a good mood, had to try and reset that
• watched Gone with the Wind from 10am-3pm while working on 2 binders for aubri's grad party, i got 1 done and 1/2 of the 2nd one. I try to work on this stuff while she is not here.
• took a 3 hour nap
• shopped for thanksgiving
• stopped at Snyders and they had the Black Friday Ads
• shoveled
• baked a pineapple/angel food cake for tomorrow
• Watched Green Lantern

best surprise i have pulled off...to date

December 12th

December 11th

zoo lights, Lincoln park zoo

December 10th

chicago

 

Fort Madison, IA

can you believe I survived...

3119 total miles on family road trip, take that Clark Griswald!

Friday, July 2nd, Day EIGHT

Woke up in Spring Green, WI (2 hotel rooms, it was wonderful!) and headed to the House on the Rock. It was something to see, how someone came up with all that stuff is amazing. We spent 3 hours inside touring and headed home around 4 pm. Six more hours in the car with these people, by this time I was the little engine who could (I think I can, I think I can). We stopped at Mickey Lu's for dinner in Marinette, WI (we love this place). We got home around midnight unpacked and headed to bed.

One final story, I bought myself 3 new pairs of shoes. They were in the ski carrier on the top of the car, Steven took them out and placed them on the hood of the van. Sheena took off in the van to return the movies we had rented that were already overdue. Guess how many pairs of shoes I have now? TWO AND A HALF, I have a pair of flip flops, a pair of black shoes and 1 brown shoe. Just the icing on the cake...

Now that I am home and we all have our space, we had a good time, the places we saw were amazing. If we could have eliminated the fighting siblings and smarth mouths it would have been perfect!

Thursday, July 1st, Day SEVEN

We are in Springfield, IL. I had hoped to hop on Route 66 but that is a pretty hard task to accomplish. When searching online most people want to charge you for a map, parts of Route 66 do not exist anymore, etc. I found a couple original stops on Route 66, Shea's gas station museum which we stopped at and then we had lunch a the Cozy Dog Drive in.

We also went to the Abraham Lincoln museum which was great! I love history and that place was amazing, they had the Gettysburg address on display there (it hasn't been there since 2007) so the girls and I were impressed with that.

Left Springfield, IL to head to Spring Green, WI. More sibling fighting, deep breaths are no longer working...

(Pioneer Days starts on Saturday, July 3rd in Negaunee, will I make it?)

Wednesday, June 30th, Day SIX

Wake up and head to Fort Madison, IA to have lunch with my Aunt Betty. She is the last sibling of my Grandpa Baldock (my fathers dad). I had called her yesterday to ask if she would have time and I could tell she was excited. I didn't want to make plans to far in advance in case we weren't able to make it. We went to the Parthenon for lunch and it was a family restauraunt and everyone picked what they wanted. The boys split a Fort Madison special pizza and it was delicious (too much for them to eat if you can believe it!). I haven't seen my Aunt Betty in about 12 years and I was very glad to be able to make this stop. We took some pictures and it was on the road again...

We were off to Keokuk (about 20 minutes away). My grandparents are buried in the Keokuk National Cemetary along with my grandpa's sister Dee. It was a beautiful cememtary and my Aunt Betty was right, it did look like they cut the grass with sissors.

Next stop was Geode exploring in Keokuk. I wish I could have taken a picture of "Gary", wow is all i can say. I think I will call "American pickers" and tell them to check his place out. He had a pair of glasses on that I am sure my mother owned at one time! Intersting to say the least, we got our hammers and headed on our way! It was hot but the kids had a blast hammering the clay/dirt to look for geodes, well worth this off the road excursion.

More sibling fighting, yes, I need a drink...

Tuesday, June 29th, Day FIVE

We arrive at Adventureland in Altoona, IA around 10 am (adventurelandpark.com). Apparently I have been here when I was younger, I didn't really remember until I saw one ride. The silly silo, that scared the crap out of me when I was young. You spin around and are suctioned to the floor and then the floor drops out, needless to say I did not go on this again. It was hot so we headed to the water park part of the park. I did all the roller coasters and laid in the sun, wonderful!

The boys weren't really into the water/amusement park, what kid doesn't like an amusement park? OK so my nerves are frazzled!!! Please someone help me...


P.S. - I don't know if anyone knows this but my father and his family are from Iowa and that's why I wanted to head there on this trip

Monday, June 28th, Day FOUR

eft our cabin at 9:10 am (not bad, we were shooting for 9:00) to head to Iowa. We drove through the Badlands and it was AMAZING! More pictures to add later...

We were planning on doing a Man vs. Food challenge, or I should say Tyler and Steven were planning on doing that. Instead we found a CiCi's, finally I get to have my macaroni and cheese pizza. It was all wonderful and we stuffed ourselves at the all you can eat pizza and salad bar. This was a long day in the van driving from South Dakota to Iowa and the kids DID NOT ENJOY IT!!! We stopped and did a little shopping and found a hotel around 9:30 pm.

Is it horrible for me to want to stay in this random hotel and let the kids and Steven go on without me? This was by far the worse travel day...

Sunday, June 27th, Day THREE

We woke up, girls weren't hungry but the boys were of course. Stopped at the gas station for some breakfast, nothing but the best for my family! On to Wade's Gold Mill to pan for gold and strike it rich (or at least pay for this trip!). It was fun, the creek was cold and I know I would not have had the patience to do this for a living. We all found gold (very tiny pieces) and garnets. The girls and I will be making garnet earrings with the stones we found.

We ate lunch at a local "grill" and then we headed to Mt. Rushmore. There was an antique shop on the side of the road that we stopped at and i will be definately adding some pictures from that place. Mt. Rushmore was amazing but after all the years of having that on my bucket list, I must say I am more impressed with Crazyhorse!

I was watching other parents with there kids and realized I was not alone in my sibling fighting hell, what was I thinking driving in a van with 4 teenagers...

Saturday, June 26th, Day TWO

once we checked into our cabin we were off again! We went to the Crazyhorse monument which was AMAZING!! It was the sculptors wifes birthday so they were doing a night blast, they also had a laser show! the kids really liked it!!

More sibling fighting every time they get in and out of the car, is it only day two?

Friday, June 25th...Day ONE

okay so I was going to try to post at least a picture everyday and that hasn't happened so I am going to write a little summary of each day and then attach a picture when I get home....

Left Negaunee at 5:10 pm, two siblings fighting as we get into the car, 1 child crying. We stopped in Iron River for pizza. Drove through Wisconsin, Minnesota (great lighting that lit up the whole sky during the night) and then stopped in Wall, South Dakota. We checked out the Corn Palace and HUGE Wall Drug tourist trap. Arrived in Hill City, South Dakota at around 4 pm on Saturday, June 26th...