We made it!! 5,575 miles later we are home!!! Of course, we are leaving for Austin in the morning. No, I'm not joking, we have TASA (Texas Asso. of School Administrators) Conference and dinner plans with several superintendents tomorrow night! However, it is nice to be home and to be able to unpack and relax for a bit. We've already done 4 loads of laundry and unpacked a few bags. It'll take a week to get it all put away!
Scott asked the kids in the car if they were sad to be going home. Thomas said yes, and so did Grace until she asked if she had to go to school on Monday. When we explained that no, she was still out of school, then I think she was glad to be home! They both sat down in the living room floor and emptied their backpacks together, comparing all the souvenirs they bought along the way. 
Then, Scott called a family meeting upstairs and we put pins in the map in all the different places we visited. The kids LOVED this!
We all had a fantastic time!! Yes, we had our ups and downs, but we would have had those even if we'd stayed at home. Yes, we would do it all again. In fact, Thomas and Scott have already planned out the road trip for next year! They want to go to straight up to Chicago, through Michigan, Toronto, Indiana, northern New York up to Niagara Falls. We'll see if that plan sticks!
Then, Scott called a family meeting upstairs and we put pins in the map in all the different places we visited. The kids LOVED this!We all had a fantastic time!! Yes, we had our ups and downs, but we would have had those even if we'd stayed at home. Yes, we would do it all again. In fact, Thomas and Scott have already planned out the road trip for next year! They want to go to straight up to Chicago, through Michigan, Toronto, Indiana, northern New York up to Niagara Falls. We'll see if that plan sticks! Scott and I both agree that traveling East is much more pleasant. The drives between destinations are much shorter than those long drives through the desert and the plains. There are places that we visited this time that we will definitely return to however. Yosemite for certain and the YMCA of the Rockies at Estes Park. I would like to go back to Hearst Castle and do the other three tours! I'm sure that's a long shot though since it's near absolutely nothing! We also decided that the really big cities like L.A. and San Francisco and New York last year, are the hardest on these road trips. The traffic is always difficult and they are really hard to get around with kids.
It's amazing how much the kids learn on these trips. This year we took along scrapbooks that they worked in each night at the hotel. It's really more of a journal. Every night they wrote and illustrated their favorite thing or things we did that day. They taped in postcards, admission tickets and things from the day. In my opinion, these are the coolest souvenirs we have of the trip!
As always we will continue to blog....just not daily!! We are headed on our annual Padre Island family beach vacation next month and we have a long weekend planned in D.C. in August. After that it'll be time for school to start and another summer of Milder travel over! Whew!
Thank you so much to each and every one of you who left comments on the blog or emailed us on the road. The kids loved knowing that you were all following along and looked forward to reading them everyday. That connection to all of you while being so far away was appreciated by all of us. We are blessed to have such wonderful family and friends!!
Blessings,
Leslie
1 comment:
don't know if you're checking the blogger much but i need to know your email address. please send me an email at marshadonathan@yahoo.com and let me know. Thanks
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