Cumming, GA

Hey Everyone,

After many tears we left Mom in Peoria to care for Grandma Judy, who is quite sick. We met Uncle Phil, Matthew, Michael and Stephen in Springfield IL and drove to their town, about an hour and 15 minutes south of Springfield. We drove all night last night, Dad didn't want to stop, and ended up going through Cumming at the time that our Co-op classes were going on. Co-op is through our homeschool group, we get together with other homeschoolers once a week for extracurricular activities. Anyway, we thought it would be fun to stop by Co-op and say hey to everyone! We walked into the building, said hi to some of the moms and then Josh and I went upstairs to the High School Class while Ben, Daniel and Anna stayed in the gym waiting for their friends to come to snack time.  We walked in to the High School class and everyone was so surprised! After some hugs and greetings, we sat in on the class for about 15 minutes when we had a break and then we left. Daniel, Ben and Annie got to see their friends for a bit too! We're so glad to be home, it's nice to be in a bigger area where we aren't walking all over one another.  After seeign the house, we started getting all our stuff out of the RV.  It was a chore, let me tell ya! If you've ever been to our house, you know what a hill we have! We would get the stuff out of the RV, put it in hampers, backpacks and bags, put them in the van and after the van was full, drive the van up the hill.  All in all, we made three trips up the hill to unload and it took about three hours. REMEMBER: Don't stop checking the blog, we are going to clean the RV tomorrow and take it back on Saturday. We can't wait to see ya'll who we haven't seen and tell you all about our adventures!!

Two Days!

Hey All,

Well, today we are going to leave Peoria, Illinois and head home. We wanted to stop by Peoria because it's our "home away from home" or our "second home." Anyway, we are going to leave sometime this afternoon after Dad gets off work and drive to Clarksville or Nashville TN. That will be our last campground! We hope to get home on Thursday evening.  We can't wait to see ya'll! We should be seeing most of you next week!

Happy Birthday Grandpa

Hey All,

Last night, October 11th was Grandpa Joe's (Grandpa Joe is Mom's Dad.) 70th birthday! We met Uncle Mike and Aunt Teresa at Gil's Restaurant, where Grandpa got his catfish that he loves! We had a nice dinner, and came back to the house for ice cream cake. Here are a few pictures from the party!

Grandpa opening his gift from Uncle Mike

The gift was a sign from the lake house
they had when they had the kids growing
up. 

Driving, Driving, Driving through South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois

Hey Everyone,

After we got out of Badlands, we drove all night, stopping a few times at rest areas for dad to sleep.  We got to Peoria Illinois on Sunday evening. Since then the boys, Dad, Josh, Ben and Daniel, have been staying at our Torre Grandparents and the girls, Annie, Mom and I have stayed with the Stein Grandparents.

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

 Hey All,

We went to Badlands NP on Saturday, October 8th, after Wall Drug South Dakota. Wall Drug isn't a drug store, it's a bunch of little old west type of stores, we walked around and bought a few souvenirs. After Wall Drug we drove over to Badlands National Park. Here's what the National Park website says about Badlands:  "People are drawn to the rugged beauty of the Badlands. These geologic deposits contain one of the world's richest fossil beds. Ancient mammals such as the rhino, horse, and saber-toothed cat once roamed here. The park's 244,000 acres protect an expanse of mixed-grass prairie where bison, bighorn sheep, deer, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and black-footed ferrets live today." The deposits are so colorful, reds, greys, greens and even some yellow. Daniel and Anna got their Junior Ranger Badges, I think it's their 12th!  It took us about an hour to go through Badlands, we didn't stop and it was pretty rainy. Here are some pictures:

Wall Drug South Dakota, we're leaning against the posts....

Badlands rock formations

Badlands, it kind of looks like the Painted Desert.

More colored rocks....

Mount Rushmore National Mounument, South Dakota

Hi Everybody,

Annie here again, we went to Mount Rushmore yesterday, October 8th. We saw the four presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln whose faces are on the mountain.  It took 14 years to build it! The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, who had the idea for Mount Rushmore died a few months before Mount Rushmore was unveiled. Did you know that he also sculpted Stone Mountain in Atlanta? Cool huh? Here are some awesome shots of Mount Rushmore!

Mount Rushmore!

It's so neat to be at the places you hear about!

Mom and Dad in front of the Mount

SNOW, in EARLY OCTOBER

Hey all!

So we were driving through Yellowstone on Wednesday and we thought we would stop and camp there in the park at one of the many campgrounds. We pulled in and started to set up our big-rig. We had heard that there was snow in Yellowstone area but we really didn’t expect much accumulation. But we were wrong, oh,were we wrong. We got tops of 2 inches in Yellowstone that evening.  You all know quite well that snow doesn’t come without cold. So there we were, at a campsite with no hookups at all not even water; so we were cold that night. We got up at about 7 o’clock in the morning and proceeded to check the outdoor temperature which, by the way, was a chilled 29 degrees. So we had breakfast and suited up to play in the snow. We had snowball fights and threw snow balls at the side of the RV. All in all we had a barrel load of fun that day.

The site across the road from us

Our RV in the snow

Our van was quiet snowy.....