Thursday, May 29, 2008

What A Trip.....

Well, we are back. I sure didnt think it would take me this long to post about our trip but we are exhausted! In fact Im struggling with what exactly to write about because there was so much going on. Its going to be a long post.....For those that dont know the details, we went to Kentucky for a family reunion. If any of you have flown recently then you know that going that far isnt cheap and when you multiply that by 6 tickets.....yeah. Thanks to some family angels, we had some help though and were able to go. In order to save about $800, we flew on Spirit Air which does not fly out of SLC....it does fly out of Vegas though. So the first leg of our trip was a 6 hour drive to Vegas. We spent the night at my parents house who just so happen to live there! Thanks guys..... then, because Spirit doesnt fly to Kentucky, we flew into Detroit Michigan where once again we imposed on some really great relatives! Jim Lynn and "the girls" were so very generous to let us stay the night and feed us too! The next morning with a beautiful 2008 Honda Odessey Minivan Rental, we drove off for the 7 hour drive to Drift, Kentucky... Now I can say that I have been to Michigan as well as Ohio since the drive took us literally from the top of the state to the bottom. We arrived around 4:00 pm.....tired and relieved to be there.

The rest of the week we spent there is all a big blur of people. Saturday was the Humble Reunion. This is Denver's mothers' father's side of the family.... Carlotta's dad was Carl Humble. It was a great time with lots of food, games, and prizes. We won $50 for the family that traveled the farthest to get there....isnt that the truth! It was nice to have $50 so we could put it back in to the $4 per gallon gas fund....yikes. After the reunion, we spent lots of time visiting. Sunday, we went to church. It was fun to see some of the people that we went to church with for the year we lived there. Unfortunately attendance has really dwindled in the little ward and there were many that we didnt see. Denver and I spoke during Sacrament meeting and even though I was VERY stressed out about it, I think we both did great. Lots of tears.....nothing new for me. Everyone from Michigan came down and so around 55 people showed up for a BBQ on Sunday evening at Scott and Stacys new house. Luckily their deck is HUGE and accomodated everyone! We ended that evening playing SingStar on the Playstation and that is the most fun I have had in a long time! Its like competition Karaoke. I cant tell you how much fun it was and everyone participated. Even Alec who really wanted to play but was acting like a teenager and pretending to be too embarrassed and cool......after he sang a song, it was ON and he very easily took the Mic again and again. Even Ian and Evan played and sang a couple of songs. We are going to have to buy it for sure! I will tell you though....if you are about to go head to head with Kailey Jo Shannon, you better just put your money on the table. This girl put ALL of her 9 years into her performance. It was so cute. She needs to go on American Idol. Im embarrassed to admit that she beat me on 2 songs that she shouldnt even know considering they were popular when I was like 10. "The Final Countdown", and "We're not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister..... Wow.

Monday morning, we went to Don and Carlottas for "Car-Cars breakfast".... she (with some others) made breakfast for all 55 people. Biscuits and Gravy, eggs, potatos, fried apples, bacon, sausage. More food than you could imagine. Very Southern. Then the Michigan people headed out. We spent the rest of the day visitng with some family that we hadnt seen yet. Cathi and Dicky and Aunt Sally. We were sad that we didnt have more time to visit each of them but there had just been too much going on. We are happy that we got to see them at least for a little bit.

The next morning we headed back to Michigan after a stop to see the dentist. Dicky was going to fill a couple of cavaties that the boys have but apparently their dentist here in SLC is a bit money hungry and was going to do unecessary work on our kids. They checked out with a clean bill of teeth health and we hit the road. 7 hours back to Michigan.....ugh. We arrived around 8pm, got to bed at 11pm, got up at 3:30 a.m., took off for Vegas at 6:00 am, arrived at 7:45 am (4 hour flight but you lose 3 hours going west)....had to get Alec to his plane to Phoenix at 9:00 am, left Vegas in our own van that my mom brought to us at 9:45 a.m and finally ate breakfast after 10 hours with no food. Finished the trip with a 6 hour drive back to SLC. WHEW......... I feel like Ive been hit by a freight train and Im not sure it was worth saving the $800. But, the kids really had fun and so did we after all is said and done. Addie loved everyone, but especially Josh! Ive NEVER seen her flirt like that before. Thanks to everyone that helped us out there....we miss you already.

2 comments:

Turleygirl said...

I am exhausted just hearing about it. How fun though! Glad you got to go. What a fun family time.

Melanie said...

Wow! You are great parents to make that huge effort! I'm glad it was fun and I hope you find the time to unwind (you kind of need a vacation after a vacation, right?) and get settled.