Counting Sheep: On the road again...

And here we are. Leaving Wisconsin to head home. Hard telling where home is after being gone for so long, and feeling so at home in Elkhart, but we definitely have a home waiting for us in CA!

Do you believe me that there are three kids and a dog in there among that mess? (You're looking at the 2 back rows in the Excursion from the front seat!). Yes, we had the trailer...it was too full! Good thing our initial stretch was only 2 hours to Madison to stay the night with our friends the Geerdinks!

So great to see these guys one last time before leaving the state. Thank you for hosting us!

From Madison, we took off for Eagan, Minnesota, to visit Adam, Shannon, and Alex for the rest of the weekend.

Enjoying cousin Alex's toys!

These boys had no probably making sure EVERY. SINGLE. TOY. was taken out and played with.

We clearly had too much fun hanging out with the MN Anderson's, since I don't have any other pictures to show for it!

Tuesday morning, we climbed back in the truck to officially start our trek home. Thankfully, our master packer managed to reconfigure some things to make the drive home a little safer and more comfortable for everyone! (Arjen and Gus in the way back, you can see the hood on Aotis's blue jacket and his airplane blanket in the middle row)

Driving cross county in the winter has the potential to be a lot more challenging than driving in the summer. The forecast seemed pretty clear, and would only get warmer! (We left degrees in the -teens in Minnesota!) But, by southern Iowa and into Nebraska we did have a light amount of snow.

Can't resist taking a picture of this sign every time we drive past it. I want my name on the interstate!

For whatever reason, they're extremely proud of their wind turbines here...that's a blade standing there next to the rest stop!

Here's what the boys are up to pretty much every day in the car:

So many things in this picture...1) Gus in his phase of not wanting to ever remove his jacket (granted, it was super freezing cold outside, but still...), 2) The headphones over the hood, with the top part in front of the face...I just can't. 3) My three-almost-four-year-old independently navigating his way around "his" phone. I will say, portable technology makes long road trips totally doable!

And this guy:
I was most worried about him on this road trip. He's at that age where he wants to be moving and getting into whatever his brothers are up to, but road-tripping is clearly in his blood. Yes, he had a couple moments of being miserable in his seat, but in the grand scheme of things, he was an absolute almost-one-year-old rockstar!

Then there's our veteran road-tripper. The day we left Minnesota, he complained about feeling sick, but he was still a trooper. He slept a lot more that he usually does, and happily sat in his seat with "his" phone playing games and watching videos. I gotta say, as long as they aren't yacking, it's almost easier to drive with sick kids who are content to just sit all day. My concern for him this trip would be finding enough opportunities for him to run around since it would be so cold outside, but either he knew better than to want to go outside, or more likely, he really didn't feel so good and was actually happy to stay put.

Night one was spent in Cheyenne, WY. Roads were good, forecast clear. So when we set out on Day #2 to discover I-80 was closed, we of course were caught off guard. Assuming McDonalds had a play land, we found ourselves there for breakfast, only to discover they didn't. We played games, used an empty corner to play hide-and-seek, and managed to kill four hours there while we waited for the road to re-open. Moving painfully slow, due to poor road conditions, we made our way across Wyoming, miraculously making it to Salt Lake City for night #2.

Late night lego play in the hotel after being cooped up all day. Aotis was taking notes.

Day #3. In the summer, the Bonneville Salt Flats look like snow. Go figure that they're covered in water and look like a beautiful lake in the winter! Pardon the mess on the windows mucking up this shot, but it was such an amazing view!