{Our Cross Country Trip Begins}

Well it really didn't just begin. It's over with but I am now blogging about it. On May 18th we started our long cross country move to Long Island. We arrived on Long Island June 1st. Overall the trips went really well. We had no major or even minor complications. The children were wonderful, Emberlynn especially. Emberlynn is 18 months and there's nothing more she loves then being in her car-seat. I never remember her crying once, but Jon informed me once when she was hungry and she whined not really cried. We just bought a new car. We turned in our Chrysler Pacifica (my steal I found on craigslist) for our very first mini-van- The 2009 Nissan Quest. We love it. A month before the big purchase I hated the Quest I seriously thought it was the ugliest mini-van on the planet until I got into one. It's now is my favorite and I wouldn't trade it in for anything else. It's loaded with a DVD player, MP3 input, you can even play video games in it too. It's totally awesome and really big. I can 't even tell you how many times I told Jon I am so glad we traded our car at Carmax (I totally recommend this place). It really made our trip cross-country very enjoyable and relaxing.

Because I knew our trip was going to be a long one. I decided to make it special and fun by giving each child a packet with their name on it. Their packet had two maps on it. One to color each state as we drove into it to show our path and another map to show the mountains, plains, weather & other stuff. I loved this little map.

There were also 13 other minilla envelopes with each states name on it. Inside was a state coloring page, a journal page to draw their favorite thing they did in that state as well as write about it too. It also had a fact sheet about the state. Lastly it had a surprise in it; such as, a treat or an activity. For example- in Colorado I bought mineral candy rocks to eat since Colorado it known for it's many minerals. New waterbottles for each child in Nevada cause it's the driest state in the U.S.

When we got up to Utah my sister Kristie gave the kids a bucket full of things to keep them entertained too. Their was polly-pockets, pop-rocks, hand santizer, wipes a disposable camera just for the girls. It also had a jump rope, skip-it, and a frisbee for the stops to get out and play around. This was totally awesome and we say thank you it really made things more exciting. The princess bucket was awesome the stretch from Utah to Colorado was a bit too windy for Addison and she puked 3 times in what became the puke bucket. Way more handier then a grocery bag. I know the bucket wasn't intended for that but I have to say it was a huge life-saver. Thanks Kristie.