Road Trip part I

The time came to pack in the car and head to our new home in Rochester, MN.  Our original plan was to fly and have our car shipped, then we snapped back into reality and remembered we don't have a million dollars.
So we drove.
The car was jam-packed.  Like, we had to leave plastic kid dishes behind and deflate the swimming arm floaties to fit them in.  Every square inch was stuffed full with stuff.  SO. MUCH. STUFF!
My mom was great enough to drive out with us, which contributed to The Stuff.  She packs light, thank goodness, but her oxygen get-up takes up space.  We LOVED having Grammy Shar with us for the drive.

Our first stop
 (besides fueling up at Harmons in SoJo).  Not quite sure where we're at, but we were mighty grateful for a potty break and a chance to stretch and get the wiggles out.

I seriously bought so much crap to keep the kids entertained during the drive, which greatly contributed to The Stuff, but not even half of it was touched.  These kids had their own portable DVD players with headphones & lots of movies, activity books, sticker books, coloring books etc.  I had this vision of the kids being perfectly content & happy doing their thing in the back while my mom & I talked and laughed while listening to my iPod.  Not so.  First of all, the iPod didn't work.  I thought it was the adapter so I bought a new one.  Not so.  It was something with my car.  So we were stuck with the 3 CDs that were left in my car.  They were good, but after listening to the same songs over and over.  and over?  Not so much.  Tol lucked out and got the iPod all to himself.  That was his favorite 'activity.' 

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Addi was a GEM the entire drive.  I mean, she might as well not have even been there.  We didn't hear a word from her the whole way.  This girl has the attention span of a CHAMP.  She colored in the same coloring book for 5 hours!  And she loved her head phones.  She wore them almost the whole time, even when she wasn't listening to anything.   

 
Some peace and quiet.

Around 7 pm Tol really had to pee and there was NOTHING in sight except for this junkyard.  Tol ended up peeing on the side of the road then we explored the garbage.
We thought about calling it a day and staying on this cozy mattress for the night.

Shhhhhh- they're asleep.

Tol was loving the "Tolie sized" tractor.
*since Tol was tiny, Dave & I have called any mini-somethings "Tolie sized" and it has stuck

Addi's turn!

 The plan was to drive about 650 miles to Keystone, South Dakota the first day.  Mission accomplished!  We got there around 9 pm, checked into our hotel, then after the kids jumped on the bed for EVER, we went to bed.

to be continued...