Any readers still out there?

Well, well...we made it ...finally! Seriously we always love to visit family when we PCS (army term for permanent change of station...aka...moving) , but when we spend a couple of weeks visiting family BEFORE the actual move, then by the time we get to "the trip" we are EXHAUSTED! So the start of our trip was a little bumpy. Kids were tired of being in the car with the NAZI traveler as we have nicknamed him (as was I). But as soon as we saw our first bear on the side of the road...IT WAS ON!!! I have taken a ton of pictures, but will have to add them in a bit. Let me try and remember all the highlights. We spent a week in Bastrop with mom and had a blast. It is so pretty down there. We miss you tons already mom. We got a few little projects done. We told mom that if she wanted us to ever leave her house then she was going to have to be a little less hospitable! :) We had a blast just hanging out. We went to Mesa next and had a blast with all the siblings. Didn't get to stay as long as we wanted, but that is ALWAYS the case! That is what I get for having such fun peeps! We drove to Kanab next, and visited with Gary and Leann, and Chris and Whitney. Me and Whitney even snuck in a visit to the temple all by ourselves. It turned into an adventure because I brought Gary's trailer back for Chris. I didn't think I could do it, but those McDonald boys....I can never tell ANY of them NO! Well two of the trailer blocks flew off and one hit the big truck behind me. He was mad! We all went up to Manti, Utah on June 7th and WE GOT SEALED! It was awesome. We were so happy to see everybody. We drove back to Kanab and spent a few more days, then we headed off on our adventure. We stayed in Nephi, Utah and got to sneak in a breakfast with one of our favs from our ward in Kansas ! Brooke met us for breakfast. She is so fun. Then we headed up to Layton and got to hang out with some of our favs from Texas, Stacey and Rhea. Wow Rhea has grown so much! It was so good to see them again! Then we got to go visit our awesome cousins in Farmington. She made us some awesome sourdough bread, and Pres got to chat with Mack online. Well we wanted to visit quite a few more of our friends in Utah, but we ran out of time, and barely made it to Pocatello, Idaho that night. We stayed over and then we made it to Helena, Montana the next night. The next day we finally crossed the border into Canada. Wow it was so different! SUPER 8 hotels there are really nice. They are big and spacious and have water slides in the hotel. Very expensive. We stayed in a cute little town...called Lethbridge. We found the ward, and went to church, and wow were there a ton of mormons there! One town we drove through only had a population of 800, and yet they had a huge nice ward building. We drove through Calgary, and it was beautiful. We stopped in Edmonton, Alberta Canada. It has this most amazing mall. It is like nothing I have ever seen before. It had a major water park in it. I sent Pres and the boys in for a while, and actually got to do some shopping ALL by myself. That is unheard of! Well Travis had a tooth bothering him, and guess what...this mall had a dentist! So we made an appointment, and poor Travis had to get his front tooth pulled in a Canada mall! He immediately felt better, so we got changed into our swimsuits and went to the waterpark. Well sucks for me, but the first waterslide I went on...and jake had been on it a million times, so I figured it was safe. It was way scary looking. I watched Jake go down it, and thought if he can do it, so can I ! Well on this first ride I hit the water and ruptured my ear drum. It was horrible. I was so dizzy that I couldn't find the top of the water. I had a hard time finding the side, and getting out. So embarrassing. I could barely walk my balance was so off! So I didn't go on anymore rides. The worst is that we climbed in elevation after leaving Edmonton, and I bawled like a baby. It is a lot better now, but I never got carsick, and I did a lot on this trip. TO BE CONTINUED...