44 Hours of Driving

All right, well I promised a blog update so here it is. Unfortunately I have not taken any pics of our house or anything like that, so all FL pics will be in the next post. This is our trip across the U.S. in pictures. It took 6 days (we stopped in AZ for a few days to visit family) 44 hours of driving, soooo much junk food that I am still working it off and counting calories like a crazy person, and about 10 stops total counting over nighters. But we made it. Here are the pics I took with my phone as we drove along.

First, we had to pack up the house. That isn't nearly everything but some.

Then we were off! Within a couple hours of leaving Provo Sophie fell sound asleep. She didn't really sleep the rest of the trip. booo.

Our last pics of UT ( I think, I don't think we had hit AZ yet but maybe) While in UT we reached nearly 8,000 ft elev. & several feet of snow.

Then came down to this. Ugh. How ugly. Sorry AZ. You aren't so pretty.

Some bridge and muddy water. It looked cool. probably because it was the only water we had seen in hours.

Then we came across the cactuses which were very cool. My kids went crazy about those things. They thought it was so cool how old those things are. We got up close to one and we all decided it would not be awesome to run into one of those things. By the way, is there anything in AZ that doesn't have prickly something on it?

YAY! I am with my best friends. My brother's James & Jay. Obviously they had been in sunny AZ, and I had been in cold wintery UT. I think I could be a vampire I am so pale in that pic. Wehad so much fun visiting them. I was SO glad we went to Tucson to see them before we headed out. James & Em, you guys are seriously the funnest people to visit, thanks for all the great food and entertainment, we love you!!!

Harrison & James were pretty excited to have some toys to play with after being cooped up in a car for 12 hrs. Harrison is a knight here. He and James love their cousin Wes & Henry and had the greatest time playing with them.

Um, yeah, we are weird. But you know that already.

After a few days in AZ we were back in the car for the lang haul. Harrison decided a green tongue was much cooler than a real one.

James went for blue. They've just got airheads in their mouths, it entertained them for about 10 minutes.

This is what we stared at for that whole day. Nothing. absolutely nothing.

except these trees every now and then. wow, I am boring even myself.

As we drove through El Paso I was looking out my window and thought "holy crap what a crappy city!" THen I realized I was looking right into Mexico. Then I was very very sad for those people. How would it be to have the USA just a few feet from you and you couldn't get in?

I have to say, the second half of TX was beautiful. I loved the green hills and farms spread out everywhere. I couldn't get enough of all the green simply gorgeous. I am total sucker for beautiful green country.

We spent our first night in Ft. Stockton, then stayed the next night with my Aunt just outside Houston, TX. She was so great! Thank you Aunt Glenine for letting my boys destroy your house and run around! Thanks for the great dinner and bfast, it was so much fun to see you and your home. Thank You!

Oh, & here is Houston and we drove through it.

We Left my Aunt's home very early, before then sun was up. And here is the sun as it came up that morning.

We started to head into the swamps of the south. So cool and mysterious.

Then all the great rivers.

And Sophie had her way with a marker, a couple times actually.

I actually have no idea what city this is. I was driving at the time and all I was thinking was "faster faster faster, just get there!!!"

But there was this cool Navy ship just outside the city. So I told Ben to take a pic.

Okay I was driving at this point too, so I told Ben to take another pic for me. This is Northeren Fl and is gorgeous. It was by far the prettiest country we had seen. Green green green with fields and blossoms great trees everywhere you looked. I seriously loved it.

We were just about to Tallahassee, that was where we were supposed to stop, but I wanted to just get there and be done with it all. So we kept going.

another 4 hrs and we were in ORLANDO! We drove 16 hrs that day, it was awful, but we made it!!! It was too dark for pics, but the next day we drove to our new home and knew we had found the right place because we found this street not too far from our house.

"Sophie"

Yep, this is the place!