Road Trip to Nebraska! (8.8.13- 8.16.13)

Here's my typical catch up post... picture overload!! (brace yourselves!)

(I also need to give a disclosure first, I'm lazy and busy and so I haven't edited these and some of them are way washed out or weird, I clearly haven't mastered figuring out settings yet. ;) )

On our drive out, we stopped (about a million times) for a bathroom break, and at
this truck stop we saw these... contraptions. :p Matt had to get a picture of them
of course!

When we got to the Coffin's house, we took a tour and found this in the room we got
to stay in. (Thanks Carson!) I thought it was so cute that they remembered our
anniversary and wanted to do something for us. :)

They even brought in a little TV and some classics so we could have a movie night.
We were so tired by the time night hit every day on the trip that we never used it. :p

Matt and Kenners on the wiggle cars. 

Enoch and Matt

Enoch, :) enough said. ;) 

Braxten, who got to ride with us from Salt Lake to Holdredge.
Thanks for being a good sport Brax! 

And of course, Foster. Who is the funniest, most mellow dog I've ever known.
It's like he has a dead pan look on his face all the time. :p 

Kenners wanted to try her hand at taking pictures with my camera.
I think she's got some serious skill. ;) 

They also had some awesome jumping off the porch, over the bushes,
and into a tuck and roll skill. :)

A stray dog came over to play, and it was so funny to watch everyone's different reactions.

There was moss on all the trees in Nebraska! Yay for humidity

A cute little park by a DQ. Matt said he was going to take me on a hot
date, so we got ice cream and walked around the park. :)

Ok. These next few are Matt and I creeping on the cute houses in Holdredge. Nearly EVERYONE has a fun front porch, and they're all older style homes. I was in heaven!!

It seemed like there were a bunch of houses that were rather colorful there. :)

This is the front of the Coffin's house. It's 100ish years old, and has the original
wood flooring and glass panes. Such a beautiful home!!

And the back of their home.

One of the days we were there, we went to Kearny (pronounced 'Car-knee') and went to the Archway Monument Museum. :) It really was super cool, I loved it!

The people that were there and dressed up never really broke character.  It was
pretty entertaining, actually. :)

This was the entrance into the museum portion of the building.
The whole building is kind of a bridge over the freeway, which explains why
we went up an escalator first. At the very top if you look close you can
see that the doorway is a covered wagon, and the scene behind it is a screen
that was playing wagon/pioneer scenes. :) It was pretty awesome!

Where's Perry? Oh. On the plains with pioneers? 

Fun fact, we stayed in Frisco Colorado on our drive home.
I didn't notice that's what was on this sign until now...

I'm not sure why we needed warning that our elbows
might go home in other cars... but we figured it was a random
enough thing that we should document it.

The maze was so funny! You had to race from the starting point,
to all four corners to punch your card, and then find the exit to
punch your time card and see how fast you did the maze.
Obviously for the less vertically challenged ones in our group, it
wasn't too difficult! ;) Kade could see right over the top!

These are their winner faces. ;)

These gross carp were one of the highlights of the museum visit, I think.
Matt gave Enoch a dollar to buy fish food, and everyone got a huge kick out
of feeding them! There were so many and they were HUGE! And gross!

"Enoch, I dare you to go kiss it's butt!"
:p And that's what happens when you give in to peer pressure.

My grandpa passed away the day we left for Salt Lake to start our trip.
While he was sick he got a few boquets of sunflowers, which are significant
because they always face the sun. (Insert lots of gospel parallels)
We saw SO many sunflowers on our trip and it always made me think
of Grammie and Grandpa. :) I miss him

This is the entrance into an indian earth shelter

Fun fact, the men only put up the biggest columns. The
women were in charge of building the shelters. 

After the museum, we got some pizza and went to a park in Kearny. It was seriously my most absolute favorite park in the whole world! (So far) It was so green and beautiful, and had lots of pavillions with picnic tables. It had some awesome splashpad/play ground areas too. There was a beautiful pond with swans in it, and paddle boats! Plus this park was massive! Or at least I thought so compared to the only little city parks I've ever been to. There was a little romantic looking garden with gorgeous flowers and cute benches to sit on. :) We climbed to the top of that tower in the background, and you can see everything from there! (Including lots of corn fields ;) ) I loved it!!

So... you're not supposed to feed the swans... or intentionally aggravate them. And you're supposed to view them from a minimum of 20 feet. We totally did all of those things. I'm sure if we had a dog there it wouldn't have been on a leash either. :p

Ok. So ever since I went to Palisade lake when I was at Snow, I've been DYING to go in a paddle boat.
(Really if we're being honest, I've probably been dying to go on one since zoo tycoon let you make cute
ponds with boats and other such attractions.) So when Jennifer said she was going to rent some for us I was so excited! Best vacation ever! :)

Poor Enoch was so terrified of the boat tipping.

Braxten and Miquelle

Kell, Kade and Enoch

I love his salute. :) Enoch is such a funny kid to watch, he's got the biggest imagination all the time! Miquelle and I got laughing so hard at him playing on the splash pad, I thought I was going to pee my pants.

We got really risky and handed my camera over to the other boat so Miquelle could take some pictures of our boat. :)

Matt, Carson, Kennedy and me. Kenners and I basically drowned in our life jackets.

Kell: "Ok, boys act like girls and girls act like boys!" ... I think we did a great job, don't you? ;)

Carson, Matt, Me, and Perry? ;) There were lots of Perry the platypus shots on this trip. :)

Every single time we visit, Matt picks fights with his big little brothers. :p And they usually kick his butt. :)

Ahem... "Neeeaaaar, faaaaaarr.... where EEEEEEver you are!" ;)

Gorgeous flowers in the Coffin's back yard

We broke up the 12ish hour drive home by staying in Frisco Colorado. :) It's this cute little town nestled at the base of the mountains. It looks kind of rustic, and it has this gorgeous lake that we spent Friday morning at. :) When we got to the lake there were lots of wild daisies everywhere so I asked Matt if he knew what they were called.
"Daisies?"
Grandpa Wallace used to always point out these kind of flowers on the cattle drive (or really whenever) and tell us that they're called "wet the beds" because they look like little white sheets with... an accident in the middle. ;) I always thought it was so funny, and if we ever found all yellow flowers they were ultimate wet the beds. :)
I thought it was kind of comforting to see little reminders of grandpa throughout our trip. There were a few different times that I felt like he was close by. :) Thank heavens for tender mercies!

It really was such a fun trip. The long drive was a little bit hard, but mostly just because I had to make us stop seven million times for bathrooms. :p I loved being able to spend more time with our family and being able to get to know all of them a little bit better. :) We also got to attend the Holdredge branch on Sunday, which was different but a good experience. The people are so laid back and genuine. :) The Coffins had the sister missionaries over for Sunday dinner which was so much fun. Sister Rasmussen and Sister Guenther are so sweet! (Side note: my dad teasingly has called our baby, "baby Gunther" since the day we told them, so when Sister Guenther introduced herself I had to stifle some giggles. :) )
Miquelle and I hung out with the sisters on Monday for their P day, and went around some fun little shops in Holdredge. Sister Rasmussen is doing Equine Science and found some Ariat boots in a thrift store for like $15, and she was soo excited about that! Sister Guenther was writing down style numbers like crazy to send home to her parents so she could get the clothes later, and not on her mission budget. ;) It was so fun to get to know them better! Wednesday Matt and I went to teach with them, but unfortunately no one answered the door. The appointment they had set up legitimately hid from us. :p Poor missionaries. I feel like I'd get so discouraged with that! I got their email from Jennifer so I'm planning on writing to them soon. :) I was really sad to leave and not get to visit with them again! (Goodness, I don't get attached easily, do I? :p)
I think Tuesday was the day we went to Kearney, and then Wednesday we kinda just had a lazy day and watched movies and hung out with everyone until we went with the missionaries. We watched "I know what you did last summer" Wednesday night and I'm pretty sure the ending is going to drive me crazy forever. :p

Anyway. We need to invent a teleporting device so we can visit more often. :) I really really loved Nebraska!