Family Vacation Part 1

Thursday June18-20, 2015
Mike had to go to Chicago for work for a couple days, so we decided to make a whole vacation out of it.  I was pretty nervous to take the kids on such a long road trip. I went and bought several things to give them along the way.  Mostly dollar store goodies.  We also told them we would give them a quarter for every hour we were driving and they were good with no complaining. I also made each of them a book with coloring pages, maps, tracing pages and journal pages.  Mike mapped everything out. We left on the 18 of June around 5:00 pm.  We stopped a couple of hours later in Rock Springs Wyoming for some dinner.  Bensen was so ready to get out of the car. We made three more stops for potty and gas.  We drove through the night (about 14 hours!) and went straight to the Winter Quarters Temple in Nebraska.  

 We all got out and stretched our legs.

After the temple we went to breakfast at McDonald's.

 Then it was on to the visitors center.

 At the visitors center we watched a movie and took a tour.  The kids got to pull a handcart.

 Dress up like pioneers.

 And try out a bed that was like the ones on the ships.

 After the tour we went over to the cemetery and looked around. Then we drove to Council Bluffs. We went through the visitor center, it was right next to the Kaneville Tabernacle. That is where Brigham Young was sustained the prophet. Something I learned while there, was that it wasn't until 2 years after Joseph Smith died that they called a new Prophet. 

Jaycee was able to play the organ they had there, it was over 100 years old.  She loved it! 

After Council Bluffs we drove for a couple hours to Adam-Ondi-Ahman.

 We had a little picnic lunch when we first got there. The bugs were so loud! We hiked around a bit.

 Bensen fell down and cut his knee.

 The kids found Preacher Rock, and a bunny.

Mike saw the place where Adams alter is believed to be.  He didn't realize it until we were reading the book in the car the next day.

Then we headed to Cameron, where our hotel was. We stopped at Godfathers Pizza and had a Taco Pizza, it was delicious!

Then Mike went to bed at 7:30 and slept all night long! He deserved a good nights rest.  I let Wesley sleep with him, and me and Bensen slept with Jaycee.