Heading to "Virginia's house."

For months we'd been telling Kaden we were going to be moving to a new home in Virginia, so for months, Kaden had been asking us, "When can we go to Virginia's house??" He would even sometimes tell me all about how nice she was and everything. So, the day after Paige's blessing, we loaded up, said goodbye to Clint's family and Uncle Jim and Carolee and headed out to Virginia's house.

Clint and I had been super nervous about the trip with our three little ones, but our worry proved to be in vain. They were awesome on the trip! It took us four days and three nights (in hotels) to drive through California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and into Virginia. We drove an average of 10 hours a day, stopping about every 2-3 hours so I could feed Paige; it worked out well, because then Clint could let Kaden and Lindy out to run around for a little bit and get some wiggles out. Plus, we had plenty of junk food, Uncle Jim's special "candy stash," toys from Mom and Dad Kellogg, and lots of movies on our DVD player (Thank you Sors!) to keep them entertained; I felt like running a marathon (C-section and all!) after sitting in the car for so long and eating so much junk.

There were a few highlights on the trip. One of our stops was at a huge park/playground in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Clint had spotted it from the freeway. It was a lot of fun for the kiddies.

One morning around 4am (we left the hotels really early every morning to get a headstart on the day), driving through Oklahoma, we got caught in a really really bad thunder and lightning storm. It was raining soooo hard (the hardest I'd ever seen); we could not even see the road, and when a semi would pass us we would practically get washed off the road. (I am a scaredy-cat driving in rain... I think it's because I wear flip flops all the time, even when it's raining, and then I'm slipping and sliding all over the place-- so why shouldn't a car be slipping and sliding all over the place? Great logic, right?) Thank goodness I thought of using the excuse to feed Paige at that time, so we pulled off into a dark abyss (you know, the kind of highway turn-offs you'd see in a murder mystery movie) with a few bigrigs (freaky!). It gets better; we'd been watching the craziest lightning storm ever and then a bolt flashed and completely blinded us and thunder immediately followed-- I'm pretty sure we got hit by that one... Or at least it felt like it was super close. I was thankful to be in a car! I'll admit it was pretty exciting, but I was glad when the rain finally calmed down a little and we were off again.

This was obviously after it cleared up; I loved the beautiful rays of sun peeking through the clouds. This picture doesn't do it justice though.

Getting out to stretch in the morning.

One of the reasons I didn't fly out to Virginia with the kids (other than the fact that it would have been one crazy flight!), was because I really wanted to see what was in between CA and Virginia. Most of it was beautiful! It just got more and more lush and green and treey (my word for lots of trees) the further east we got. And I fell in love with the accents of people we encountered; Arkansas was the best, except we couldn't understand a lick of wha people was sayin'! It was pretty funny. Clint and I would just kind of smile at each other and nod our heads hoping the other understood what people were saying to us.

We finally made it to Virginia's house! Kaden was so excited, but kept asking where she was. :) We went directly to our friends, Wayne and Crystal's home to stay there until we found our own place. I can honestly say I really enjoyed the drive... don't really want to do it all again, but it was neat to do it one time.