Cannon is 4!!!

I don't know if you can see it or not but Colt's shirt says "Family Road Trip" and boy was it ever! Plus it has a big truck on it and that's what we look for while driving, Cannon likes the Peterbuilts and Colt likes Volvo--because he can say it.

We've had a busy week! First things first though how bout those fathers and sons pics? He got me a few and most importantly they had a BLAST! Plus Isaac told me he's going to go to fathers and sons until he dies. Sweet! I had a great time too ;)

Saturday we did a few birthday presents and caught the last few innings of the Braves game. 

Sunday Cannon got his primary birthday shirt, he was so excited! He had to wear it, we made him tubby fist but he was STILL wearing it Tuesday afternoon per the travel days. YUCK. I was ready to see a different shirt! Anyway Sunday I still hadn't packed anything for the big adventure...but after church, and naps--I shouldn't have napped-- I eventually started and we got it done. Isaac patiently put up with me getting wound up for most of the time. It was miserable though trying to remember everything and get laundry done and whatever else. But about 9:00 that night we hit the road and boy--it was a LONG ONE. I hope its not often that I'm actually awake at the very time Cannon was born on his birthday but this time I was so I took a picture. 

Birthday excitement included checking out a wal-mart while dad caught and early morning nap. Wow, there was a lot of St. Louis cardinals stuff. I guess we'll see if we convert to Cardinal fans while we live there. Grampa Frei always cheered for the Cards...we'll see. And speaking of baseball, if our trip had been a little better planned the Cubs played the Cardinals in St. Louis on Cannon's birthday--that would have been awesome, but I'm glad we just got headed west and on with things too! The birthday highlight was going to dad's new school and looking at the animals (snakes-yuck) in the science building, then a gal who worked there let us into the ???? whatever they call the place where they keep even MORE animals. I wasn't going to go in with them, but they'd been in for about 2 seconds and Isaac came back out and said "You gotta see this!" So in I went, to be the camera woman. It was still kind a gross to me, but we have pictures so it was worth it. 

Other things from out few hours in our new town... I was asleep as we rolled into town Isaac said "Here we are!" and I was said its a cute little town. Then later I was REALLY REALLY tired and I commented how pretty and green it was and "those are cute little flowers all over" and Isaac turned to me and said "Those are dandelions." Oh. Whoops. Yes they were. Oh well it had been a long night. And another thing, there's a reason houses are cheap! Whoa-Isaac is good with living anywhere but...I think we're going to have to be willing to open the checkbook a little to keep me sane. Yikes. SO good though that we got to see that and not go into someplace blind. We still haven't picked a place yet but I won't be going for the very cheapest option. 

It was a long busy day in Kirksville we didn't get much rest and talked about just getting a hotel but once we started driving, we were drive'n! And we headed west. We went up to I80 then across. Wyoming is big and long and so is Nebraska! We got in quite a rain storm in Missouri but it was different from a rain in Mississippi. I'm a desert kid learning all kinds of things about rain. Isaac was like "Hey Honey-we might see a tornado!" Thankfully we didn't. But still, oh great, and we're moving there. The sky looked just like what I remember in of that movie Twister though. We have tornadoes in Mississippi but with all the trees you can't see the sky out ahead like that. We also noticed all the "dry" farms. Yeah right dry. That's a lot of water!

Anyway, we drove on! The night before the travel at night thing hadn't worked so well because the the boys wouldn't go to sleep! It was after midnight-kids awake. Crud. But they really are pretty good little travelers-better than me. Our ipad has some Disney movies that are loaded on it--but they never work, I can't get them to play. So dumb. But knowing they never work (I try every time we go visiting teaching.) We downloaded a bunch of Mormon message clips because the boys love them and they do work. So Monday night when we busted out the tablet ~we made it that far with out it, I was impressed~ Colton just wanted to watch Bob the Builder and we'd switch Mormon messages and he'd say or rather yell/sing his preference that he wanted to watch Boooob ch ch ch. Like the little theme song. It was so cute and funny! and from his point of view-disappointing. 

As we were approaching the Salt Lake valley, Isaac asked me if I'd been able to feel the back tire shake a little. I said I'd wondered if that was the case but as soon as he asked it confirmed that I wasn't crazy. Well we were taking about buying new tires sometime with summer when POP and the tread seperated...ok we'll buy new tires NOW. But blessing of blessing, we were almost to the foothill exit. We just felt so blessed that it didn't happen in the rain or in middle of the night or anything. It was a little inconvenient we had to unpack everything put the doughnut on pack back up go to the tire shop, unpack everything. But seriously it could have been SO MUCH WORSE! We were just so thankful. When we got to the Walmart with a tire place we played homeless and loaded our belongings in a shopping cart (haha just kidding) but it was that or leave our suitcases sitting there, not everything could fit in the front of our car that already had 2 careseats and a cooler in the back seat, so we loaded them up and went to grab a bite to eat. --of course I documented it, that's what I do--

After that little rodeo we finally made it to Thanksgiving point where we met up with Grama and Grampa!!! YAY!!!  They took Cannon and Colt Isaac and I crashed for naps. They had a blast.  

After dinner we went swimming, my folks were impressed at fearless little Colt. Cannon likes the hot tubs and swimming in the "warm pools" Colt gets near it, sticks his toe in and says "HOT" then bails into the cold pool.
 Then the next day we went down and met cute baby Trevyn. It was good to see her and Henley and get to visit with Tarra for a few minutes. It was a quick visit but really fun!

Then we went down to the Payson Temple open house. It was beautiful! I love getting to go through with my boys! It was extra cool too because the first night of driving we had listened to an old CES devotional were Elder Ballard was like go to the temple, if you can't go in, go to the grounds. So it was fun to take our boys--and get to go in. It is a beautiful temple and the tour was a lot more relaxed than when we went with Kathy to the Ogden temple last year. I really liked it!
I loved the pic of the boys in the little booties to cover their shoes and the one where Colt is pointing and saying "Jesus" while Cannon feel the prints of the nails in his feet.

Then we left our dad up north to work on school and work stuff and we came back down with Grama and Grampa. So far we're having a great time. We went up to see Poppa Great at the VA Home (aka "Jail" -if you ask him) but he was good -all things considered- we took him some kisses and he was happy to see the boys!

Other than that we've just been cashing in on cousin time! We had a little pizza party to celebrate Cannon's birthday. 

Nap time and go to bed time are a 2 hour process...some how I've got to fix that-I get too frustrated and truth be told its catching up to me, I'm feeling a little run down. But we'll survive!

AND this afternoon I got a great phone call when Isaac said things are going good but right now there's nothing he can do up there that he can't do here so he's going to come down!! YAY!!!