On the Road Again

Thursday morning we loaded the cars back up again and started the 4 state, 2 day journey back home.  Again, the kids were amazing and totally hung in there, especially on our first day ten hour trek to Wichita.  The last day, Dani was a tad fussy and demanding during the first half of the day, but who can really blame her?  

 

We ran into some bad storms in Kansas and saw this outside the car window to the North of us.  Chip read later, on a Storm Chaser, blog that all the chasers were on this particular storm and watching this rotation.  It didn't really develop, but could have been dangerous.  Frickin' Kansas.

After we made it through the storms, the sky was the most amazing blue color.   The pictures don't do it justice, but it was so pretty.

 

My sweet baby getting ready for bed at the hotel and SO happy to be out of the car.

Day 2 -- Lily was cold in the car . . .  and only a slight dramatic. 

Eating strawberries.

SO OVER IT!

Almost home!!

Our Last Day

The last day at the mountain house is always bittersweet.  First it is super sad since it is our last day and second it is sad because we have to clean the house and pack up.  In a random stroke of genius I made a deal with Chip who was dreading writing a 2 page paper for his summer online English class.  I told him that I'd write the paper if he cleaned the house.  He gladly accepted and spent the whole morning scrubbing toilets and vacuuming, while I spent a little over an hour drinking coffee and writing an awesome paper.  The rest of the day, I relaxed on the deck in my pajamas and finished by book.  It was a great way to spend our last day there.

 

I will definitely miss this view and cool mountain air.

Last dinner out on the deck together.

Dani is crazy.

 

Our last night hanging out and playing Cards Without Humanity until midnight.  It is beyond amazing to have such great friends to vacation with!

Zip Line!

On our last Tuesday Chip and I went zip lining!!  We had seen ads for it and were really interested.  We kept talking about wanting to go and finally at the end of our trip actually looked into it.  There ended up being a zip line company very close to the house that was rated one of the World's 10 best by Traveler Magazine and CNN.  So we figured, if we wanted to zip line, this was the place to go!  Ben and Rhiannon took the big kids on a (longer!) bike ride the day before while Chip and I watched the babies at home (Lily rode in a trailer this time -- no more bike for her).  So on Tuesday Ben and Rhiannon were more than happy to watch the kids while Chip and I went off our our adventure.  Ben took the big kids to the pool and Rhiannon played with the babies.  I was super excited as this has been on my bucket list for some time.  I was kinda surprised Chip was so excited and willing to go since he isn't the biggest fan or heights or dangerous situations.   I did get a little nervous once we got there, since the lines are like 250 feet above a canyon and the longest is 1000 feet long, but we did it and it was awesome!!  Best date ever!

The meetup place was at a ranch and western town.  It was pretty.

All ready to go!

You drive out in this old Swiss military vehicle.  It kinda adds to the adventure.

If you look closely,  you can see the zip lines.

There were 6 lines total.  Five zigzagged across this canyon and the last, longest one went all the way back down it!

See that red spot?  That's me!

We did one of the lines tandem.  I thought it was fun, Chip said it was the scariest one.  Not sure what he meant by that.

He was WAY more brave than me.  I barely took my hands off the rope!

It was a great afternoon.  I am SO glad we got to go and cross that off the bucket list!