Get your kicks on Route 66!

Editor's note: This blog is from yesterday, (April 28th) we just never had time to publish it. We'll write today's blog tomorrow. Hope that isn't TOO confusing. :) Oh, and 1 more thing. Even though we're going through many states that have reported cases of the swine flu, none of us have gotten it...yet. But Logan askes us every few minutes,"Are we going to get the swine??"

Hola! Guess where we are now? The Grand Canyon! Sort of. We're in our hotel close by the entrance. But first, I have to tell you about the past 3 days. Sunday, we went to church in a tiny little branch in Pecos, TX. The chapel was the size of most primary rooms. After church, we changed and hit the road. We went through Roswell, New Mexico, where there are alien decorations everywhere.

We traveled for about 7 hours. We stopped in Santa Rosa. This is where we picked up Route 66, made even more famous by the movie "Cars. The next day, we FINALLY got to sleep in a little bit. Before leaving Santa Rosa, we stopped by a place you may have heard of called "The Blue Hole." It was really cool. It's a sinkhole, it's 81 feet deep, and the temperature is a constant 61 degrees F. But one of the really cool things about it, is that you can actually jump in! There wasn't really any kind of a barrier between you and the water, so you could easily jump in and drown. And we happened

to get there when a guy named Scott was going to jump in! We took pictures of him jumping in. It was so fun to watch. Scott was really cool. He is a cancer survivor, so he works with people that have cancer. He had his toe nails painted purple which symbolizes the fight against cancer. It looked funny! :D

So we eventually left. We traveled from there, all the way to another tiny town called Holbrook. By the way, most of the time we don't even know what time it is, because of all the time changing. We just spent the night one night there, then left early this morning for Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park. The petrified part doesn't sound too inviting, but it was awesome. First, we drove through the Painted Desert. It was breathtaking! You honestly have to go there to really enjoy it. Everything looks much smaller in pictures than it is in real life. After riding around and taking pictures for a while, we got to the Petrified Forest. It was weird! In a good way. There were tons of different colors in the logs. We finished off at the Visitors Center there. They are VERY careful to make sure everyone knows never to take rocks or

wood or anything from the park. There was a little display of a few apology letters from people that had taken stuff. Some of them were really funny! One was from a little kid. It stared, "Dear petrified forest, I'm sorry I took a rock..." And so on. :) One guy said that he'd been cursed by taking it. And the last one I'm going to mention, was written by a nun on behalf of someone that had taken something. It was SO funny! I don't think it was meant to be though...she was talking about how it is almost impossible to control the rebellious youth of our day and I think there was something about them going to heck and the word repenting was mixed in with it. So we left there for our hotel we are at now. But we made a little stop on our way at the Mecca of the modern world for Eagles' fans (and who isn't an Eagles fan?? dad adds), Winslow, Arizona.

Mom and dad got all hyped up about one tiny little corner, because it was mentioned in an Eagles song, "Well I'm standin' on a corner in Winslow, AZ; such a fine sight to see...". And if you know my parents, you should know about their little...obsession. We then drove to the hotel we're at now. Whoa sorry I wrote a lot, but there was just so much we want you to know about! We'll be getting up before 6 tomorrow, since we only have 1 day in the Grand Canyon. =D That's because we are heading to Hurricane, UT the next day to see the Barnums! Aaron is getting his cast off today so we should be able to see him play ball.

Remember the Alamo!

Hello again! We're now about one-fourth into our trip. It seems to be going by really fast! Yesterday, the first thing we did was the IMAX theater. We saw a movie about the Alamo. It was really good, but it was sad too. :( After the movie, we went to the real Alamo. It was really cool. There was a beautiful garden outside of it. After that, was the most awesome parade ever! It's obviously a huge deal, because people go out there as early as 2 days before the parade to camp out so they'll have seats! It was 3 hours long! There were thousands of people there. We surprisingly got front row seats. :)There was TONS of confetti. There were dozens of "parade princesses" on big floats. But there was something different about them. Every time one would go by, everyone would yell,"Show us your shoes!!", and they would stick their feet out so we could see their shoes. They didn't have fancy shoes on. They were wearing cowboy (cowgirl) boots. Unfortunately, something tragic happened during the parade. The giant Mr. Potato Head balloon hit a tree on it's way by us, and popped! There were tons and tons of horses. After the horses, the pooper scoopers would walk by. They were SO funny! They'd jump around like crazy and scream," Woooo!! Pooper scoopers rock!!!" :) After the parade, we made our way through the crowded street back to the hotel to rest. When we were fully re-charged, we went to the Riverwalk again. But this time, it was at night. The Riverwalk is really cool looking at nighttime. There are tons of lights strung all over the place. We ate dinner at a place called Casa Rio. It was awesome! Especially because we were eating right next to the water. Ducks would waddle right up to your feet. Of course, we had to feed them leftover chips.:) There were Mariachis playing instruments and singing on riverboats going by. Even though we'd already done the riverboat ride the day before, we REALLY wanted to do it at night so we could see all the lights. So we rode one again.=D It was worth it. After the ride, we went back to the hotel. We were all exhausted! We got up this morning, and began ANOTHER long journey to Santa Rosa, New Mexico. We didn't make it all the way there though. But we're leaving tomorrow after church. We're now in a HUGE suite though, and it is amazing! We all love it. It has three rooms! Post ya later!

Who ya gonna call? POOPER SCOOPERS!!

***The Lone Star State***

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Howdy! (sorry I couldn't help it) We're now in San Antonio, Texas! It is SO hot here! Yesterday morning we got up earlier than we wanted (we were exhausted from blogging that night:) had breakfast and left. It took 2 hours to get to San Antonio where we're staying in an awesome Texas-style hotel. When we got to the hotel, we unpacked everything, and set out ONCE AGAIN on a bus for a late lunch around 3:00 in Market Square. It was so much fun! We got snow cones. There were a few bands playing, and lots of cool Mexican stuff to buy. Plus funnel cakes and giant turkey legs. We went on a riverboat ride through the River Walk. It was really pretty. There were waterfalls, flowers, bright green trees, statues, lots of stuff. People on both sides of us would wave to us. After the ride, we started the long, tiring walk back to the hotel. We didn't know it, but we arrived just in time for the last few days of Fiesta. Fiesta is San Antonio's version of Marti Gras. We're going to try to go to a huge parade today to see all the costumes and stuff. But it's always EXTREMELY busy and psychotic we're told. It should be fun. =D

Mamasita here. I just wanted to let everyone know that we are having a great adventure! And never fear, there is still some homeschool going down. We have our history and science books with us and we're trying to squeeze in math when we can. As we pass through each state, we are reading about its history and putting passport stamps in our USA Passport. Tony still has to keep up with his online class as well. I am so glad that we have lds homeschool conference to look forward to at the end of this trip. I will need to be recharged at that point.

This was actually mom's idea^

The Big Easy

Laissez les bons temps rouler. Or as the Cajuns say,"Let the good times roll." :) We'll be talking about yesterday and today. So yesterday we got an early start for a LONG day walking around New Orleans. The first thing we did was catch a trolley. We went through a gorgeous neighborhood. And guess what? We saw the lds church! It was a billion times less scary than say...Bourbon street. So we rode back to where we started, then we went to the Riverwalk where we caught another trolley to Jackson Square. Our next stop was Cafe Du Monde to have the world famous beignets!!! They were SOOOOOOOOOOOO good.=D There were lots of performers,(or as I call them-poorformers)because they come up to you and start juggling, then you pretty much have to pay them. So dad counseled us not to make eye contact. :o After we had our beignets, we went across the street to get Popsicles for me and Logan. The vendor warned us to wait a few minutes to eat them because they were SUPER cold. Well, apparently I didn't wait long enough, because I started to eat it...and I got stuck until it melted! We took a ride in a horse and buggy! That was really fun. Then we walked to the French Market. You could pretty much find everything there. Jewelery, Mardi Gras beads, sunglasses, and even phone chargers. After spending a long time there, we finally ate at Margaritaville. Then we walked,and walked...and walked through the French Quarter on our way back to the hotel. Our feet were aching! We left at 9 this morning for San Antonio. That's an 8 hour ride. We would've gotten there, but dad was really tired of driving as you can imagine. So now we're in a tiny little town--Sealy, Texas.

New Orleans

The view from the roof

Hello again! Sunday we went to church in Norcross, then just hung out, caught up on journal writing, and read. Then yesterday morning,(Monday morning) we got up fairly early,ate,packed,and checked out. We stopped by The Varsity for a second breakfast of hot dogs on our way out of Georgia. We traveled for 8 hours yesterday! Well technically it was only about 7 since we entered Central time zone. We passed through 4 states! Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. And we saw tons of dead armadillos on the side of the road. Sorry to give you that visual, but mom and dad REALLY wanted me to mention it.:) You can still see a bunch of damage from Katrina. I was terrified the whole time we were outside, just because of the scary environment and creepy people.:O There are certainly a lot of...interesting things to see. For example, I saw a woman walking around with a huge snake around her neck. After looking for a hotel forever, we finally found one that was awesome. It's called The Drury. It is so cool! The lobby is beautiful. It has a big fancy piano and a snack bar that serves free nachos, popcorn, and soda. The front desk manager (Lance) was awesome! He knocked off some of the expense,(telling him mom was pregnant helped:) moved his car so we could have his parking space, and was just really nice. He grew up in New Orleans, so he was here when they had Katrina, and he told us all about it. So we walked to a restaurant for 10 minutes, then decided we didn't want to eat there. Then we went to Quizno's subs, and they were closed. So we just came back to the room for granola and cereal for dinner.Then when we were done, we got into our bathing suits, and went to the pool and hot tub. Oh yeah...did I mention it's on the roof?! It was so much fun. We came back, got dressed and went to bed. I'll write about today tomorrow, cause I've already typed a really long post, and we're going to bed now. Good night!

Another roof view The amazing rooftop pool

Georgia on my Mind

We are now at the Wingate hotel in Norcross, Georgia! This day has been so tiring! Let's rewind to yesterday morning when we left the Jenkins. We got to sleep in this time! Aunt Anna left for work at Brock Performing Arts Center and we joined her there about 45 minutes later to see an art exhibit by high school students. It was really nice. We also had fun jumping around onstage.:) We said goodbye to Aunt Anna, and began the long journey to Georgia. It took 5 or 6 hours.During which I, Madison, lost a tooth. =D We got to the city Buford, where it was VERY hard to pick a restaurant, because they had EVERYTHING! There were about a bajillion different ones. Finally, we just decided to let the pregnant mom pick. :) She picked Macaroni Grill. We found a hotel (Country Inn and Suites) and took a dip in the pool. Logan was thrilled to discover there was a hot tub. :) The next morning, we ate, packed up, and left for the world's LARGEST aquarium! It was spectacular! You really have to be there in person to appreciate it like we did. The whole building is shaped like a ship. They had almost every kind of marine life you could imagine! I won't even attempt to name all of them. They had whale sharks! They were HUGE! I wish I could've seen UPS deliver them. Yes, UPS delivered 3 of them! The tank they were in was so big, you couldn't see the other side! The belugas were so cute! So were the sea otters. :) We took a short break to get lunch-soft serve and cinnamon rolls! =D My favorite part of the whole aquarium, was the Titanic Exhibit.Unfortunately photography was against the rules. We had to pay to get in, but it was very worth it. It was very educational and moving. They had a giant piece of ice for you to touch. Apparently, the water was colder than that! There were lots of artifacts. There was a towel that had some one's name on it. There were lots of personal stories from the survivors that made people cry! It was awesome. Finally, with our feet aching, we left the aquarium. We went to the restaurant famous for it's hot dogs, The Varsity. It was a pretty big building! The food was good too. After that, we got to the hotel we're at right now. Wow! That's a lot of typing. We'll keep you posted! =D

Prelude to a Trip:)

Greetings from Mocksville NC! We've just ended our 2nd day away from home. Yesterday afternoon, we stuffed our car to the rafters,(poor Madison in the very back with luggage piled high on both sides of her:) and began by driving to Raleigh to meet our cousins Raechel, Lindsey, Staci, and Raechel's husband John for MEXICAN! After dinner (and dessert of course),we left for Raechel's to spend the night. We got up (too) early so we could be out of their house when they left for work. We visited the temple bookstore, then hit the Southpoint mall in Durham. We killed time for about 2 or 3 hours, then YET AGAIN hit the road. Our next destination was Mocksville to visit Uncle Mike and Aunt Anna. We just relaxed (weird huh?) until we had a fire and roasted marshmallows!! Kelsey and Allen stopped by for a few hours. And now we're getting ready for bed. And we will be sleeping in 'til noon. =D Then the adventure really begins. And that concludes our first post!