Home

We are home, and it feels so good to be here.  We were planning on taking one more day to break up a very long drive, buy after finding rooms in Erie, PA to be extremely expensive we decided to keep going.  We got into Erie around 3 pm, so we still had plenty of daylight to travel in.  We got to Buffalo, NY and I begged Greg to keep going because we felt so close. (It is about 3 hours from Buffalo.) He agreed and we got home around 8:30 that night.  There really is no place like home:)

Things that happened since last post:
-(Friday)Visited Nauvoo.  We saw the temple, visited the visitor's center, and then explored the areas that the church owns.  They have a little town set up to replicate what it would have looked like during the Pioneer time.  There were a lot of demonstrations as well on how they lived during that time.  It was a very neat place!
-Visited Carthage Jail. (Where the Prophet Joseph Smith was martyred.)
-Arrived in Indianapolis, IN that night.  I drove for the last 3 hours and Kayden screamed for the last hour or so.  We decided it was because I was not sitting by him and Greg was.  He is a momma's boy; what can I say:)
-(Saturday) Drove from IN to Kirtland, OH to see all the church history sites there.  This was by far one of my favorite stops.  I had no idea how much there was to see there.  So many wonderful events happened in that place.  I am very grateful for the sacrifices of the Saints.  Because of what they did, I have what I have.  I am very grateful.
-We then came home!!

Lessons learned from trip:
-Leaving before 5 am when traveling with small children gives you 3-4 hours of driving time before the kids wake up.  It was worth being tired for.
-Eat out only one meal.  We had a cooler and bought groceries to last us the other meals.  We also tried to stay somewhere where they had continental breakfast.  We tried to stay under $30 for the other meal, and we were always under.  One time we only spent $11 for all 3 of us.
-Find a hotel room under $100.  We were lucky and stayed under that number every night.  In Nauvoo we found a room for $50 that had all that we were looking for (pool, continental breakfast, exercise room, internet).  But to be honest, the place was a dive.  I would never stay there again.  But we stayed well under budget!

We had a specific amount of money that we used for the drive and we came home with over $100 left over! I was so happy about that.

States we traveled through over the last month:
-Wyoming
-Utah
-Idaho
-Montana
-Kansas
-Colorado
-Iowa
-Missouri
-Illinois
-Ohio
-Indiana
-Pennsylvania
-New York

What a great month we had!!