Road to Hanover: Day SEVEN

DAY SEVEN: Cleveland, OH to Niagara Falls, NY

My children were thrilled to wake up in the morning, and in an instant remembered that Leah was sleeping next door.  Maddie hurried and got dressed and then made her way over to their room to "check it out." After we were done getting ready we all headed over to McDonald's for some breakfast.  I am pretty sure there were some tantrums by our children and other misbehaviors, but all in all it was fun to begin to get to know our new friends better.

Our beautiful wrong turn while trying to make it to the Kirtland visitors center.....I seriously love all the greenery :)

Our next stop was in Kirtland, Ohio to sight see a bit.  Now I say "a bit" loosely because that basically means stop and see some church sights while the kids ran wild.  By this time we realized that tours were pretty much impossible for us and that going inside church buildings were pure torture on all of us.  I was lucky enough to take Mr E into the tail end of the Kirtland tour just in time for the Newel K. Whitney Store.  It was lovely and   I enjoyed every bit of it.  Eli was remarkably good as well and toward the end when he got tired of sitting I managed to bribe him with my phone :)  After finishing up the tour and smelling some pretty flowers it was time to hit the road for us!

 Mr E

 Newel K. Whitney store

--the tiny little bed that was used by an employee in the store.  I could not believe how skinny it was!

Then it was back in the car for more driving fun.  We had some more texts back and forth before finally arriving in Niagara Falls that afternoon.  The drive went without incident and even featured several of these, lucky us?!

Funny, not so funny moment of the day:  Finding out that somehow M and R booked a room at the same hotel as us with a pool, only to find out there are two hotels under this name in different locations in the same city.  Freaky coincidence huh?  It was only after we tried to coordinate going for a swim that we realized we were not in the same hotel.  Lucky for us they decided to come over to our pool for a little dip in the outdoor pool.  Let's just say I am a big old fat Arizona sissy when it comes to swimming in pools. My idea of a wonderful swim would be water at 85 degrees or above.  So needless to say the water was a bit chilly for me.

Favorite memory in the pool: watching Leah dip under water like a pro, and also the laughter and giggles out of that cute little girl while splashing in the pool
Least favorite memory in the pool: having my kids scream bloody murder when their eyes hurt from the alternate  chlorine/salt water solution in the water.  Then having to go running into the hotel lobby dripping wet to their bathroom to splash my children's eyes out.  After two episodes of this, I smarted up and whipped out our swim goggles and persuaded my kids to wear them.

Once we were all cleaned up, we headed over to the Niagara Falls touristy area and ate at the overpriced food court.  My kids loved this random picture moment horse and argued over who's turn it was to climb on the beast.  Plenty of pictures were snapped and Miss M was pretty pouty when we forced her to share her turn with the brothers. aren't we so mean?

By the time we made it to the Falls it was dusk and our kids were worn out and tired with a capital T.  It took all adults to make it safely through our Niagara Falls sightseeing that night.  It was beautiful to watch the "light show" where they alternately shine different colors of lights over the rushing water.  My kids were even captivated for a moment by this.  Maren was nice enough to capture one picture of all of us, which basically explains how crazy we felt that night!

Eli, Tiffany, Jesse, Robby and Maddie
{I give complete credit to Miss Maren for snapping these two pictures that night on her super nice camera!}

Is it horrible to say that we {I} more than looked forward to putting kids to bed that night?  Because it is 100% true.  I was tired, they were tired, and that was that.  Jesse dropped me off at the hotel with three very tired, nearly asleep kiddos and headed off to do some much needed laundry?  The kids went to bed well and I nodded of to sleep shortly after them....

Road to Hanover: Day SIX

DAY SIX: Nauvoo, IL to Cleveland, OH

Our next started out pretty much at our standard time: 10am start once packed and ready to move.  Day six encompassed a pretty boring day that included driving, driving and yet more driving. Here are the highlights/lowlights of the day.

#1: (highlight) During our lunch break, we stopped at McDonald's {which by the way, I don't think I ever want to eat McDonald's again after our many lunch/dinner stops at that joint} and the kids were so cute sitting on these bar stools together.  I had this really adorable grandma come up to me while we were eating and say that she was very impressed with how well behaved my children were.  This filled me with pride, because normally my kids are the crazy, misbehaved ones running circles around the restaurant....especially during this trip due to being in the car so long every day. 

 Miss Maddie, Robby, and Eli

#2: (highlight) Jesse and I were totally addicted to Reese's Pieces during our trip.  We looked for these at almost every gas break.  Then on one of our stops today I found a HUGE bag of these gems.  We were totally set for about 1 day before they were all gone once again :)

{yes, that freakish alien skin behind the candy is my hand}

 #3: (lowlight) Once we hit Chicago, we were in for a sore surprise.  We had a total wall of traffic on the I80 coming into the city and at one point had barely moved in over 30 minutes.  Luckily we had Maddie to entertain us with her own artistic rendition of the traffic.  I think she nailed it: our car is the tiny one stuck right between two huge semi's.  

#4: (highlight) During the day we started text messaging back and forth with Maren and Ryan Layton.  We discovered partway across the United States that we seemed to be moving at a similar pace and it was becoming more and more likely that we may cross paths prior to arriving in New Hampshire.  Luckily this ended up being the day that it happened!  After quite a bit of messaging we realized that we were all stopping that evening in Cleveland, OH for the night.  It was pretty fun to find out that we were all going to be staying at the same hotel.  I have to admit I was a little nervous as we pulled up.  I was hoping that they would like us, that my crazy kids wouldn't scare them away, that we would all continue to have common interests and "click" like we did at ASW, and that our families would mesh well together. I think the moment we got out of our cars and reconnected those fears all vanished away.  Maren walked right over to my car to meet the children and we were instantly smitten.  She was kind, friendly and geniunely interested in her conversations with the kids.  Robby was so excited when he found out Maren had a little girl that was four and enthusiastically replied "we're both four! We are kind of like twins!"  We ended up being next door neighbors that evening in the hotel and first thing in the morning Miss M was more than ready to go explore their room and get to know Leah better.  We were so excited to meet up with them because they will be living in the same community as us for the next two years and both hubbies will be starting at Dartmouth's business school this fall.  I was also very excited to meet the famous "Leah bean" that I had heard so much about since April.  Leah was a champ and already asleep, while my kids were all bouncing around like crazy as we pulled into the hotel.  Luckily we were able to calm them down fairly easily and all get a decent night of sleep.  

.....to be continued :) 

Road to Hanover: Day FIVE

DAY FIVE: Kansas City, MO to Nauvoo, IL


We were so glad to be able to spend the night with family yet another night.  The best part, other than the entire basement we had to ourselves without ANY windows {you heard it, I loved that part because my kids slept in sooo long}, was the fact that there were other children for our kids to play with that morning.  We stayed with Jesse's cousins: Nathan and Melissa and their three children.  They had two girls (slightly older than Miss M) and then two boys that were pretty close to R and E's age.  My children were so excited to have some friends to play with.  After some yummy waffles for breakfast, we went swimming at their community pool.  They happened to live just a few houses away from the swimming pool so we were able to just walk down to it.  Although we only stayed in the pool for maybe an hour, it was so nice to allow the kids to run around, play, laugh and pull some active energy out of them.  We stayed at their house until mid-day and then it was time to pack up again and head out.

J's cousin Melissa and their youngest son

R being silly in their family room

Cute little boys that quickly became buddies for the few hours we were there :)

  All the kids (except for Eli)

Their daughters were so cute and kept trying to climb in the car with us as we packed up to leave!

As we charted out our course for the day, it became apparent to me that today would be the day of the many states.  We went through four different states in a matter of hours as we flirted between the corners of each of those states: Missouri-Kansas-Missouri-Iowa-Illinois= exhausting!  We did make a few stops along the way which in turn broke up the drive just a bit more.  The first stop was about 45 minutes after we left in Independence, Missouri.  We went to the jail tour where they discussed Joseph Smith's incarceration in the 1800's. It was a great place to see and tour, other than the fact that the kids were seriously out of control.  Like running around during the tour and trying to take the poor missionaries remote {for sound and lighting} during the presentation out of control.  To our benefit we did warn her that we needed the kid-friendly version to which she smiled and then went right into the same spill that she gives to all tourists. After having such a difficult time at this stop we learned our lesson and the rest of breaks included picture taking, playing in a cornfield, learning how difficult it was to get on and off toll highways, many potty breaks/food breaks, and finding redboxes for new movies for our children. 

 Independence Missouri Jail Visitors Center

 Cool looking building in downtown Independence, MO

 More cat nap sleeping in the car by the kiddos :)

I especially love the one below of Maddie and Robby laying across each other to sleep!

Much of our drive involved cornfield after cornfield combined with rustic old barns, tractors, and other farm equipment.  The kids {okay, okay Jesse and I} loved looking for the large rolls of hay all packaged up and ready to sell.

 During one of our breaks, we ventured into someone's cornfield for awhile to let off some steam, or rather bring more of it in our car.  It was incredibly humid and the moment we stepped out of the car, it felt like we were hit with a warm, wet mist.  The kids enjoyed running through the fields and Jesse and I commented on how much we felt like we were on the movie set for "Signs." 

The funniest part was when someone pulled there car over and asked us for directions while we were playing.  We had to tell them we weren't from around the area and they replied "oh, I thought maybe you lived here."  Seriously, do we already look like small-townish? J/K

 Our little Cornfield "Princess"

I did love love love the signs they proudly display in Missouri for each of their little towns, so quaint!

(The signs were somewhat misleading however. We kept thinking we were hitting a "real" town only to discover that it consisted of a population <1,000 people)

Luckily it was a much shorter drive than usual and we arrived in Nauvoo, IL right at Sunset.  Jesse was so excited to capture a picture of the sunset along the Conneticut River and would pull over every few minutes to take another picture.  I thought others driving would think we were crazy, but sure enough there was a whole chain of us cars that pulled over every so often for the beautiful view.  

{in J's words: "Sunset on the Mississippi River. Without question one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever seen."----I can't agree more with him}

Soon enough we pulled into historic Nauvoo which brought a flood of emotions for us.  Last time we visited this pretty little town was nearly five years ago when I was big and pregnant with Robby. We spent 4 days perusing the streets, going through the temple, and drinking in our Church history.  This time experiencing Nauvoo was much different than the last, but the strong emotional pull we felt towards Nauvoo remains.  Our children enjoyed visiting Nauvoo and loved pointing up and showing us where the temple was.  After some picture taking, we headed to our hotel.  It turned out to be this really cool semi-out of town motel place.  We had our own little cabin that had one bedroom with a sleeper couch in the living room.  It even had a couple of television sets and a small kitchen with a dishwasher, microwave, sink set up.  That evening we relaxed and watched a new Redbox "Rango" with the children.  The one downside was the inadequacy of decent inexpensive food in the town.  We were tired and hungry when we arrived and just wanted to grab a cheap Little Caesar's style pizza for dinner.  J dropped us off at the motel and then went food scavenging.  He returned later with one tiny pizza in hand that was CRAZY EXPENSIVE and announced it was the only joint in town that was open after 8pm.  We munched on our pricey pizza and some snacks from the gas station while we enjoyed our movie.  Eli was an angel and slept in his pack and play in our room that evening.  It took a little bit o coercing from the parents to finally get Miss M and Robby to go to bed that night. J and I counted on the number of fingers how many more nights to go until we could permanently separate the two of them again at night :)

 My three prides and joy {Eli, Maddie, and Robby}

{Maddie wanted to show us how "strong" her muscles were when we didn't believe that she could pick up her other brother as well---see previous picture where she is "holding" E}

Nauvoo Temple

Road to Hanover: Day FOUR

DAY FOUR: Austin, TX to Kansas City, MO

After our little break from traveling, we hit the roads as early as we could Monday morning, which was ummmm 9am?!  Not a typo at all, let's just say that this Momma doesn't do so hot getting up early.  It's sort of never been a strength for me and there is definitely a reason why I have never taken a permanent 7am-7pm nursing job in the seven plus years of my career.  I am a very happy rising at 7am or later.  Add that to the heavy duty packing required each and every morning on the road, and it makes for a late start no matter what you do.  That's okay though; we were just happy to finally have a radiator fan to replace the broken piece.

 Robby became completely attached to our cell phones after starting our trip back East and J downloaded several game apps for him.  His faves right now are: Air Attack, Raging Thunder- car race, and Angry Birds. This is basically how R looked each and every morning while we packed our car for the road :)

 Mr E was so worn out by Day FOUR that he didn't make a peep when we moved him from his pack and play to Dad's bed in the morning. Once we were pretty much all packed up, we finally awoke him and hit the road shortly after.

{he looks big and grown up in this picture}

{Little Miss chowing down on her breakfast at Grandpa's house}

Due to our not so early, early start we made the decision to just keep driving until our radiator started giving us problems.  We were really hoping to make it most of the way to Kansas City before stopping to fix the car, unfortunately we began to follow this super fun heat streak all the way across Mid America.  Yep, record highs in each of the cities we traveled through coupled with extreme humidity.  I don't know why people complain so much about how miserably hot Arizona is every Spring/Summer/Fall, I would much rather suffer through 115 degree DRY weather than 90 degree WET weather.  I've decided that humidity is the pits and I would live almost anywhere in the world as long as the weather is not humid.  I detest feeling like I have just stepped out a steam shower. Okay, okay, back on track now................

We were making pretty good time until our car started overheating somewhere between Austin, TX and Oklahoma City.  When we would stop for gasoline and restroom breaks the engine's temperature would jump to an alarming level and then gradually cool down after driving for a few minutes, provided we didn't have to stop at all.  If we hit a stop light the temperature would jump back up to the previous scary level.  All of this was happening as we were dealing with problems starting the car as well.  For some reason the key was also having problems catching in the key wheel [complete idiot mechanic terminology of course] and it was difficult for the right pieces inside the steering column to turn the car over.  Jesse started having to shake the key up and down while simultaneously turning the key in the wheel.  At times it would start the first time and other times it would take 10 minutes to get the car started.  So in the middle of worrying about the car overheating, we were also having a difficult time starting the car every time we turned it off.  We seriously had some wicked back luck.

While in Oklahoma City, the one highlight was the Fazoli's that we found.  My family was always a Fazolis loving family until all the stores closed in Arizona about six or seven years ago.  Us Sheffield's practically went through the "Seven Stages of Grief" due to this sad misfortune.  So when I realized I had a chance to eat there once again I was 100% for it.  The end result: the Fettucini Alfredo was delicious and just how I remembered it, garlic bread was good---even though they didn't walk around and hand out extra bread like they used to, but the lemon ice left a lot to be desired.  The drink tasted like a powdered substance had been used to mix it up and was far from how I remembered it.  It turned out to be a winner with the kids because:

  A) They all ate their food like champs

  B) It was air conditioned and Oklahoma City felt like I had just stepped out of a shower, gross 

 C) The store was practically empty and so the kids ran circles around the place and used up a fraction of        their energy before being stuffed back into the car 

 {Oh, how I've missed you}

{Funny story: I was so giddy about being able to eat at Fazoli's that the first thing I thought was that I had to tell my Mom about it, maybe even brag a little.  I took this cute picture of my soda cup with M smiling in the background and texted my mom a message that said "Look what Oklahoma City has. I figured you would appreciate this find on our journey".  At first I was surprised I never heard back from her, but quickly forgot about this until I mentioned this to my Dad.  He sort of laughed and then told me that Mom cannot receive picture messages on her phone. Major bummer}

Eli "Spiderman" Toronto showing us his new trick in the restaurant booth

After our Fazoli's stop and several traffic jams while attempting to make it back to the interstate we gradually realized that it was time to have Jesse really replace the radiator fan once and for all.  This brought us to a friendly Circle K that just so happened to be butted against a rather busy intersection.  It was my job to watch all the kids outside of the car and make sure they didn't run into the street or in front of cars at the gas station. Swell right?  First we decided to make a short trip across the street and rent a few Redbox DVD's for the children.  Hand in hand we walked over and back.  When we got back to the car we were all drenched in sweat.  Next came the incessant whines of being tired, hot, thirsty, etc.  After hearing enough of these demands I caved in and took them to the convenience store where we stocked up on way too much candy, soda, and treats to occupy ourselves until the car was ready. FINALLY we were off!!

At the gas station, some of the things we did to entertain ourselves included:

PRACTICING OUR AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL POSES

 EATING MULTIPLE CONTAINERS OF PRINGLES CHIPS (CHEDDAR CHEESE IS OUR FAVE)

PLAY WITH OUR MATCHBOX CARS

 FIND AS MANY STICKS AS YOU CAN WITHIN A 3 FOOT RADIUS, AND THEN TRY TO ATTACH THEM ALL TO THE CAR LUGGAGE. WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TO CARRY AS IT IS.

 TAKE SOME MORE DEJA VU PICTURES OF HANDSOME J FIXING THE CAR

 PRETEND THE STICK IS A SWORD AND ATTEMPT TO "CUT" THE BUNGEE CORDS THAT ARE ATTACHED TO THE CAR

 PULL WHOLE BRANCHES OUT OF THE TREE NEXT TO THE CAR

THEN PICK OFF ALL THE GREENERY AND LIKE MAGIC YOU HAVE YOUR VERY OWN SWORD :)

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, aside from the fact that we arrived in Kansas City at J's cousins house quite late (after midnight).  We were lucky that two of the three kids were passed out asleep and Robby went to sleep fairly easy as well.  I think we hit a record breaking unpack time before climbing into bed and practically falling asleep before our heads hit the pillows.

 During our drive, we stopped "a few times" for J to snap some pictures of small town America in the heart of Kansas. In places like this you find many Americana themed flags that truly are rustic and old {not just designed to look this way}

Also found are rustic Farmhouses such as this in "Kansas corn country"