Anyway, we loaded in the car and left after school on Monday, May 2. We had the car loaded (somethings on top) and kids loaded with homework and other activities for the journey.
Trying to get Disney's Tarzan to play as we started out.
Picking something for him and the kids.
I don't watch movies much in the car.
I just listen to what everyone else is watching.
At about 2 am, Nate woke up as he had been the first one to knock off. "I'm the only one awake!" Eric and I were thinking, "yea, now go back to sleep." I told him to look out at the beautiful starry sky in Nebraska (I guess there's one thing nice about a prairie state) and as there wasn't much to do or see, he soon rejoined the others in car riding silence.
We made a gas stop about 6 am Central Time and the lights of the station woke up the sleeping children.
Are we there yet???
If only!!
They moaned a bit and I threw them all a snack of some sort. Thankfully, they returned to Slumberville shortly after that stop and didn't wake up for a couple more hours.As we crept up on the Nebraska/Wyoming border, we saw...
MOUNTAINS!!!!!
And we were so...
EXCITED!!
Just look at the expression on Nate's face.
For the next hour, we kept an eye on the mountains.
Mountains meant we were close to Utah.
Right before the Wyoming/Utah border, we stopped for gas. After filling the tank, I looked at the stuff on top of the car and noticed that one of our bins had it's top missing. The bungy cord must have moved during the night and the lid blew off. The bin, which had been holding our Sunday clothes and a coat from my mission, was half empty. Eric brought it down to survey the damage. My coat, Eric's three ties, Graigry's suit and both boys' ties were gone.
I figure it was our Nebraska sacrifice. On our move to Indy in 2001, we had our motor home break down outside of Kimball, NE. Grant and Stephanie blew a tire on their trip home from Florida.We didn't have a car break down, so we had to offer something and I'd prefer it be clothes instead of a car repair.
Finally...
We still had about two hours left to get to the Hibbert headquarters, but we were "just" up the mountain. I'd forgotten how steep Parley's Canyon is and how beautiful the mountains are. There was so much that had changed and much that had stayed the same, which I guess is typical of any return trip.
We got to Hibberts just after Dad had pulled into the driveway. Mom and Bek were doing a final wedding dress fitting and arrived a little bit later. We stretched and visited for a little bit and then headed to Neil's house for dinner and bed. We spent the nights there as he has two extra bedrooms and separate bathroom for guests.
Kids crashed on Tuesday night
after 26 hours in the car.
They had a blast making baked goodies, monsters,
and whatever else came into their minds.
Wednesday afternoon, we went to Temple Square. I called Neil to get a heads up on where to park. He met us and walked around with us for a little bit through his lunch break. He took this picture on the steps of the Salt Lake Temple.
My Eternal Family
We went out to the reflecting pool and took individual pictures of the kids. It took looking through the camera for Graigry and Nate to see the reflection. Maybe it is their age; it seemed so obvious to me where to see the reflection.
Here's a pretty picture of the reflection pool all by itself.
It's upside down, in case you can't tell.
We went into the two visitor's centers. The south one had a detailed miniture version of the Salt Lake Temple with a cross cut so visitors can see what it looks like inside. There are several touch screens where visitors can get more information on the specific rooms and the kids liked reading more about the rooms.
Outside that visitor's center is a statue of the priesthood restauration, so Eric wanted a "future" picture, so we took one.
The kids loved smelling all the beautiful flowers.
Then we went to the Cristus statue and sat for a little while, listened to the audio scripture verses.
At that point, the kids were complaining that they were hungry, understandable as it was 6:30 Indy time. I asked if they wanted to go back to Uncle Neil's or to Aunt Jerusha's. The vote was Aunt Jerusha's, but before going, I wanted to see the Church History Museum, so one more stop.
We did a quick trip through the pioneer things and then went up to the children section for about 30 minutes.
Pioneer Covered Wagon
Playing in the "garden" at the children section.
Next stop was Jerusha's or play and pizza. They played soccer in the front yard, I think boys against girls, and had a ball (ha-ha). Nate found some cars, Graigry found a nerf gun which all the boy cousins had fun shooting.
Nate was upset with someone about something.
The Smart, Read and Scott cousins together.
After pizza, it was about 8 o'clock and we all decided to head back to our bedroom suites for the night as Jersh's kids all had school the next day.
Thursday night the family met at Noah's to play with everyone together. Noah's is a reception / rent a room place. Mom got two attached rooms, one with a walleyball court and the other had a sofa, movie, arcade, pool and ping pong table. Cousins played around with a walleyball, Xela, Emma and Joe played pool, some watched pieces of a movie, ate pizza, etc.
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| Cousins 2000 playing pool Xela, Joseph and Emma were all born in 2000 |
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| Eating pizza & cookies while visiting Wride crew just got back from time abroad |
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| Neil & Eric bowled with boys Nate and Mikey loved sliding across the walleyball court |
After a while, the Wii was connected and projected on to the walleyball court wall and us Hibb Sibbs got our groove on with a Dance 2 Dance game. SOOOO FUUUNNN!!! I wish I had some pictures of it, but I was dancing and Eric probably didn't know where the camera was. Us Hibberts are a special bread of people.
So that was Thursday. Friday night we left the kids at Neil's house with a babysitter and went to an adults only dinner at Sweet Tomatoes. Sometimes it's good to just hang with the adults. We had a good visit with Dad at the table and my stomach decided to be upset so I sadly didn't eat my usual multiple salad buffet helpings.
We went back to Mom & Dad's for a bit so that Neil and Grant could practice their wedding song for Beka, which meant she got kicked out of the house for awhile. It's always such a laugh to get with those boys and amazing to see how talented they are.
Saturday was the wedding and reception. All 24 grandkids were at the temple and the reception. The sealing was at one, which was good because we didn't have to wake up super early to travel south from Layton. We enjoyed being with the family and, again, the cousins loved being together. Instead of giving a play by play, which I tend to do, I'll just post some pictures and put captions with them.
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| Neices & nephews waiting for the bride & groom. There were some malards in the fountain which provided some entertainment during the wait. |
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| Getting 24 kids to sit still for a picture is a feat. This one wasn't too bad, considering what we were working with. |
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| Hibbert Family It's not often we are all together so we cherish the moments we are. |
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| All the sisters had blue scarves that we could wear however. Jerusha tried this look while waiting for the dinner reception to start. We loved it, but didn't think it would look great in the family pics. Jerusha is such a riot. |
There are a lot of other pictures from other family photographers, but that's all I have on this computer. Dinner was wonderful, Neil & Grant with the back up singing sisters was great and the dancing afterward was awesome. As soon as Dad turned things over to the dancing floor, after dinner, the first song they played was Boot Scootin' Boogie (I'm pretty sure) and I think I was one of the first one's on the dance floor and didn't get off for quite awhile. It was so much fun to just be myself, dance around, play and not have to worry about much else. (Yes, I miss the youth dances so this was a great release of youthful energy. And yes I still consider myself youthful.) All the Hibb Sibbs were out dancing and many of the cousins got out and just enjoyed each other. Even Mom got out and Neil got in a dance with her. I think it was 10:30 or 11 before we finally left (we helped clean up a little ad at the end they played Thriller, which of course delayed departure even more). When Eric and I got back to Neil and Amy's, we packed for departure as we were leaving Sunday evening.
Sunday, Beka and Matt were off on their honeymoon. Us Scotts got up early to drive to SLC to attend church with Mom and Dad. After meetings, Eric and I snuck in a nap before going to Jerusha & Jared's house for a big family dinner, always a delicious treat both in food and company.
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| Lining up for family dinner, youngest to oldest, then we shuffled them around the house to eat. |
After dinner and dessert, the kids played and adults visited for an hour. We gave Mom a mother's day/birthday present. Then it was 8 o'clock and we Scott's had to depart. Hugs and kisses and some whining from our kids who wanted to stay and play, but we finally made it to the car and started the long drive home. it took a few minutes to load and buckle, but once that was done and we pulled in front of the house, everyone was outside, in the mist, waving and calling good byes. I LOVE MY FAMILY!
It was another day and a few hours in the car. We got through the mountains of Wyoming in the rainstorm, which as the driver, made me quite nervous. After the rain stopped, we were stopped by and accident involving a rig and a large pick up truck. Some kind of explosion because there was melted metal and burn marks on both vehcles. Early in the morning, that was motivation to stay awake.
To break up the trip and give us a place to stretch, we stopped at a pony express station in Nebraska. It was interesting, I think even for the kids, to learn a little about the pony express, get a free pin and see some old stuff.
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| Xela is taking notes to help her with her school report. The school kids had to give an oral report to have their absences excused. |
After the pony express, we drove a little and then stopped again and had lunch in the parking lot of another Nebraska something that wasn't as cool as we thought it would be. It had some stuffed native Nebraskan animals, but that was about it.
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| Enjoying fruit bowls, pb and nuttella sandwiches in the heat of a Nebraskan parking lot. |
On the other side of the state, we stopped at the Winter Quarter's temple and Visitor's Center. The kids enjoyed the tour by the sister missionary.
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| Kids got to dress like pioneers and then went on a walk through Church History. |
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| They had 30 seconds to load their wagons with essentials. |
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| Pulling a handcart, easy until you have to go over a small rock. The sister put one small rock in front of each wheel and it made it hard, but Aurora and Nate could pull it. She put a larger, but not big rock, in front of each rock. Then they couldn't move it until Xela went into the back to push. |
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| Outside the museum. |
We walked around the cemetary a little bit.
The last good bye to Omaha...
...and we made our final push to Indianapolis.
We got home around one am and let the kids catch up on their sleep instead of go to school. We were all exhausted and needed a day to recover. It was good to get home after a long drive. It was really good to spend time with family.
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