The Road to Graduation.

The journey to graduation is a long one-- and I don't just mean the classes and assignments-- I mean the actual road, like, the I-15. But we did it! I'm not sure which is a bigger accomplishment, that I graduated with my bachelor's degree or that we drove 30+ hours with a two year old and survived. ;-)

So! I thought I'd share some of the fun from along the way.. 

Nathan at the start of our road trip. We borrowed a portable DVD player for the trip and brought like, oh, 15 movies so that we'd have plenty of variety. Oh don't worry-- he watched the same movie for the. whole. trip.  Curious George is a favorite of his these days.

So on Wednesday, (April 4th),  we left {later than planned} from Phoenix around like, 7pm or something ridiculous, and drove to St. George, where we stayed with one of my previous Young Women leaders ("old" YW leader felt like I was calling her old). Eh, oh well. So we stayed with a family friend there in St. George. [Oh and I just have to mention, about 8 miles into our trip, Nathan's like, "We in Utah?" Uhhh, not yet!]  

The next morning Nathan was ready to get going! We had to drive up to Provo that day. Sister Kimball (our hostess in St. George, recommended that we stop at the new city carousel, which turned out to be amazing. We were glad we made the stop!

So Nathan was so excited to ride... until the ride started. Then he was frantic. He tells the story something like this, "And the horse goes uppp and dowwwnn. And I scaaared! But I go on Papi's horse and then I say, "Weeeeee!!" Yep. Pretty accurate telling of what went down on the St. George carousel. [We totally recommend it to anyone headed that way-- it was only a DOLLAR to ride it. And Nathan was free with a paying adult. Whaaat? Most carousels are like, $5 each ride. That made it THAT much more fun.]

On the road again! We had plenty of fun games for when Curious George got old. Like fishing! Except that in Nursery, the fish have songs on the back, and mine didn't. So, we pretended they did! We sang all sorts of songs. And lots of them, too! Fishing was fun!

Then we finally got to Provo, Utah. Yay! (We're still not even half way, but still exciting!) We left Nathan on the doorstep and we hid in the bushes.  Mitch answered the door and Nathan looked around like, HEY! Where did everyone go? Heh. :)

We had plenty of fun with Jessica, Mitch, my dad, Sarah, and her friend-that's-a-boy Darren (who N kept mistaking for Jeff [Emily's husband]), and Annie & Alley. Hm. We should have taken pictures. I think we always say that. 

Surprise! The next morning it wassss.... SNOWING! Hooray! Nathan got all dressed up (BIG coat, gloves, hat, etc... which took like 10 minutes..) to walk the ten feet from the door to the car. And then took it all off. 

We headed for Rexburg, Idaho on Friday morning! Yay! My dad drove with us and we had a great time together.
[That toothpaste box held the Capin Muh-nack-cuh-cuh  PEZ dispenser.  I wrapped like, ten or so little surprises from the Dollar Store.  He got to open a new surprise after various points in the drive.  It seemed like a great idea, and it worked well.  Except that now every so often when we get in the car, Nathan's like, "My surprise?? Where's my surprise?!" No, Nathan, we're driving a block to church, not 11 hours to Utah.]

And that brings us to Idaho! Woo hoo! We got out of the car in Idaho Falls (where our hotel was) and as glad as I was to be there, I couldn't help but think, and now we have to go alll the wayyy back.