Our Trip to Indiana

My older sister Millie lives in West Lafayette, Indiana with her husband Johnathan and two kids Brighten and Jeremy. I only get to see her once a year usually at Christmas when there is so much going on, so many people around, and it's usually only for a couple of days. I really enjoy her and I miss her. Millie and Johnathan just closed on their first home and moved in the very end of May. Millie really wanted Mom and Andon to come out to help them settle in. She called me and asked if I would be willing to drive everyone out so our kids could make some memories together and so I could also help with the moving in. I have really wanted to go there to see them but it has never worked out the whole 5 years they've been married. We decided we could do that and I talked Quinn into driving one way with us and flying back for work. On June 11 Quinn and I started on our 32 hour drive across the states. Keep in mind that is 32 hours of driving. That doesn't include stopping for gas, food, bathroom, etc. Wednesday afternoon after Quinn got off work he and I and the kids headed to my parents house in Idaho. It's about 6 hours from Washington. We stayed the night there then Thursday morning got up, packed up Mom and Andon with us and headed across through Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and into Indiana. We only stopped for potty breaks, gas, and food. Between Quinn and I we drove all day on Thursday through that night and all day Friday arriving at their home about 6:30 pm Idaho time which was 8:30 Indiana time. Boy were we tired and so ready to be there. Mom and I were already dreading the drive home and it would be even worse because Quinn wouldn't be with us to help. Quinn slept a little bit here and there while I was driving but Mom and I didn't sleep at all during the night. I just couldn't sleep and mom felt obligated to keep the driver awake. Everyone in the Eastin Family knows how hard Robyn can laugh sometimes. Well my mom and I are the same way.  It is bred into us from my mom's side of the family.  Her siblings are like that and most of my siblings are like that. Quinn calls it my 'Cry Laugh'.  I can hardly breath as tears stream down my face and I am beet red.  It's great!  It's like our own version of a high! We can really laugh about the stupidest things and we really egg each other on when something is funny. With mom and I being so sleep deprived, so tired of driving, and having to make conversation just to keep the driver awake we laughed alot. Many times Quinn would just watch while we laughed our heads off at nothing. He would even start chuckling just because laughing is so contagious. We had a good time.

Driving the first day.

We stopped many times to empty little bladders. This time Quinn was just opening the door to help them when they both had already dropped there drawers and were falling backwards into his arms at the same  time. He barely caught them and his foot may have gotten peepeed on a little. We all had a good laugh over that too.

We arrived Friday night and first thing my Niece Brighty (who is just 2 months older than McKay so they just turned 4) was begging me to cut her hair. On Saturday we tackled that. She was so excited her parents had given her permission and she just couldn't wait any longer.

She doesn't look excited, but she really is.

She loved it and it made it easier to do her hair. Her daddy even told me later that he wasn't very excited for her hair to get cut because he liked it long. Once he saw it he said he changed his mind. He thought it looked so cute.

Millie and Johnathan have some milking goats and boy oh boy were those a big hit. They also have chickens and turkeys. The kids loved that and spent A LOT of time out on their 9 acres just playing, taking care of and wrestling with chickens and goats. Jemmy who is 5 months younger than Gensie is really showing her how to handle the goats.

Jemmy and Lele playing together. I feel bad this is one of the only pictues Avonlea is in with the cousins because most of the pictures where taken while kids were playing outside with the animals. I even meant to get a group shot and never did. Shame on me. I need to take some lessons from Steph and get better at this picture taking thing.

Many books were read

Andon playing with his horses. He is such a good uncle. He loves the kids and is a lot of help with them.

Helping Aunt Meme milk Fudgy.

As you can see she now knows all about goats and how to handle them.

This is from Uncle Quinns babysitting. Quinn was such a sport. He was there with us from Friday night to the following Thursday evening. Johnathan had to work every day so Quinn would watch all 5 energetic kids I think every day while Mom, Millie and I went shopping to get things we needed to decorate the house. He would also install blinds, and tape off the porch and paint the porch while watching, feeding, changing, and napping 5 kids. Super Uncle Quinn.

Uncle Johnathan thought he would mow some of there hugely enourmaouse lawn. Obviously he needed help. Millie and Johnathan will now spend much of their time just mowing the lawn. I'm not kidding it's HUGE.

Many fun times in the pool. The kids really got along well and had a great time together.

What kid doesn't like to have a birthday? Millie had the grand idea of having a birthday party for all the kids. So we did. Millie, Mom and I had gone to a number of yard sales together.  That's one of our favorite sports. We're all really good at it.:) We bought each kid some little something for a quarter or fifty cents then wrapped them up for the party. We wanted to make homemade ice cream but the ice cream maker wouldnt work so we had rhubarb cobbler and ice cream cones and the kids got more than one cone. We had balloons and these marshmallow guns that they really enjoyed. They also enjoyed eating the marshmallows.

Many ice cream cones were eaten and not just at the birthday party.

McKay is helping Uncle Johnathan milk a goat.

These two had a good time together. Brighty is really into "getting married" so she and McKay got married a lot in two and a half weeks.  She did all the proposing.

This particular day Gensie's shirt got wet so she took it off. Who needs a shirt when you're on 9 acres anyway?

Brighty maning the hose, seeing to it that everyone gets wet.

M and J needed to build a chicken coop but they needed a way to haul the supplies first. So Johnathan and I went to the lumber store and made it fit. He had to ride home laying on it like this to keep it from sliding out of the van. Oh the memories.

Of course once we had the lumber unloaded in the garage it was the newest best place to play.

One evening we took the kids down to a grocery store called Meijer where a pony ride is only a penny. They all got lots and lots of rides. It was a very big hit.

We left Monday morning June 30th. The drive home wasn't nearly as bad as we exspected.  We drove 9-10 hours a day and made it home in 3 days. We slept one night in Lincoln Nebraska and the second night in Green River Wyoming. This is eating breakfast the last day in Green River. The kids were so so good for the whole 32 hours and slept GREAT both nights in the hotels. Our first day driving, after we left Indiana, we got caught in a tornado warning. The sky darkend so many shades of black, blue and purple and within minutes was raining so hard I coulnd't drive more than 30mph. After 15 min of driving like that with the wind really blowing we pulled off the freeway with many other cars to wait it out. We stopped for about 20 min then started out again with it still raining hard but not compared to what it had been like. We were blessed. We said a payer and I was confident and comfortable the whole drive.

I guess he needed a place to wrest his hand while he slept.

 

We stopped in Pocatello and met up with Grandma and Grandpa Eastin. They fed us lunch at a park and the kids got to play for about and hour and a half. It was sweet of them to meet us there.  We miss them.

This is at G and G Pearce's house. They have new puppies and oh boy did McKay really really want one. Quinn and I do too but we cant' have a dog at our rental house. He named this one Patch which is what he names all their animals.  That or Lucky. He held this pup all morning long until 1:30 when we left and I had to make him leave it there:( He would rock it to sleep then make everyone around whisper because his puppy was taking a nap. Gensie is checking to see if he's actually asleep.

Shhhhhh Gensie this fella just got his ol pup to sleep.

When I asked to hold the pupppy he gave me very specific instructions how to. I had to hold it like this. We can't wait till we can really get him a dog.

From L to R:  Gensie, Dad, my youngest brother Andon, Mckay, my oldest brother Zatl, Avonlea and Mom

We finally arrived at my parents house Wed about 8:00pm. The next day I let McKay and Gensie play and play outside with all Grandpa and Grandma Pearce's animals. They got so dirty and had so much fun while Avonlea just slept and slept. She was so exhausted from not getting her 12 hours at night or her huge naps. I was hoping to leave by noon and didn't leave till about 1:30 pm because I was waiting for her to wake up and I still had to wake her. I was a little nervous about the last 6 hours we had to get home to Washington. The kids had been without there daddy for 2 weeks and they really missed him and they had been in the car for 10 hours a day for 3 days. They watched a movie for the first hour. McKay was the first one asleep then 30 min later Gensie, then after a few minutes of some serious fussing from Avonlea (I'm sure she was just trying to tell me how tired she was of that dumb ol car seat) she finally fell asleep as well. I turned on the Children's Primary Songs and immediately she calmed down, tried singing along then was asleep in a few minutes. McKay slept for two and a half hours and the girls slept for nearly 2 hours. I only had to stop once after they woke up to nurse and feed Avonlea then we made it home safely to our Daddy.

I know I didn't post any pictures of their new home. I will do that in a separate post. Sorry to the Eastins if these are boring because you don't know my family. I'm posting so much detail so my Dad and siblings can see everything. I have a lot of catching up to do so hopefully a lot of posts soon.