Summer 2015 vacation part 1 (of many:)

Let the vacation blogging commence! I took nearly 1000 pictures between my phone and my good camera so this may take a few days to get caught up! We got back Monday afternoon after being gone for 24 days. It was a great trip and we got to see lots of people and we missed some people too. It's so hard to split time. Hopefully anyone we missed, we can see them at Christmas when we are home!

We left at 2:00pm on Friday July 17th. Chris worked until 1 and I spent that morning doing a bunch of last minute cleaning the house/fridge, packing, taking Max to camp, picking him up from camp assuring our crazy, nervous, pacing dog that she was indeed coming with us and we would not leave her behind, and everything else in between. I was extremely nervous for the 20 hour drive to the cabin, but it ended up being one of the highlights of the entire trip. I spent a couple of hours before the trip planning some activities, putting together binders for each kid and looking at pinterest for fun ideas. The best idea I stole from someone was a long ribbon with a marker for each hour of the trip. Max made a little car out of paper and then we moved the car along the ribbon each hour. The kids loved seeing how far we went and I have to admit, Chris and I thought it was pretty cool to move the car each hour too! The first day we drove 10 hours to Estevan, Saskatchewan. The drive was uneventful except for it rained on and off the entire time. We stopped in North Battleford, Saskatchewan for gas, the bathroom, to let Chloe out and dinner. I packed a picnic dinner so we ate on the go. Believe it or not, other than a quick stop on the side of the road for Mya to go to the bathroom, that was our only stop that day. We pulled into Estevan around midnight and less than 5 miles to empty on our gas tank. I was a nervous wreck! The kids were all asleep, but transferred right into the hotel and into bed really quickly and easily. We wished Mya a quick happy birthday as it was after midnight and went to sleep!

Chris packed the car top carrier the night before

Chloe was not going to be left behind! She spent a majority of the day laying in front of the car:)


In between the rain showers, we had some pretty awesome views of the canola fields.

The next day we got up, wished Mya a happy 7th birthday, ate a hotel breakfast and were on the road by 7:30. We drove about an hour and then crossed the border at North Portal. I've never crossed the border by car before so it was a new experience, but pretty uneventful. I spent $88 the day before to get a health check for Chloe before crossing the border and they never even saw we had a dog! I guess it's a good thing in the end. North Dakota is pretty boring...we went through Minot, Jamestown (and others in between..those are the only two I remember) and then into Minnesota. The last couple of hours seemed to take forever. We pulled into the cabin at 5:50 and were all so so happy to be out of the car! That night Linda made Mya her requested birthday dinner (party chicken) and we had a yummy chocolate cake and ice cream! The kids had their suits on within minutes of being there and had some play time on the beach before bed.