49 hrs 46 mins 18 secs and 3561.3 miles later

So our stuff FINALLY arrived on the 4th of July, talk about the best Independence Day EVER!!! Now that I can once again hook the camera up to the Mac here is our road trip. This is a long one so hunker down and get ready, it was a long drive and I took a picture in every state.

Day 1 (Friday the 13th mind you)

CALIFORNIA: These pictures are not actually from the day we left. A few nights before we left JT came over and brought the title belt for the Pro Elite fight he was headed to in Hawaii (lucky). The boys sure had a good time pretending they were the ultimate champions, someday Rick, maybe someday. I made the choice to not take a picture of our empty apartment, I am much to weepy and I know every time I saw it I would cry so we were off.

NEVADA: We stopped in Boulder City the first night, Rick stayed up til the wee hours of the morning playing Rock Band with his brothers and Beef. In the morning it was off to the lake. Poor Rick is still out from wakeboarding because of his hernia, but I was able to get a little air and Rick enjoyed surfing and just decompressing on the lake. The lake is so good for Rick, just being near it truly relieves all his stress, he once told me he can only find peace on the Lake and in the temple.
Day 2 (Saturday)

ARIZONA: We were in the state for just a few miles, but here is our picture, yes Rick is taking it while driving, but we were safe. While on the this stretch of the drive we had a little taste of LA when we rode next to the Hodges for a few miles.
UTAH: We stopped and camped with Rick's family in Pine Valley for a couple days. It was a lot of fun. Let me tell you the Shamos know how to camp. I had only every been camping in a tent, trailers really are the way to go. We walked to the water tower, the creek, and just had a good time hanging out. Wyatt loved to follow Peyton around.Day 3 (Monday)

COLORADO: This is a beautiful state. The entire time the scenery was amazing! We kept meaning to pull of and take a picture, but we didn't so you get a picture of Wyatt sleeping through most of the state.

NEBRASKA: We made it to North Platte on Monday, this was by far our best driving day. The whole state smelt like manure, sorry to anyone who is from there. This is our stop at the Walmart in the middle of nowhere for some critically needed diapers. I know I am looking super cute.

Day 4 (Tuesday)

IOWA: This day we tried to stop on the state border and see Winter Quarters, but we couldn't find it and didn't want to backtrack so we stopped for lunch and the welcome center. There was definitely flooding, water was everywhere.

ILLINOIS: We stopped at a little pizza place just outside of Chicago so we could have our Chicago style pizza. The navigon gave us a few problems this day and we ended up losing about an hour of good travel time :(. Overall we have loved the navigon and would have been so lost without it, but here we finally bought a map to make sure it wouldn't lead us astray again.

Day 5 (Wednesday)

INDIANA: We stayed the night before in South Bend, neither of us realized we were right be Notre Dame until Rick's dad told us. We spent the morning wandering the campus. It was really neat.

OHIO: This was my favorite day, not only did we stop in the morning at Notre Dame, we spent about five hours in the afternoon in Kirtland, Ohio. Rick had never been to Kirtland before. I had been when I was younger, but it is completely different. The missionaries told us the church had spent $15 million on the new visitor's site, they even moved a highway to make room. It was really neat to go there again. The sweetest sister missionary took Wyatt and let him play with all the pots and pans while we went on the tour. A little know fact about the Shamos is that Rick and I have read the entire Work and the Glory series together on our trips back and forth from SLC, Vegas, and LA. When I was teaching I would come home and need to work and Rick would try to talk me into reading, we were both pretty into it. Anyway it was nice to visit Kirtland after having read about some of the amazing things that have happened there.

Day 6 (Thursday)

PENNSYLVANIA: This is where I started to get scared!!! There were trees everywhere!! You couldn't see anything but trees, very different from the west. Here is our last fill up!! More church history, we crossed the Susquehanna River.
NEW YORK: Crossing the Hudson River.

and finally CONNECTICUT: Here was our welcome!!! It was really hard to live for 16 days with none of our things, but overall I am finding I love it here, please mind you we are in the middle of the summer. I will post some of our adventures as nutmeggers (apparently that is what you call someone from CT) later this has been more than long enough.