On the Road

Because I hadn't slept well and because each of our boys had decided that Mama was the only one worthy enough to meet their needs all morning, I was a little tired.  It had been a good morning - Kai and I had the entire breakfast buffet to ourselves at 6am since he was awake before the rest of the hotel, and I got to take each boy swimming in the pool on separate occasions and they both loved it - but still, I was tired.  So when I asked Eli if he minded driving again today, he said nonchalantly, "No problem.  You probably shouldn't be driving in your state anyway."  And I said, "Yeah, I'm not in the best state right now."  To which he replied smartly, "I don't think anyone's in the best state when they're in North Dakota."

Ba dum chhh...

Because, as it turns out, most of North Dakota looks like this:

I had never been in this state before and I was excited to add it to my list, but I must say that North Dakota is...flat.  It's also wide open with farmland green painted underneath the broad blue sky that seems to go on forever.  But that's about it.  Add a day's worth of rain on top of monotonous scenery and you've got the makings of a boring road trip.  At least, it might be boring if no kids were involved...

Kids - little tykes that can't entertain themselves yet - keep us on our toes.  One needs to eat fruit snacks while the other needs to throw toys out of his reach at a rate of one per minute.  One needs to hear Moose Tunes while the other needs to play peek-a-boo.  One needs to read a book while the other needs to fall asleep.  One needs to shout out the name of every truck and machine we see and the other needs to coo at the clouds.  But honestly, we can't complain.  These kiddos have been ALL-STAR.  They have napped well on the drive and have been mostly pleasant.  And we've been driving through North Dakota for goodness sake!

And while they napped we started catching up on some reading.  We started The Chronicles of Narnia during our first year of marriage.  Eight years and a major hiatus later, we're finally getting to the epic conclusion!  Narnia makes driving through North Dakota worth it :)

And now, with the land of flat and monotonous scenery behind us (although I must say that the Theodore Roosevelt National Park was quite lovely), we are tucked away at a hotel in Miles City, MT, and will be off to Bozeman tomorrow.  What's in Bozeman, you ask?  Well, besides non-monotonous scenery, our Small Group from Chicago is meeting up for a week of fun and adventure and encouragement just outside Big Sky.  We've been anticipating this week for over a year and it's finally upon us!  Crazy fun times are about to happen and we're driving our kids 15 hours west to be a part of it.

Memories are made from such as this :)