Oh the Places We'll Go...day 2

Our second day we woke up to a cold (38 degrees F) West Virginia! We enjoyed some Continental Breakfast and got on the road around 8:30am. We decided that we would try to get up earlier on day 3, which we found to be pretty easy considering the time change! We continued through West Virginia, into Kentucky, then Indiana, and finally Illinois.

We dug into our stash of food today; I had packed lots of unsalty snacks in order to avoid swollen ankles. The fresh apples and peaches were especially delicious, thanks Mom and Dad for preparing those! Also, I forgot to mention that Mom made some cinnamon covered pecans and peanuts which were gone in I think the first day and a half, right Dad? And Emily made chocolate chip cookies that didn't survive the first day :) You guys were too good to us!

We passed into Kentucky about an hour into our day, so that meant we stopped after just an hour of driving. You all know how Dad would normally feel about that...but we were beginning to have fun looking for Wal-marts at this point (where we got our state t), so I think we were both ok with stopping. It also broke up some of the time for the dogs and we didn't have to make too many stops for them.

Sorry this is so far away, just imagine the pregnant woman running to get into the picture! I nearly had to fly over the bushes to get there in time and then with it being so far away we couldn't see the light flash on the camera anyway! So now imagine Dad and I talking about whether it had been long enough :)

We passed into Indiana around 12:30pm, and also into Central Time, so now we are 1 hour behind J-ville. We stopped at a Wal-mart of course and bought lunch at the deli. We then tied the dogs to a tree in the parking lot and ate in the truck with the windows down! :)

The weather was gradually getting warmer, thus we shed our winter coats. Not sure why Indiana has a Southern welcome center...surely it's not that big of a state. Also not sure why it's lemon yellow, unless it's supposed to make it easier to find, in which case it was not. I was driving and Dad was on the phone with Johnny, so I didn't see the beyond bright welcome center and ended up turning the wrong way and going back into downtown Louisville, KY. I think I'd like to visit there one day, the one block we drove around was very nice. I stacked the camera on two boxes of candy on the hood...what do you think happened to the candy? You guessed it! We lost one box of Reese's Pieces but were able to save the Junior Mints :)

We got to see this cool, giant clock thanks to my mix up. This was our second time passing into Indiana :)

For those of you who don't know, Nick is an Indianapolis Colts fan so Dad and I decided to drive into Indianapolis to try and find him some Colts memorabilia. On the way we passed the Speedway, Nick was pretty jealous of this! I did find him some Colts stuff too! We also got authentic (because they are from Indiana!) Hoosiers t-shirts!! We didn't actually make it into Indianapolis because the neighborhood began to get questionable.

Into Illinois we went around 6:00pm. There was a good place to set the camera, so no leaning your head to the right :)
I have a bit of a tree fetish, so when I see pretty trees I take pics! This tree was in the nice pet area at the welcome center...the dogs enjoyed a little exercise!
We decided Illinois, and later Iowa, are pretty much just fields and wind turbines! They were really cool to see, at least the first few hundred, right Dad?!
I thought the sunset in Illinois was really pretty, however the camera thought the dead bugs on the windshield were more interesting! So, if you can see past the fact that we had driven all day without cleaning the windshield, the sunset was very nice!

We had so much fun today but were so ready to stop that night. We found a pet friendly Holiday Inn Express, we had some Taco Bell for dinner and decided we would find an Illinois t-shirt in the morning. The time change didn't help because it meant we were tired at 8:00pm CT because it was 9:00pm ET. By the way, my ankles were doing really well and I was still pretty comfortable in the car. We went to bed early so we did have an earlier start on day 3!

Oh The Places We'll Go...

Well, my Dad and I set off for Washington...of course there were lots of things that had to be done that morning: I ended up at the hospital first thing in the morning saying goodbye to the Suggs. Grandma Linda had to go in for surgery that morning. After that I took Bell with me to get Sanford, then took Bell home, then headed back to Mom and Dad's to gather the last few things and get on the road.

The next few pics follow our first day on the road!

Yes, we're in the car and actually heading out. Of course lots of things are going through my head like did I remember everything, where did I put the X-terra key (which I never found!), etc.
Dad tied a rubber spider to the tail gate and Lil' Jas ran after us thinking it wasn't supposed to be there :) Mom, this is the only time I held the camera out of the window!

Pilot Mountain...aka "Pimple" Mountain, right Dad? :)

Ok, so this is our first state line and I cut off the V, so this is the Virginia state line not the Irginia! I hope this isn't something that will happen often considering we have 11 states to go :)

Just a nice picture of the Appalachian Mountains...to compare to the Rocky Mountains later in our journey!

Browni had no idea how long she's going to have to sleep on this trip...she really should have tried to stay awake a little longer!

Sanford looking around wondering what he did to deserve this!

Yes, it's raining, which I thought we weren't going to hit 'til we got to Washington. It was pretty chilly out there too!

We did have to ask another tourist to take our pic, which means we got the whole state name! The dogs really didn't understand what was going on.

So we stopped in Charleston, WV for the night. We stayed in a nice Comfort Suites that allowed our pets. We ate McD's for dinner and bought our first t-shirt at the K-Mart down the road. We also had to buy a gallon of water because that was one of the things I forgot, for the dogs. We felt pretty good that night. Browni started out on Dad's bed and Sanford on mine, but Dad said about 5 mins. after I fell asleep Sanford was with him too...hee hee!

I'll post our second day in a few days...so keep checkin the blog :)

Twas the Night Before Moving...

Just a few pics of the night before I left. Dad made "Holiday" dinner because I won't be here for the holidays this year :( Riley and Judy came over and brought a yummy dessert! Kerriann and Jason got a little carried away with the chocolate pie :) Anna and Shelby are getting SO big! I'm really going to miss my neices and nephews and all of the growing they are going to do!!!

Moving to Washington

Packing/Moving Day!! October 13th we packed up all our stuff and off it went to Washington!





The moving truck parked in front of Mom and Dad's house. We had a few things here to be picked up first...then we headed over to the storage unit. This is where the majority of our stuff was located...and the majority of it needed to be packed!



Kokinda's don't do anything without a crowd! Emily, Gabby, Katie, and Galina joined me at the storage center while the movers finished packing our things in the truck. The movers enjoyed the show :)



Off it goes...all that's left now is me and the dogs!

My Wonderful Mom and Sisters Threw me a Baby Shower

Preparing for Baby Julius!



Emily made this beautiful cake and we love the owls!



Kerriann and Erin were in charge of food, we had white chili and
red chili and lots of other delicious treats! Kerriann found this
recipe for little owl faces, too cute!!



Me and Granny (#9 on the way!)


Playing the lovely "Guess How Big the Belly Is" game! We
had two winners because they were literally the same size
ribbon! Congratulations Aunt Jean and Cynthia Johnson!


Opening presents...always fun! Katie is on the webcam sitting
in the chair. I'm so glad Sonja and Johnny were able to hook
up the wireless internet for us so Katie could be in on the fun!
This is what Nick and I look like as owls....sooo cute!!!

Finally I just want to say thank you to everyone for sharing in this
exciting time for Nick and I! We are so happy to be having our first
child and can't wait to welcome him into the world! Love you all!!!

Nicholas is home!!!

So, Nicholas graduated from Submarine school in Groton, CT on Sept. 11! After a short delay in orders he was able to finally come home on Sept. 16...and this is what greeted him :) I was very excited for him to see the belly in person!! He waited until that evening to tell me where we are going and for those of you who don't know...we have orders to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Washington! Nicholas reports there on Sept. 30 and I will hopefully be following about 3 weeks later.

Nick's Graduation Weekend- May 29-30

Graduation Day!!!!

Yay for Nicholas! These are a few pictures of the graduation ceremony...all very boring until Nicholas came in and I had someone to stare at :)

The drumline would have been really entertaining...unfortunately I hadn't seen Nicholas yet and I was not interested in listening to them...bring in the recruits already!!!!

Finally they arrived!! Evelyn and I were able to pick him out...Linda said she never could find him :(

Division 208...Nicholas is there but it's kind of hard to explain...so...

Nick and his Grandma Linda

This was the best hug ever!!!

My sailor...looking so handsome!

Eating some civilian food: Taco Bell and Pizza Hut!

The Volo Car Museum, Nicholas chose this place obviously!

The Flinstone Car

Nick also wanted to go to Six Flags...we had a lot of fun! The roller coasters were as fun as ever! We both enjoy riding new rides!