Monday, April 13

spring break: part 1


 chris' family was never big into road trips while growing up, but my family would take month long excursions from florida to utah and back, or canada and back, and even once up to alaska and back.... all 7 of us... crammed in a van.... for a month.... i have the best memories from those trips! my parents made the journey, and not just the destination, part of our adventure. i have spent a lot of time convincing chris that road trips are the best way to travel and we decided this year will be a year of road trips for our little crew!

we drove up to columbus for spring break to visit a few of chris' siblings and mom and dad brower, who are serving their second mission there. 
it was awesome!

we stopped in st. louis on our way up and louisville and nashville on our way home. its no secret we love food, so a few of our stops were based on restaurants we wanted to try... so much fun! and not just for us, our kids have a lot of fun trying foods and critiquing it too.


our first stop was at Lambert's Cafe "home of throwed rolls" in Ozark, Missouri. the kids had a blast here. i mean, who wouldn't? catching warm, tender rolls whenever you want one and drinking root beer out of huge mugs is pretty much perfection. i think jack would be a professional roll thrower if he could.








little pork chop was so excited to get out of the carseat when we got to the hotel. that seat definitely became his nemesis.


the next morning we visited downtown st louis. 

we don't have any tall buildings in fort smith...





this was a highlight for me because we stopped here once when i was a teenager and took a ride in the arch. its one of our favorite family memories. the ride to the top is an adventure. the carts are pretty small and look like your in a tiny spaceship from the 60's. the ride is a little wobbly. my mom was so so so uneasy on that ride and we love to remind her of that :) i was happy to get to experience it all over again with my little family.









there was barely enough room for those cheeks in our car going up the arch ;)


i had to reenact my mom's ride up to the top. i could hardly do it, i was laughing so hard.




jack realized he has a little fear of heights while we were at the top.



we drove another 6 hours or so to get to columbus that night... with a stop for some amazing tamales at The Tamale Place in indianapolis. chris and i both got a tamale and after taking a bite, chris went back and ordered a couple more.


2 comments:

tonyanddelayna said...

What an awesome adventure! Quinn and Lani love watching the video of thrown rolls! Both Jack and Charlie caught their roll, wow! I'd be so nervous to drop it that I would drop it ;) How did they get those portraits of G'ma & G'pa Browne in their hay day? Can't wait to see part 2!

Steve and Donna said...

all fun- We have visited the arch also. We make a lot of trips to Nauvoo and decided one time to actually go inside the arch :)