Welcome to Virginia !!!!

We made it!

We finally made it to Virginia. We actually missed the first "welcome" sign, but caught another one on our way out of the first rest stop since we crossed the border. By the way, West Virginia is beautiful.

Unpacking was a snap! We just unloaded everything in our front room, grabbed some din, din and did a little exploring.

Our first breakfast in VA !

Are we there yet?

We saw some other interesting things as we continued our cross country adventure. We saw the St. Louis Temple (from a distance, we waved:), we saw Santa Claus's exit, windmills, and more. In fact, we were seeing so many cool things, it was hard to keep one eye on the road, so I came up with these glasses. Don't ask me how they work, I just use them.

Who's Ever Heard of Keokuk?

For those of you who don't know, we did not take much with us to Virginia. We sold our possessions, put a few memories in storage, packed the rest in our car and hit the road. Needless to say, it was a little tight. We had these great soccer ball pillows that provided some rest and entertainment...

Our Next Stop was Nauvoo, IL. We stayed with Brooke's friend, Rocio and her husband Mike across the river from Nauvoo in the city of Keokuk, Iowa. They were great hosts and took us across the river to see the Nauvoo Temple and visit the Historic Grounds nearby. Thanks guys!

Oh - Ma - Ha

We finally made it to Omaha, NB and were instantly welcomed by Jimmy and Carly. It was so great to be with them for a few days and feel of their warm friendship. Thanks guys!

Jimmy took us to the incredible Zoo! As well as the Winter Quarters Temple and Visitor's Center with Caryl and Jimmy.

We were fortunate to be with Jimmy and Carly during a brief break in Jimmy's studies, so we took a spontaneous road trip to Missouri where we saw some more LDS sights, including Liberty Jail.

Virginia Here We Come!

We had all kinds of adventures during our trip across the country. Our first stop was in Cheyenne, WY where we thought we could get a cheap hotel, but apparently they were celebrating "The Largest Rodeo in the World" so every hotel was either booked or participating in price gouging.

We kept driving (nearly to the Nebraska border) until we thought we were passed the chaos. We finally found a small, locally owned motel where we were able to get some rest. Thanks Nelly!

On our way to Omaha, we received the travel tip of a lifetime...the inventor of Kool Aid was from Hastings, Nebraska and there is a Kool Aid museum there--thanks Jimmy. So, we did what any adventurer would do, we took a brief detour to Hastings to check out all the cool kool aid stuff. We had a great time and would recommend this to all adventurers on the road between Omaha and Salt Lake City.

Final Days Before the Move

If you're getting this updated post as part of your Google Reader update, I should probably explain...

These pictures were part of our original blog, but they were later deleted. The re-posting of these (and many other pictures to come) are an effort to fill in the gap and make our blog more complete, like an online journal of sorts. We hope you enjoy our journey....

These are some of the pictures of us in UT before we made our trek to Virginia.

We left UT in July of 2005 (just shy of our 1 year anniversary). A lot of people asked us why we were moving and my family didn't initial believe us. Some of our wiser predecessors (aka parents) offered counsel on our idea to up and move.

We received all sorts of suggestions, such as: take a trip to Virginia first to make sure you like it, find a good place to live then move, secure a job, think about what you're doing....you both have good jobs, a good apt. and are saving money for a house...why move? It just doesn't make any sense.

In all honesty, these suggestions made perfect sense. Before we told others we were going to move, we debated the pros and cons and pointed out all the reasons not to move to ourselves, but when it came down to it, we knew we were supposed to move, so we did.