Summer is upon us! So far, Kaden has had drum camp and is currently at summer camp with church. Paxton will go to camp this Sunday. The rest of June will be more laid back, so we'll have time to go to the lake beach and the skating rink. Paxton got his own roller skates and Kaden has his roller blades. In between the swimming and the skating, we'll be preparing for an EPIC road trip to California! Loren's brother lives there, just outside of LA. We leave on the 3rd of July and get back on the 15th. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it! I've done a TON of research. We're taking Loren's truck and it's just the four of us. Theo couldn't have gotten off of work for that long. But that does make the drive a little more comfortable for the boys. 

I have a list on Amazon ready to go for things we need. Like extra car chargers for our phones, organizers to go on the backs of the front seats, window shades, a seat cushion (for me, of course), laundry bags...and I've made a playlist on Spotify that has over 2,000 songs.  Way more listening time than we need, but we won't hear the same song twice for two weeks!

Picked out 6 different hotels to stay in along the way. Nothing fancy because we'll only be there to sleep at night. But they all have breakfast and some have a pool! 

We're planning on stopping in STL for lunch the first day to have Imo's Pizza by the Arch and Ted Drewes on the way out of town. Staying in Topeka, KS for the night, with dinner from Arthur Bryant's (thanks for the recommendation, Laura!). Then heading to Denver, CO and celebrating the 4th of July at the University of Colorado Boulder for a drone show! On the 5th, we'll go to Arches National Park for a late lunch and a look around! We'll be staying in Salina, UT that night. The 6th will include driving by Bryce Canyon and through Zion National Park on our way to a dinner in Las Vegas. We'll arrive at Loren's brother's house late that night.

Then 5 days in the LA area. Kaden's number one pick for the trip is a Dodgers game. And we'll spend a day at the Santa Monica Pier. We also plan to go to Griffith Observatory for our science-loving preteen. 

On our way out of town, we'll drive past the Mohave Desert and through Joshua Tree National Park on our way to the Grand Canyon! We'll stay the night in Flagstaff, AZ. From there, we'll go all the way down 40 to get home. Stopping in Albuquerque for a photo op at one of the welcome signs (my dad LOVED Breaking Bad) on our way to Amarillo, TX for the night. Cadillac Ranch is a quick stop on the way out. We'll stop for lunch in OK and then make our last hotel stay in Russellville, AR. Our last day of travel will include a stop in Memphis for lunch. We're looking at the Arcade Restaurant, an Elvis favorite. And then it's home sweet home!

I wish we could travel longer and see more places, but I don't think Loren could get that much time off. It's just more motivation to do another trip like that in the future to see other places like the Pacific Northwest or New England. In the meantime, I'm going to be busy dreaming about our trip out west!