Mon. 6-23-08 Peoria, IL to Butler, PA

Monday, June 23, 2008 Peoria, IL to Butler, PA

Yes, yet another good night’s sleep in the cool hotel room at another Comfort Inn. I woke at 8:30 and the boys were still sleeping. Raine was awake in her crib just waiting for someone to get her out. I jumped in the shower hoping she didn't see me but she cried out for me the whole time I was in the bathroom. Mo woke and got the kids ready for yet another FREE breakfast. I hopped out of the shower and we ran down for some free food. We all ate really well again and off we went. Reece asked if we were going to Starbucks and then reminded us that we need to pray after we get our coffee. It was so great. Reece prayed for our travels, thanking God for the nice weather and good nights sleep and a yummy breakfast. He was awesome! I was reminded once again about the amazing faith of a child. Don't you wish we could all have that!

The dude at the Starbucks was yet another super Starbucks employee. He had this incredible radio announcers voice and acted like we just ordered the best Starbucks coffee ever. We have really enjoyed our morning Starbucks runs; they certainly start the day off right!

We have about 6 hours on the road until we hit PA. We are hoping to see my cousin Alicia and her beautiful family. They have baseball every night of the week; it will be fun watching her sons and daughter play some ball. I hope the kids do as well in the car as they did yesterday.

The scenery around us is getting greener and greener. I love all of the trees and wildflowers we see along the roadside. We have seen some awesome wildlife also. Mo spots them all the time since my nose is usually in my book or turned around helping the kiddos. We have seen a lot of deer, horses, cows, birds and even those crazy prong horn antelope. Its been pretty neat seeing all of those animals.

We are about the cross over another state and it think that makes 10 states we are driving through in 4 days. What a crazy thought. It has been a great day. The kids were getting a little restless and so we stopped for lunch. Yep, McDonalds again! Reece was a bit disappointed though he received another Mantis character and we already have 2 of those. He was so sad he cried. We told him we would try and trade it for another toy at another restaurant. So far Reece has collected: Mantis, Tigris, Fox and Viper. He still needs Crane, Panda, Monkey and the bad guy. It would be fun if he collected them all, not quite sure that's going to happen.

The kids had full bellies and fell fast asleep in their seats. Reece only napped for a lil bit because we started to go through this crazy rain storm. We were driving along the Ohio river taking the scenic route to cross over into PA and the rain came pouring down. It was so bad we almost had to pull off the road. It lasted for quite some time and made me very nervous. I closed my eyes and took a little break from it all. It was all over and we were trying to cross into PA. My hubby took a wrong turn but quickly fix the situation. I was ready to be done with this leg of the drive. Reece was getting really cranky and so was I. We had about 45 minutes to my cousins house and I didn't think I was going to make it. I asked Mo if it would be faster if we got back on rt 79 and headed north that way. He said no we needed to go east not north, so curvy country roads it was.

Finally at 6:30 we pulled into my cousin's house. It had stopped raining but their baseball game was cancelled due to the downpour. We let the kids out to run around their awesome yard. Reece found Haliey's scooter and rode all over the yard. He has become quite agile on those things lately. He loves them. Mo played a quick game of wiffle ball with the kids before our pizza arrived. We enjoyed some yummy east coast pizza while watching the College World Series. It was great to relax in someones home again. The Hauguel family settled in at the Metzger home just as if it was their own. Thank You so much Alicia! We had made it to the east coast HOORAY!!