Day 3 Of Our Roadtrip

After I blogged about Day 2 I hopped in to bed and listened to the coolest thunderstorm!  I officially know what it means by Garth Brooks song "The Thunder Rolls"!  It would never stop thundering!  There would be a big crash and than it would consistently...roll!!  I don't know how else to explain it!!  Very awesome!!  The sucky part is it kept raining all day.  2 days of rain so far and more in the forecast *stink eye*!!!  Well, today we went to Winter Quarters in Omaha, Nebraska.  It was nice to hear about the pioneers and their faith and sacrifice.  It was a little hard to enjoy it and feel the spirit because Christian was having a day.  I had my day yesterday and he was being grouchy today which is never good.  The fun part for the kids was they had little covered wagons with wood blocks in the shape of things that the pioneers would pack and they would try to pack it in the wagon. 

We could NOT pull Paige away from it!!  She loved it!  She was very good at it too, much better at packing then Christian was!!  They had lots of interactive things for the kids to see and touch so I went crazy with the picture taking! 

This was to show how the pioneers calculated how many miles they traveled.  They would have to count every time the cloth would hit the ground (it's on the left of the wheel in the picture) and for every 300 and something times would total 1 mile.  I don't remember the exact number.  It was pretty cool!  Another pioneer made a device that would count for them which is behind the wheel in the blue compartment.  Christian was going crazy trying to turn it to get it to count! 

They had clothes available for the kids to dress up like cowboys and pioneers!  Paige wasn't very fond of the bonnet!!!  The look is quite funny though!!

Christian picked the straw hat!!  I don't think he would have like the bonnet either!!  ;)

This was a size of an actual handcart they had that you could push to see what it felt like!!  Christian would have done well as a pioneer!!  He pushed it all on his own!!

Here we all are standing in front of the Salt Lake Temple!!  Don't we look like a happy bunch!

After the tour we went to the cemetery across the street to find one of Pearl's ancestors.  The Winter Quarters Temple is right next to the cemetery so we took the kids there to take some pictures. 

My favorite picture is one of Christian.  He was flicking the flowers so the water would fall off and he was looking at Mark while he was doing it!  It's the look that says 'I probably shouldn't be doing this but I'm going to watch you and see if you yell at me to stop instead of deciding to stop on my own'!  It's a look I see quite often!! 

The picture doesn't quite grasp the moment....but, it was the perfect look when I took it!!

After lunch we took Christian to a train museum that Marcia told us about!  Christian loved it!!  His favorite part using one of the penny machines that smashes the penny and puts a picture on it!  Of course, we can't find the penny now but he was so excited to get it!!

Christian standing on the photo prop used for H. W. Bush on his campaign.

Christian at the train museum!

 For dinner we went to 'Hamburg Inn' in Iowa!  It's where all of the presidential candidates stop to eat at when they are campaigning in Iowa.  I can tell why too because that was one very delicious hamburger!!  Mmmmmm!!!  The best part was trying to find this place.  We ended up at the college campus so we got out to see if it was around there and ended up asking someone!  Let's just say he had enjoyed too many 'sandwhiches' (for any of you that have seen How I Met Your Mother)!!  He was 'puffin' the majic dragon' if you know what I mean!  It was hilarious!!  We eventually found a couple that hadn't been 'snacking' on the 'sandwhiches' that were able to point us in the right direction!! 

This is President Reagan's table!

Paige coming to the realization that we still have a long drive ahead of us!  She was such a trooper!! 

After 6 1/2 hours on the road we made it to Chicago, Illinois which we will be having lots of fun at tomorrow!!! Can't wait!!! So, good night as I need my rest!!!