July 15th we left Wisconsin and drove all day… 10:45pm we stopped for the night or 9:45 local time Gillette, Wyoming. The next Day we made the rest of the drive home! MISSION COMPLETION

Goodbye water towers and weird statues and rolling hills…

Ben drove the ENTIRE time and it felt good to see that UTAH sign on day 15.

I ASKED EVERYONE SOME OF THEIR FAVORITES:

Ben: ALL of it: hanging out at the beach. Kopps cake batter. I even liked driving in the car.

Benji: it was all super fun. Hades. Tennis. Cousins. Werewolf. Football in the pool. Catching minnows.

Packer: paddle boats, kayaks, Mt. Olympus, creepy cabin, tubing!

Cali: the big wave. And pretty much everything. Going to the beach. Pegasus roller coaster. Go carts with Shannon.

Rose: my favorite was the bumper cars. At the Rushes I liked playing with my cousins so much and I liked to eat with them. Playing in the lake and sand and on the kayaks. The farm!

Ray: going swimming in the lake and the pool. Rolling in the big wave. Getting buried in the sand. Going on the bumper cars, and Tea Cups.

Some of  My Favorite parts of the trip:

Millie started talking more. Communicating with Shannon to get what she wanted on the drives.
Tiago is bigger. Smiles. He was just adorable.
Visiting with ALL the NETTY fam! and Shannon.
Playing sports and playing in the water EVERY DAY
Tiago and I did not get sick! The rest of the family had something – Packer had Scarlett Fever!
CUSTARD
Benji and Cali love roller coasters. So DO I. Cyclops with Benji, Pegasus with Cali, Bumper Cars with Packer, Hades with Shannon, Huge Wave!, the Manticore. And Rosie was so sad when she was to short to go on the rides – we will return! when we are taller 🙂
Getting Home Safely

Picture of the day: July 14

Story of our Lives! #shorties

Runner Up:

Love these Roller Coaster Riders 🙂 Shannon and I wanted to ride together and these 2 were excited to ride together. This was the only coaster that Cali was tall enough for and she loved it! Packer went once and that was more than enough.

Tuesday July 14:

Raymond woke up asking for Tea Cups with Rosie and Airplane rides! OK – we can do that!

Yes – Tiago went on the Tea Cups!! I don’t know what I was thinking. The other kids needed adults to ride with them so we hopped on.

We spent the morning at the INDOOR theme park. It was kind of wimpy BUT our kids loved it. Packer LOVED driving the bumper cars. Then we went out and found the smaller go carts that Cali and Packer and Benji could drive.

Day 2 went much smoother since we were familiar with the park and new what we were in for. We tried the OTHER water park areas and played in the big wave again. Then we went and got out of our wet clothes and chowed down at Rocky Rococos Pizza – Delicious! I loved their pizza and the kids LOVED the fancy pick your own drink machine. FUN

Then Shannon and Benji and I got to ride the Manticore – I LOVED THIS SWING!

Tiago was a trooper on day 2 – 6 weeks old already!

Packer got a free pizza certificate! One of the workers saw him helping Raymond and thought it was very nice. We loved it because Packer is not ‘typically’ our biggest helper but he sure responded to the recognition and went out of his way to be a good helper after that 🙂

And to end the night – we FINALLY got to ride HADES 360. Ben and Benji went and then Ben wrestled all 7 kids while Shannon and I stood in the 45 minute line so we could ride. It was worth it. AWESOME coaster. Fast. Crazy. Underground. Cork Screw. If the lines were shorter then Mt. Olympus Roller Coasters could be the BEST.

The park closed at 10 and we came home to sleep and end our vacation 🙁 BUT the kids were so happy when they saw that their beds had been made while they were out partying all day – the simple things 🙂

Picture of the day: July 13, Monday

Mt. Olympus! It was fun to look forward to going somewhere new with these kiddos!

Runner Up:

Shannon teaching these kids how to do selfies 🙂

Monday July 13:

We said goodbye to the Wisconsin family and grabbed Duncan Donuts on the way out of town.

We Drove to Wisconsin Dells, population 2678, tourist town. We checked in at the Mt. Olympus Rome Village and got our wristbands for the theme park/ water park. We found the kid rides first:

Then we found the WAVE POOL – a giant wave every minute-ish – our kids loved it and it was a great escape from the humidity:

We took a dinner/thunder storm break in the late afternoon:

The kids loved having Aunt Shannon with us. We really couldn’t have done the theme park without her. Even with her we were still outnumbered – A LOT. One of us needed to stay with Tiago at all times – so that left 3 kids for each of the other 2 adults and all of our kids are shorties so they needed an adult to ride with them for all of the go carts. Anyway, Shannon was fun and helpful and we loved that she came with us.

Benji was the only one tall enough to ride the roller coasters so we all took turns taking him and standing in the long ride lines. The Roller Coasters were all wooden and shaky and fun.

Tiago was a champ – he did great being out and about. And did I mention that we needed Shannon there 🙂

The Hotel gave us a bad room key and couldn’t fix it so they upgraded our room and the kids all ended up with their own beds.

Luckily the park closed at 10pm and we were able to get some sleep.