The Exodus Down South- Day 5

Our third day in Dallas started off the same... shenanigans with Dane, then it was off to the Forth Worth Stockyards! It's a historic site, where there used to be hundreds of thousands of livestock traded every day. Now, there's just tens of livestock there, but they've preserved it to be how it was in its prime. Makes for a fun Western day!

Dane with Uncle Brandon... I can't tell him any animal is "sad" because he translates that to his "sad" (dead). But the horses did look sad.

Cutie kept turning around wherever he was to smile for the camera.

We saw Annie Oakley's star.

Bucking bronco.

Some of Texas Ranger was filmed here.

They also had horses and longhorns on display, and we thought it was too cute to pass up.

Seriously. How cute?!

The worker didn't tell us until NOW that it cost money to have Dane on there, and that if I "had" taken a picture of Alyse it would have cost even more. Good thing I didn't get that picture, right?

We got to watch a cattle roundup, it was so impressive to see how big those longhorns get!

We went to lunch in one of the local restaurants, and this is probably the funniest sequence of pictures I've ever taken.

Notice how he is looking to Brandon for approval. He's a man's man.

Come on Dane, do it again.

Dane eating a lemon, everyone.

He also made a car transporter out of his car and truck.

It was a really fun day.

The Exodus Down South- Day 4

Our second full day in Dallas, we found out one of Dane's funniest new tricks. He will run and hide in the corner, and say, "I crying corner." So I started hiding inthe  corner too, and he would direct me to different corners then spank me as soon as I was "hiding".

See? Hilarious.

We headed to downtown Dallas, to see Dealey Square (where JFK was shot) and the Perot Museum. Funny Dane story... While we were trying to find the Square we were about to pull into a parking lot where you have to pay and I said, "Dang it!" From the backseat I heard "Dang it, dang it, dang it!" Hahahaha. But it was raining so I just snapped a picture.

The museum was amazing! We first went to a dinosaur exhibit, where the highlight was definitely a digging exhibit for the kids. We put some goggles on Dane, and he went to town. He kept saying, "Mommy, I goggles."

The rest of the museum was pretty standard. We did find an "Ibex", which was one of Dane's favorite animals. The picture was about 2.3 seconds after he was laying on the floor screaming.

We had heard about the food trucks nearby, and as it turned out Google Maps led us the wrong way for over a mile. It was across the street from the museum. We got some lamb tacos and Dane played in a splash pad. We think he liked it!

He would follow the other kids around, trying to hug them and copy them. If they backed up into the fountain, then so did he.

On our way back to the car, he said, "Mommy, I happy." And sang the "Happy" song. What a cutie.

The Exodus Down South- Day 3

Ok, so we got to Dallas late Monday night. Alyse and Tommy told us they leave Dane's door open so they can hear him in the morning, so sorry if he woke us up early. We had a nice little air mattress in their front room, so we didn't mind.

The next morning, I was woken up by this: "mehmehmehmeh elephant... mehmehmehmeh balloon... mehmehmehmeh Brandon? Brandon? Brandon? Brandon?" Brandon and I were just laying there laughing. He hadn't even seen us yet! What a smart boy. He was THRILLED to see Brandon and kind of excited to see me. We told Alyse we didn't have much on our list of to-do's, so whatever she and Dane wanted to do was fine. We went to the park.

Dane was so happy to be followed around by Brandon, and just kept saying "Brandon, Brandon, Brandon." Alyse and I watched and talked.

After that we went to Costco, where Brandon and I finally signed up for a membership! Hooray!

"I jump, I jump".

While we were there Alyse sent us a funny picture... she said Dane kept hugging the watermelon.

It took us a while to sign up, so Alyse and Dane were done first. I told them Brandon had never had a Costco dog, so we had to get some for lunch. While we were eating, Dane stood up on the bench and hugged me. It was super cute, but we didn't get it on the camera. However, we got when he went over to Brandon to hug him...

It just looks like he doesn't like me, but he does I promise.

How tender.

That night we went to Babe's for dinner with the Nathan and Kristin Myres family. We loved the family style cooking! Delicious.

One of the funny things that happens at Babe's is when the "Hokey Pokey" comes on, the staff has to come out and do it. Nathan suggested we do it, and we all ran out. If you look at Tommy in the right corner of the second picture, you can see Dane's terrified eyes over his shoulder. Apparently he has stage fright.

Again, thanks Nathan and Kristin for a fantastic time!

The Great Exodus South- Days 1-2

Well, we did it. We made it to Miami! Sunny Isles Beach, to be more specific. It was a fantastic moving trip, and we sure made the most of it.

Packing was crazy. I snapped a picture of our third DI trip, which was like 6 more bags of clothes. We need to go to "Hoarders".

But we finally got it all cleaned out!

Technically the first day was our drive to Pleasant Grove UT. We had just gotten back from our reunion the night before, and had sold our bed (finally!), so we slept on an air mattress. We packed and cleaned, and thanks to Taylor's help we made it out. We did get one picture of our good old #207. It's been a good apartment to us for the last 3 years.

We then said goodbye to Taylor. He's been at BYUI since we got married, and it's been great. We'll miss having him around!

We got some pictures with a few of our friends before we left. First was Chelsea, who was our downstairs neighbor this past year. We both taught our first year, and I'll miss comparing stories with her. We'll have to do it over text now! And of course there's Porter, who was blurry.

We went to see our best friends in Rexburg one more time before we left. Rachel and Cody have been like our family for the last 4 years. I was roommates with Rachel when Brandon and I started dating, which was the same semester she and Cody started dating. Not to mention she got me into running, and is SUCH a better runner than I am. Hands down. I'm so grateful for everything we've been able to do together, and I was proud of myself for not crying. Please come visit us!

And, we were off. We spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa Myres' house, then went to a 9:00 sacrament meeting and saw Grandma and Grandpa Murphy before we left. I am glad I was able to do that, since we want to come out soon but don't know when we can. As we were passing the Y in Provo, I got a little choked up. We were actually leaving Rexburg. The day I had looked forward to for (most of) 6 years. I will always love remembering our friends and fun times... but I think I'll be happy this winter.
Day 1 (of all day driving)
Well, we just kept driving. Beyond  Provo our cell phone service was spotty, and we passed through many tiny towns. I haven't been out further than Price, so this was new to both of us. We did pass a few landmarks on the way, like "Hole in the Rock" (See Grandpa? We did see it!)

And  beautiful Moab.

Our first stop (as it was on the way) was to the Monticello Utah temple. It was somewhere between 8 and 10 hours away from Rexburg, so I never bothered to even suggest we see it. Once we got there I could see why. It's only about .2 miles off the freeway, and I think that was even a little hard for Brandon to do. Plus, even when we've visited the other temples we have they've been in nice parts of town. Monticello... doesn't really have one. As we were pulling up, I said, "So Brandon, what would you have done if I had concocted a scheme to get us out here just to see the temple?" He responded, "I probably would have wanted to strangle you." Very concise, that man.
It was a nice temple, and there was a European bus tour right outside so I asked one of the women to take a picture of us.

Now, I shudder that there is a picture so awful of me out there. I mean seriously, I looked like I had had about 40,000 too many sunflower seeds. So that skirt has been hiked up since. But anyway, Temple #21 for us! It was also cool to see one of the standard smaller temples, as I've only seen the one in Montreal and that was over 10 years ago.
The stake center next door (which, by the way, is a lot bigger than the temple) had an enormous quilt that the Relief Society had spent years making. It was pretty impressive.

After that, we were on our way to Four Corners. I've been super excited to go see this for a long time, and Brandon was... also excited. Haha I just told him that since he didn't give any input in the trip, he had to just take what I planned. He just doesn't like big stops in road trips... ask him to tell you about Chimney Rock and you'll see.
But no, I wouldn't have really cared about Four Corners if it wasn't a landmark... it's in Navajo territory which is pretty impressive but there wasn't much there. I told Brandon to stand between New Mexico and Arizona and told him, "Look, you're in two places at once." (From "A Walk to Remember"). He was not impressed.

As you can see, we had to wait in a big line to stand on the "X" where the states met up. We had a group of young adults with a GoPro taking pictures of themselves, and a family who clearly didn't know what it was commenting on it behind us. "Oh my, are they using a selfie machine? Wow, he has a Coke in his hand. Are they shooting a Coke commercial? I like the way they're taking their pictures. Should I get a picture of them taking a selfie to remember it?" "No, Mom, you really shouldn't." We were dying, partly out of laughter and partly out of exasperation.

We are just sad we didn't get some Navajo tacos while we were there.

Then it was on to Albuquerque! We were so excited to finally get there. Along the way  we didn't see a single sign for the city, which kind of made us nervous. But we saw some beautiful thunderstorms, and I felt the sensation of having a thunderstorm directly overhead for the first time. It was eerie to drive and see the lightning through the sunroof striking directly downward. I only screamed a few times.

We were happy to make it to our hotel... until we saw it. With drunks loitering in the parking lot, we made sure to unload our big suitcases from the canvas top carrier.

We asked where we could get some authentic food around here, and they pointed us to the only open place- Denny's. Whoopie. Again, not in a great part of town, so we ate very quickly then locked ourselves in our room for the night.

Total Miles- 893.

Day 2

We woke up ready to see the Albuquerque temple and get on our way to DALLAS! Woohoo. We learned that we need to stay by temples, because they're always in a good area. (Except, of course, Monticello.) This one did not disappoint, and it was beautiful. And looked huge compared to the Monticello temple.

We couldn't find anyone to take our picture as it was Monday morning and closed, so we took pictures separately.

New Mexico and west Texas are F.L.A.T. FLAT. We did stop for lunch at a place for obvious reasons...

And you know what? It was SO good! We loved it. Very well made burgers.

We had originally wanted to go to Roswell NM to see the UFO site and maybe get a UFO tour, but we got on that road for about  a mile and said, "Nah." It was soooooo boring, and an hour out of the way. Instead, we stopped at Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo Texas. It was out of the way, (Meaning we got lost and had to turn around to find the dumb turnoff from the freeway and drive down the service road but WHATEVER), but it was pretty cool. In addition, some people left nearly full cans of spray paint so we could paint for free.

Brandon found the can and painted "BG+CG"

And then found some paint that stuck out more and painted "DANE". What a good uncle.

Our only other stop was to get gas, and to get Brandon his first taste of Blue Bell Ice Cream. Delicioso.

Funny story- at one point out in the middle of nowhere, we were both starving and running low on gas. We saw a sign for a gas station with a Dairy Queen and it was like the heavens opened up. We got off on that exit, and this is what we found...

We were not impressed.

But we made it to Dallas! And we were so happy to do it. Next, I'm just going to have to break up the days there because we had so many hilarious pictures of Dane.