Purinton Family Road Trip 2010

Attached are pictures from our vacation. Wow, what a great trip. Royce and I can't say enough what a great time it was and how lucky and blessed we are to have had such a great vacation. We logged 3,400 miles in 11 days and it was honestly pretty fantastic 100% of the time. We joke that it was almost too good because it will trick us into doing it again sometime! I won't get too specific but the basics of the trip were Sept 10-20 and we went to Little Rock, Memphis, Nashville, Richmond VA and Virginia Beach, also landing in KC for a night.

First stop, Little Rock. My cousin Morgan and her husband Matt Musser are captains in the Air Force and they are stationed in Little Rock. They fly C-130 planes and are getting ready for their 2nd deployment in December. We stayed with them for two nights and had such a great time. They took us to the River Market, drove by the capitol, Central High School, and best of all the Air Force Base. We got our own little tour and even got to get on one of the C-130s. How cool! Chloe sat in the co-pilot seats just where Matt & Morgan sit when they fly. How cool that we were in a plane that they flew in Iraq. (No pictures were allowed in this area--which is understandable) My little cousin Morgan is all grown up and I couldn't be prouder! Matt was even kind enough to go out of his way to give Royce a personal tour of the golf course. Wasn't that nice of him?!? So selfless, that Matt. The second night was finished off with some fun pitch games.

This is a display of a C-130.

Note, the back of Isaac's head.

Next stop, Memphis! We made it to the Peabody Hotel and watched the ducks march. That was so cute! We were there early and the lobby really filled up. But we were plopped right outside of the elevator door beside the red carpet. We visited the roof deck as well. It was pretty cute watching those ducks march down the red carpet and into the elevator.

Again, note, the back of Isaac's head.

And, yet again. He didn't want anything to do with pictures for a while.

Posing by the duck fountain. Do they look like tourists or what?!? haha!

View in Memphis from the top of the Peabody Hotel.

Waiting for the ducks to march.

After the ducks we rode a carriage through town. It was a great way to get some quick history of Memphis and the weather was perfect for enjoying a ride.

Saying "thanks" to the horse by giving her some apples & grapes.

Almost all of the carriages have a dog riding up in front. It was cute.

Third stop: Nashville. We took a duck tour through Nashville. Again it was a quick way to get some history and the kids had a good time. These vehicles served in WWII so it was pretty neat to get to ride in one. We cruised the streets of Nashville and drove right down the boat ramp into the water.

Royce & Chloe drove first in the water!

The top (almost black) line shows how high the waters were during the floods in Nashville that took place in May. Unbelievable how much water that must have been. The Grand Ole' Opry was still closed for re-construction so we were unable to tour that.

Royce & Isaac drove as well!

This was the "duck" we took on our tour.

We had one night in Bristol, TN and then we were just a half day from Richmond.

Ah...Richmond! We made it! We were so excited to see Gina, Chris, Gabi, Libby, and pat the baby bump of baby Kate. We had a nice stay with them filled with a lot of activities. Wednesday we went to the Children's Museum in Richmond. What a great place for kids to run and be creative.

This is Isaac changing a tire at the museum. He would have done this all day!

The kiddos posing at a farm scene. Pretty cute!

We took a short break from Richmond and headed to Virginia Beach for a day. It was only a 2 hour drive and we'd go back in a heartbeat. We were really impressed with the beach and the town as well. Even though we were on vacation the whole time this felt like our own little get-away. The kids loved the beach and they were just fantastic.

Pretty cool--Isaac thought it was just a giant sand box!

Oh, no! The water took out Chloe's sand castle!

She laughed about it!

Royce buried Chloe and made a mermaid out of the sand.

Looking for seashells.

Back at Richmond, Uncle Troy had arrived from Baltimore. He is great at playing with the kids and even read them all a bedtime story.

Isaac got to go with the big boys to pick up the Krispy Kreme doughnuts for breakfast. He picked out his own football and ate the whole thing!

Krispy Kremes all around!

Libby and Isaac at Gabi's birthday party.

This is a picture of the Purinton siblings.

Gina holding Libby with baby Kate in the oven, Chris, Troy, Chloe,

Megan, Gabi, Royce, Isaac.

This was while singing Happy Birthday to Gabi. I caught Chloe's eye and pointed for her to sit down. She in turn interpreted that as "blow out Gabi's candles" so that's what she did. Gabi got one in there and luckily was un-affected by Chloe's actions. I guess looking back Gabi blew out Chloe's candles at their 2nd birthday party because Chloe was afraid to, and the wind blew out Chloe's candles at her 4th birthday. So maybe the girls will just keep a rotation going! ha!

Immediately after the party we had to hit the road back west. It was such a fun time and we hated to see it end but also wanted to quit while we were ahead. We drove from Richmond to Louisville, KY. The next day we drove from Louisville to KC. We were so relieved to get there around 5:00pm so we didn't have to drive the whole day. We stayed with friends and were able to go to the park and other fun stuff.

Monday (Sept 20) Royce worked from his office in Kansas City so we went down to Gardner to see my cousin Ty's new baby. Sarah and Jack are doing great and I'm so glad we were able to visit.

Chloe said holding baby Jack was her favorite part of the trip!

A big thank you to Matt & Morgan and Chris & Gina for hosting us on our vacation. We had an amazing time with each of you and are so thankful for the time we shared. Everyone kinda thought we were crazy for loading up the kids and taking this kind of a road trip (we kinda did too!) but we can't even express how happy we are that we did it.

Purinton Family Road Trip 2010 = SUCCESS!