First part of our vacation starts now.

So the day finally came! We were off to Michigan! My absolute favorite place to vacation! To my surprise every thing went smoothly. My dear brother Dallin and his wife Grisel were house sitting for us, and taking care of our pets. We were all packed, house cleaned and on time to the airport! (thanks to my cousin Ashlie that took us there) yay! That doesn't happen too often. I am usually real nervous to fly. My anxiety gets the best of me. But this time I wasn't too nervous. Our first flight was odd. we flew from here to Phoenix Arizona, where we then had a hour lay over and then on to our destination. Arizona wasn't even in the right direction. I was bummed that we had to fly almost 2 hours in the wrong direction, but oh well, that is why our tickets were so cheap, I guess. So on the plane we went. That 1 hour and 45 min flight was the scariest flight I have ever been on! I have flown a gazillion times, and of course you will hit some turbulence, some bumps and what not. But this was horrible! It was bumping and and jiggling all over the place! The whole time!! I was bouncing on my seat and swaying to and fro. Abbey was so scared. she was crying and saying "The plane is tipping over! the plane is falling"! Hannah on the other hand was saying "yay, this is fun!" I prayed the whole way there! I couldn't believe we made it alive. My dad even admitted he was scared too. That says something about how bad the turbulence was. Here is Abbey, Robby and Jaden on the plane.

So we got off the plane and stepped into the gate ramp. The HEAT of Phoenix hit us! Holy cow was it ever hot! Even the airport wasn't the coolest. We had an hour to kill before our next plane. So we went and ate at a pizza place in the airport. (food was ridiculously expensive) we took our time eating. Then decided to head to the gate. We got to the gate and waited for them to call for boarding. We sat and talked, and chased kids around the airport! I was nervous to fly again after the scary flight we just got off from. As we sat and talked, we began to realize that they weren't boarding the plane, and the seats were empty, when it was suppose to be a full plane. I decided to check the screen's for our flight status. Our plane had been canceled! We had sat waiting for a half hour before we knew it was canceled. Oh my stars! What now? would we have to wait in the airport for hours with tired kids?? Luckily the airlines paid for all of us in a hotel. The next flight left the next day at 9am. So we called for a shuttle to pick us up from the airport and take us to our hotel. The hotel told us that we would have a shuttle in 15 min. So we took our big group out front to wait. Even though the sun was down and it was 9:30 at night, it was 106 degree's!!! We were so hot waiting for the shuttle! The kids hair was wet and they were all red and hot. The shuttle came and picked up the first group and left. They left us, still waiting. We couldn't stand the heat any longer, so we waited inside. ( I have no idea, how any one can stand to live in that kind of heat)??? So we waited forever for a shuttle! We called like 3 times and after an hour of waiting we finally got a shuttle to the hotel. It was a nice hotel, and we all slept really good!

The next morning we went back to the airport to take our next flight to Philadelphia Pen. Another flight that took us out of the way of our destination. It went past Michigan. It was a long, long flight! Also filled with scary turbulence!! Not as much or as scary as the first. Well there were some turbulence along the way that were quite scary. My sister would look back at me a few rows up and mouth, "I am scared!" That flight was almost 5 hours! The kids slept most of it, but while they were awake, they weren't too hard. We finally got to Philly. We had to RUN to our next flight! It was on the opposite side in the basement. So I knew it would be a small plane, and it was. I was more scared then ever. Small planes scare me even more. I didn't get to sit next to Robby on this flight. I was nervous because I had no one to hold on to when I got scared. But luckily and to my surprise, it was a very smooth, short flight! The kids were good too! We were FINALLY in Michigan! we flew into Detroit, and then had to get to our rental car and drive an hour to my grandparents house in Fort Gratiot. Right next to Port Huron. Michigan is absolutely beautiful!! It is sooooo green, with tree's galor! Big leafy green trees! Every where you look is big green trees. Sometimes you drive down the road in a tunnel of tree's. That is how my grandma's road is. Not only that, but the lakes that surround the state are huge and beautiful! My grandparents house is set in off the main road. It's an old 1940's home, and it sits right on Lake Huron. There back yard is the lake. We sit and watch ships go by. The ships actually come off the Atlantic ocean and travel on Rivers up to the Great Lakes of Michigan.

You can't quite understand the size of these lakes, unless you see them with your own eyes! Lake Huron is 206 miles long! 183 miles wide! it is 23,000 sqr miles! It is the 2nd largest Great lake. It is the 4th in depth. It is 750 feet ft deep. Lake Huron is the hub for shipping. They have reported waves getting as high as 30 feet! That is big for a lake. They have had many ship wrecks on those lakes. famous ones too. one being the Edmund's Fitzgerald (sp) they have a book on that. They have many watery graves in those ships. In Lake Superior the water is so cold that the bodies don't deteriorate. In lake Huron near my grandparents house there is a sunken pirate ship of the 1800's.

The picture below is my grandparents drive way up to there house.

This is my grandparents house and you can see the lake behind the house.

p.s. we left Wednesday at 3pm to go to the airport, and we didn't get to my grandma's until Thursday at 9pm. My brother and his wife left at 3 hours later then us and drove there. 30 hour drive, and got there 2 hours after us. crazy, that it took us so long to get there by plane.