Camping

In case one was wondering about what it's like to be on a Road Trip with the McGregor's... we stop at Rest Areas for lunch, with our picnic basket and cooler.  We are famous for peanut butter and honey sandwiches.  No refrigeration needed.  Plenty of protein.

Our happy picnicker's.

And the camping begins... we moved just about every day, in our efforts to get across the country.  I wouldn't exactly recommend doing that, but it worked out ok for us.  We will plan differently next time around, however:)  We stayed at KOA Kampgrounds, and that we will do again!  They were all so nice and had laundry facilities, electricity at the tent sites, nice pools, and were all so clean!

Carly showing off the KOA map we got at each place.  (These pictures are all from our first stop, in Little Rock, Arkansas.)

The Nightly Routine of setting up the tent... These boys got pretty fast at it!  Everyone had a little campsite job and we got ourselves organized pretty quickly.

Almost every campground had a Walmart close by and we were able to run in to get stuff for dinner and extra supplies... some nights we just ate at a restaurant, but our first night, we "grilled".  On the electric grill we brought from home.  Sitting on top of the campgrounds grill.  Hilarious.  We got a lot of use out of that grill!

Yum... dinner after a fun afternoon of swimming.

Trying out a recipe from Pinterest... waffle cones with marshmellows and chocolate chips, melted on the grill.  There were fire bans everywhere we went, so we couldn't make smore's:(  Rats!  

Not quite smore's, but they got us by.

And inside the tent.  We had a fan going:)  The first night was really the only hot night we had, but with the fan going, it was actually pretty pleasant. 

Our sleepy heads!  My sister, Laurie, got us these GREAT camp mats from L.L. Bean and they are so comfortable.  We all slept great in our tent.  Great accommodations!

Mississippi Capitol

It's pretty clear that we plan our vacations around our Capitol visits... we are working on our goal to get Ben and Carly to every Capitol building in our country by the summer Ben graduates high school.   It's such a great way to get them all over our great country!  Plus, we love to travel.  Hmmm, wonder where we got that trait from?!?!  

So, The Capitol of Mississippi... it's in Jackson.

... and sports the traditional dome.  With gold eagle on top.  

Cute McGregor's.

We loved the grounds, and the cool artifacts that are displayed there.

So, anyone who's been around for a while might see what McGregor's see in the picture below...

Empty cement for Statues.  Oh, come on!  They are just ASKING for some new statues for their grounds!

Capitol buildings are GREAT places to see some cool architecture in our country...

love the dome

Blindfolded Justice looms over the governor's office

Lot's of stained glass...

My little family, across the base of the dome

The ceiling inside the House of Representatives (it's the same in the Senate)

Pretty happy to find a pink trash can for Breast Cancer... 

Ryan wanted to be sure to get a picture of our car parked super close to the capitol, since we don't have any pictures of our car this close to a Capitol Building... the visitors spots were nice and close.

Vacation... all I ever wanted!

And so begin the stories of our Summer Vacation... I still feel like I need Vacation Detox, and I've been home for nearly 2 weeks!  Ben is still ON vacation and Ryan and Carly got home a week ago and immediately went to church camp... so needless to say, it's been somewhat chaotic around here!!  We had so much fun on our trip, I actually don't mind the fact that I can't find a thing and I think there might still be dirt clinging to everything we own.

Here's our car, the night before we left... this would be a few minutes before we met Rochel and children at Dairy Queen for Goodbye Ice Cream. 

I had to take a picture of the back of our car so we would remember how to repack it each morning!  I was convinced it would not have fit any other way, and I proved myself right around Day 3.  Yes, you read that right... we REPACKED the whole car (um, and car top carrier!) each morning... after taking our tent down and breaking down camp. 

I-75, early in the morning.  Our first Road Trip where we were HARDLY on our favorite highway!

We were a little worried about the car top carrier looming over our panoramic sunroof.  So we left the sunshade open the whole time, you know, so I could stare at it while we were driving down the highway.  The carrier was resting on the bars and wasn't even on the glass, but it still made me a little nervous!  Of course, it was perfectly fine.  all 7,500 miles.

The first day, we drove to Jackson, Mississippi.  When we got there, we tried really hard to find somewhere to eat... and everything was closed or out of business!

This place looked really fun... closed.

Um, apparently there were issues here.

FINALLY found somewhere to eat... and it was pretty good.  Kids were THRILLED because it was a pizza bar.  It was kind of a funny memory for us, we would have been happy with MCDONALD's at this point, and there wasn't even that!

Our first night we actually stayed in this classy hotel.  Couldn't complain since it was nice and clean and super cheap.  And trust me, after our long day driving, no one wanted to think about the tent yet!

Take me out to the ball game...

It's that time of year again... you know, when our DVR is completely full because we don't have time to watch any of "our shows" because we spend every day watching baseball.  We are all ok with that, though.  Yesterday, we FINALLY made it to our first RAYS game of the season.  It's late for us, we usually get to opening day or pretty close to it.  Apparently, LIFE got in the way of that this year.  We had a Fun Family Night at the Trop, even though the RAYS lost.  

When Ryan got our tickets earlier in the week, he picked up this shirt for Debbie.  Although, chemo is finished, and her hair is starting to grow back:)  She should be honored.  None of us got new RAYS shirts this year!

Well, actually, we DID get new shirts when we got to the Trop.  Friday nights they give away T shirts if you get there early, which of course, we did.  This week the shirts commemorated the last game of the last years regular season, 162.  Quick apology to all my peeps who are Red Sox fans, feel free to skip over this part of the post.  So, game 162 was a pretty Big Unbelievable Turn of Events Deal in Rays Land.  Ryan was at the game, texting me the whole time.  I stayed up to watch it, as it was most likely going to be the last game of the season.  Ryan almost left (um, it was late and he had school the next morning) but decided to stay since he figured he owed the Rays that much of his loyalty.  Good thing he stuck around...

For right now at the Trop, they have a little hallway they've put together commemorating the game with time frames and the same for the Red Sox game from that night, too. (hence the apology)  It's pretty cool, you know, if you are a Rays fan.

Good times.

Ok, so after we checked all that out, we settled down to eat our dinner that we had brought in (remember, got there early to get the free shirt) and I had just said to Ryan that I needed to go talk to the Group Sales person about getting the tickets to bring all the kids from camp to a, wait for it, Red Sox game this summer.  Well, you know, Rays game, and that happens to be who they are playing on the day we need to go.  (I'd like to take this time to point out that originally, our camp schedule said, "baseball game Rays vs. Red Socks", which made me laugh for a long time until I got Diane to fix it).  ANYWAYS, not two seconds later this guy comes up to us from Group Sales and asks us if we want to change our tickets.  I, of course, asked him if he heard me saying I needed to talk to him.  Blank look.  "Ummmm, no, I just wanted to know if you wanted to upgrade your seats to down on the field?"  So, I was able to get the whole camp thing settled AND we swapped our tickets with him to go and sit right behind the opposing teams bull pen down on the field.  VERY FUN.  

Of course, we have never had THAT vantage point before (they don't usually sell those seats, I guess) and in the end they aren't the BEST seats to watch the game, but they are GREAT for feeling like you are hanging out with pitchers and stuff.  Seeing how they were sitting right in front of us.  The Rays were playing the Minnesota Twins who we don't play very often, so we aren't all that familiar with their players... but it was fun anyways.

Carly watching batting practice...

McGregor boys...

The starting pitcher for the Twins.  Carly said, "Hey Dad... is that Jimi Hendrix?" Oh boy.  In her defense, she does play an awful lot of Guitar Hero, but we've got some serious work to do...

The main "problem" with these seats would be how completely DISTRACTED we were during the game!  Lots going on all around us... including the empty area behind us where they film various "in between innings" crowd entertainment.  

plus, the pitchers right in front of us was somewhat entertaining... commentary on the game and just odd things they do, like this guy has a whole pink and purple caboodle (remember those?!?!) filled with little items he might need during the game, all perfectly organized... bandaids, tooth picks, sunflower seeds, oh yes, I looked when he had it open.

Around the 5th inning, during commercial breaks the pitchers suddenly jumped up and started stretching.  Like nuts.

We even got to witness the Call to the Bull pen and watched the pitching coach tell who was up next... just another side of the game we hadn't paid much attention to.  It's probably a very good thing that we didn't really "know" these guys,  can't imagine if we'd been on the Rays side, Ryan would have been a mess!  HA!

Anyways, Rays lost.  WHAT??!?!?!  But we all agreed it was still a REALLY great game and such a neat experience!  And the pitchers gave Carly a ball at the end of the game, which she immediately gave to her brother, you know, since she got one from the home plate umpire before.  Oh boy.  Oh, did I mention Carlos Pena is back?  :)