I promised you yesterday that June 2019 would get very interesting, and so it will.  There was A LOT that happened in June that I'm going to have to break it down into several different blog posts, otherwise this would end up being a REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY long blog post.  

Now, I'm sure you are all wondering what in the world happened to make it necessary to do several blog posts.  Well, I'll tell you.  At the beginning of 2019, Nathan and I had given some thought to what we should do for our summer family vacation.  We had been wanting to take the kids back east on a church history trip.  We felt that with Jacen graduating, this would possibly be out last chance to do it (little did we know how true that would ring.)  We prayed about it and felt that we really needed to take this trip.

JUNE 1 & 2, 2019

We planned to leave on June 2nd and head straight to Winter Quarters, Nebraska........

Remember yesterday when I posted about Tiger Lily's 6th grade graduation?  Remember how I mentioned that Meow-meow got sick and then a couple of days later I got sick?  Yeah, that was right during crunch time when I really needed to be well enough to get ready for the trip.  Luckily, I had worked really hard the whole month of May to prepare for the trip, so there wasn't tons of things to get done.  Also Luckily, I wasn't sick for too long.  Nathan was in a play at the Off Broadway Theatre Company.  Their closing night was on June 1st, hence why we were leaving on the 2nd.  

Side note really quickly.  Nathan had to grow out his beard for this play.  He then shaved right before we left.

He played a ghost so he had to make his beard grey.

Back to the story.  Saturday, June 1st found us driving our White van down the road to get a few things from the store.  Well, the van started making some, not-so-good noises.  So, Nathan took the van into the shop and they said it was probably a head gasket.....which would take a few days to fix.  Well, we didn't have a few days, we were planning on leaving the next day!!  We already had reservations for all of our stops.  Panic ensued.  What happened next could only have happened with Divine Intervention.  We knew we were supposed to go on this vacation and we knew that we had to leave the next day.  We also knew it wouldn't be easy and we would be tested and tried along the way.  That rang very true.  We made some phone calls to family and everyone started looking around for an option.  We found a black van and decided to buy it, then re-sell it or the white van later.  We got the black van purchased and thought we were set to go......nope....black van didn't have a trailer hitch.  That is important because we would be towing our 25 foot trailer.  Several more phone calls later and we had tracked down a trailer hitch but by that time, Nathan had to leave for his play and the shop wouldn't have enough time.  Thankfully, Nathan has an uncle who knows his way around a vehicle and had his own little shop.  So, between Nathan's uncle, his uncle's friend, and our brother-in-law, they got the trailer hitch on and the black van ready to go (they stayed up until almost 3 am to get it all ready.)  Words can't begin to describe how very thankful we are for their time and help to get us on this vacation.

We nicknamed it the D.S.S.V. Davis Secret Service Van

Now, like I mentioned in my January post, the biggest reason I didn't do these blog posts back in 2019 was because my computer had a malfunction and I lost a lot of my pictures of the vacation.  We were able to recover a lot of them, but between house construction in 2020 and me being disheartened by the loss of the photos, it just didn't get done......until now.  The kids all took tons of pictures and we still have the pictures they took.  So, a lot of the photos will be one's the kids took, which I find to be highly amusing, hopefully you will too.

The hard part about leaving on June 2nd was that it was Tiger Lily's birthday.  So, we had a birthday celebration in the parking lot of a gas station somewhere in the middle of Nebraska.  

Happy birthday!! For your birthday, you get a 13 hour car ride!!

Yes, the first day of our trip, June 2nd was a 13 hour car ride to get to Winter Quarters.  The next bunch of pictures are all of our car trip that day.  There is a mix of pictures from different kids, and I think I got a couple of pictures as well.  Anyway, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves....  Oh, before I forget, we had two extra passengers on our voyage.  Nathan's first cousin.  I point that out because of the age difference between the two of them.  He's the oldest and she's the youngest.  The next guest on our journey was Jaina's friend, Maddie.  The more the merrier, right?!?!

Bright and early in the morning, getting ready to pull away from the house. 

The trip was long, hot, boring, rainy, and mostly uneventful.  I have never seen so much rain in my life!! 

There was only one incident at a gas station.......

Nothing out of the ordinary, just stopping for some gas.

Taking road trip pictures while we wait.

Starting to pull away, and......what the heck was that noise?

That's what that noise was.  Sigh!! The gas station was really busy and not a lot of room to maneuver a 15 passenger van towing a 25 foot trailer.  By the way, this isn't the only incident on this trip... just the first....but we'll get to the other's later.  Luckily it was the only incident of the day, unless you want to count the incident passing the cow farm.  But that didn't involve the vehicle or the trailer, just the smell. I have never, in my LIFE, smelled such a horrendous smell.  It rained for the better part of our trip, and not just any kind of rain either!!  It was like Noah and the flood rain.  The combination of all that rain, the fact that the cow farm was so close to the highway, the massive amount of cows that were gathered in one place, the humidity, and all the poop from the cows made a smell that had everyone in the car gagging and several of us almost threw up.  I never want to smell anything like that again!! EVER!! My nose was violated in the worst possible way, and that's saying something because I've had my nose swabbed TWICE for Covid!!

So, what do 9 kids on a 13 hour car ride do?  They take lots of selfies, sleep, take lots of goofy pictures of each other, and, as you'll see in the batch of pictures after these, take lots and lots of scenery pictures.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, I give you scenery pictures of Utah, Wyoming, and Nebraska from a moving vehicle.

And our fearless leader, piloting our circus across the nation.

When we pulled into our campsite late that night, it was raining so hard that the minute you stepped out of the car, you were shower drenched.  The puddles were miniature lakes. It rained all that night and well into the morning.  But we'll talk about that tomorrow.

Okay, now let's jump ahead one year to 2020 and see what pictures I took on June 2nd.

The birthday girl and Wit.  

That's it, I only took the one picture on that day.  In my defense, I had a lot of construction going on. Although, I do swear I took more pictures.  I know we did something for her birthday and I swear I took pictures of it.  But, this is all I have.

And there you have it.  Quite the contrast between the two years.  See you tomorrow where we talk about Winter Quarters, Nebraska.