Last I checked we had just stepped off the plane at O'Hare and were looking at 3 months of traveling around the US and visiting family and friends. Yet somehow we only have a little more than 3 more weeks left in the US before we head back to Germany. Here's a visual of where we've been so far:
Johnson Family Road Trip Part 2
The past 2 months have consisted of 16 hours of air travel and around 61 hours of drive time. During those 61 hours we've covered well over 4000 miles. We didn't beat our record from last
summer, but it was borderline insane at times (but still usually fun) with two kids and that much driving. Our kids are great car sleepers which saved us on a number of occasions. We're still fans of the overnight drive for long distances (8+ hours), but we did a number of shorter day-time drives this time around, too.
I'll start at the beginning. We flew out of the Frankfurt International Airport bright and early on July 19th.
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| Here we are leaving our hotel room to head to the airport at 4am |
Isaac and Elise flew LOT air connecting through Warsaw, and Clara and I flew Turkish Air connecting through Istanbul.
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| Clara got her first passport stamp at the Frankfurt Airport |
Thankfully, Isaac and Elise, and Clara and I arrived within a few hours of one another at O'Hare and with relatively little difficulty, though I did have one hang up in Turkey when they almost didn't let me board the plane. There was a problem with Elise's name being printed on Clara's infant ticket even though it was correct in the system, and with all the additional security surrounding flights headed to the US due to the plane that was shot down over Ukraine, we were held at an extra security check-point right before our boarding gate. After an hour of trying to get everything straightened out, they finally let me board the plane less than 2 minutes before take off. Whew! One perk of traveling with an infant is that you get a special seat in the bulkhead row with a bassinet that attaches to the wall in front of you. It is THE BEST. Especially traveling by myself, it was wonderful to have a place to put Clara down during the 16+ hours of travel.
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| Chilling in the bassinet |
Mom Johnson drove from Hillsdale and met us at the airport with Aunt Sandy. We stayed the night with Aunt Sandy and then took off for Hillsdale Sunday morning. A few days after arriving in Hillsdale, we went down to Fort Wayne to clear out, sort, sell, give away, and move all our stuff into a new storage unit. We spent 3 days total in Fort Wayne "moving", and 2 of them were full 9am-7pm days cleaning out and moving everything over to the new unit.
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| Eating a 5 Guys burgers "picnic" at the storage unit |
A friend in Fort Wayne kindly offered to watch Elise for us one of the days which was so helpful. The day before Elise had gotten a hold of a permanent marker that we were using to mark boxes, and colored her face and white tshirt. To say we were thankful to have someone watching her the following day is a gross understatement.
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| Red permanent marker all over everything...... |
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| Clara floated between the ergo, bouncy seat, and travel crib during our 2 day moving spree |
We spent a few more days in Hillsdale before heading north for our friend David's wedding in Kalamazoo.
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| Isaac and David - friends since junior high |
Then we promptly took off for Omaha because my sister Hannah got married the following weekend!
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| 3 generations |
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| 3 Ogborn girl weddings in 4 years |
We spent a little time in Omaha following the wedding, and then we took off for some cottage time in Pentwater, MI with Isaac's sister and her family.
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| Dana (Isaac's sister) and Elise had a blast kayaking together |
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| Eating breakfast by the campfire |
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| Enjoying beautiful Lake Michigan |
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| Papa's girl |
Mom and Dad Johnson met us up at the cottage for one final weekend before we all headed back to Hillsdale. A quick bunny trail - we've been saving like crazy this past year with the goal of paying off as much of our student load debt as possible. Well, while we were in Hillsdale, we were able to hand deliver a check to the Hillsdale College Financial Aid office paying off my student loan in full! Next up is Isaac's student loan from seminary!
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| Taking our final payment to Hillsdale College |
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| The girls loved getting some quality Nana time |
After leaving Hillsdale, we headed down to visit Isaac's brother Ian and Ian's fiancée Kirsten in Toledo. We finished off the weekend with a trip to the Toledo zoo!
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| Zoo visit in Toledo |
We drove from Toledo to Ypsilanti, MI to spend some time with Isaac's other brother Aaron and his family. It was so fun to have the cousins together!
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| Johnson cousins |
After leaving Ypsilanti, we made a stop in Chicago to meet up with a few very dear friends and meet the new additions since we were all together last.
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| We met at the Pi Beta Phi house of angels - 304 Hillsdale Street |
We also got to see and stay with Isaac's Aunt Sandy again! Unexpectedly, my great uncle passed away and we were able to drive from Chicago to southern Indiana to be there for the funeral.
We were able to spend several weeks of September in Omaha with my family. We had a great time going to the park, reading, playing outside, building forts in the kitchen, taking family photos, visiting the apple orchard and roasting s'mores in the driveway.
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| Reading with Nana |
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| Picnic at the apple orchard |
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| Nana, Grandpa, and their grandaughters |
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| The whole family together for a (rare!) weekend |
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| Ogborn cousins |
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| Eating s'mores |
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| Reading in the fort with Nana |
We also celebrated Elise's second birthday while in Omaha! My mom's birthday is only 2 days after Elise's so we had a joint birthday party for them.
Elise is also potty trained now! We weren't intending to do anything with potty training until we were back in Germany, but while we were in Omaha Elise started taking off her diaper constantly and being really interested in it, so we gave it a go. We still have the occasional accident, but she's been nearly accident free for over a week now!
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| Isaac, Clara, and (great) Grandpa and Grandma Johnson. |
After leaving Omaha, we headed for Isaac's grandparents and extended family in Cedar Rapids, IA. We had a great visit and got to spend about 5 days there which was quite the treat!
That brings us up to today. We're in Brazil, IN visiting my grandparents and extended family until tomorrow when we'll head to Hillsdale, MI. We plan to be in Hillsdale until mid-October when we head down to Toledo for Isaac's brother's wedding! We fly back to Germany on October 19th - the day after the wedding!
