Our road trip plans

Everyone is excited to start this road trip. 2 moms and 7 kids in a 12 passenger van

An hour or so after we started driving, we got pulled over for speeding. But, the cop had compassion on us and didn’t give us a ticket.

We were able to make it to Four Corners

We made it to the Grand Canyon

Horseshoe Bend was free to see and worth the short “hike” to get there

Family Reunion at the Alton Lodge in Southern Utah; where 8 out of the 9 Poulson siblings attended. In total we had about 65 people at this reunion.

Grandkids and great-grandkids that attended the family reunion

Bryce Canyon…pictures can’t capture the complete beauty

Woke up early to see the Balloon Festival in Provo

Grateful to see this flag wave on the 4th of July

We were able to attend Stadium of Fire where One Republic played and then watched a great firework show

I drove up to Logan, Utah to pick up my sister and we stopped at Gossner Diary where we got some delicious long term shelf life milk that all the kids love

About 15 minutes away from Gossner Dairy is the Pepperidge Farm Factory & Thrift Store where we got the “oops” goldfish which are $2 for 2 pounds

I drove up to Heber to see a good friend from Texas and have our kids play together for a day and a half

My sisters and I said good-bye to our brother and headed off towards California

Stretching our legs and exploring the Salt Flats on our drive west

My sister-in-law and husband invited us to stay the night at their condo in Lake Tahoe and go tubing with their boat. We all had a blast!

Movie morning at 8am! The Incredibles and Ant-Man & Wasp were the reason for the early morning since all other times were sold out

I went with my mom to take in the recyclables that had been accumulating for a year. We decided to split the profit between ALL the grandkids that were in California. They all got $10 to spend however they wanted (everyone got something at the Dollar Store).

Field Trip to Sutter’s Fort

We drove by the Sacramento capital building

Family night watching the musical play “Newsies” at the Music Circus

Another field trip. This time to Alcatraz island

Hanging out at the Botanical Gardens in San Francisco

Stopped near the Golden Gate Bridge to get a photo

We had a girls morning of pedicures

For the 5 days that we were at my parent’s place, lunch/dinner time looked like this. Cousins all sitting together.

As we were leaving California to head back toward Texas, we decided to drive through Yosemite

We did a small hike in Yosemite to see the Giant Sequoia trees

We made it to our aunt & uncle’s home where our other aunt & uncle also came by to see us and hang out. The kids were happy to see their cousins again.

We made it safely home and logged in 5627 miles in 19 days!

We stayed at Tuningi Lodge since they allow babies/toddlers. Other lodges would only take children six years old or older.

Reception center. The chandlers are made with porcupine needles.

Open-air kids center where there were movies, toys, and Wi-Fi.

Our large villa was amazing and very relaxing.

From the bathtub in our master bathroom suite Mason spotted an elephant outside grazing.

One night all of the guests had dinner outside near the watering hole.

The staff at Tuningi sang and danced for us during the BBQ.

Blake and Tia watching an elephant pass by our lodge.

Baboons were seen from our lodge. We were told a couple days before we arrived a bunch of baboons entered a guest’s room and stole some things.

From the lodge swimming pool we found some impalas.

One of the highlights on each safari for the kids was to stop in the bush and have a snack.

Zebras grazing

Giraffes finding some food.

Hyenas sleeping on the airstrip

We were lucky enough to find the most elusive of the big five on our first day: Leopard.

It was sweet to see this baby elephant with its mother.

African Water Buffalo

White Rhinos are pretty massive. We were told that a rhino horn is worth $300,000-$500,000 each.

This male lion didn’t want anyone taking his meal.

Our Rangers tracked paw prints and then came upon this lioness with her cubs.

Cheetah brothers blend in perfectly to their habitat. Only one cheetah wears a tracking collar since these two are always together.

This pack of African Wild Dogs have learned to use the electric fence that separates South Africa and Botswana to their advantage when hunting.

An elephant saying goodbye to another day.

We visited the Hector Pieterson Museum and a lot of school kids where there visiting it as well. Hector Pieterson was a 12 year old school boy who was one of the first killed on June 16, 1976 by the apartheid police.

We got to visit Kliptown which is a slum village, but there are good people there trying to bring the kids out of poverty through education programs such as the Kliptown Youth Program.

Graduates from KYP. Through education they are making their future better.

In Kliptown (and probable other areas) a couple of families share port-a-potty. They lock them up so you can only use the one that your family has the key to.

The locals don’t need fancy name brand items to carry their babies. Just a long piece of cloth, like a towel or blanket.

View of Johannesburg

We had lunch at a restaurant between these two silos and the food was really tasty. For the adventurous people, they could also bungee jump between the two silos.

We made it to Turkey and because of a terrorist attack that happened 7 weeks prior, there weren’t many tourists and that meant no long lines!

Making our way to Hagia Sophia

After hundreds of years of people walking on this step, it shows the wear.

Hagia Sophia was first a Christian cathedral. Then a Muslim mosque. And now it is a museum and under renovation.

We got to see Gli, the famous cat that stays at Hagia Sophia

The Blue Mosque

In order to enter The Blue Mosque, the girls had to cover their heads

Just outside The Blue Mosque is the Istanbul Hippodrome where the Obelisk of Theodosius is found.

We got to visit the Topkapi Palace

We ended our first day by visiting the Grand Bazaar where we bought some souvenirs

We took a day trip to the city of Ephesus, home of the biblical Ephesians

This is the library in the ancient city of Ephesus

We paid the extra fee to visit the “house on the slopes” where they are uncovering old homes. It also gave us some relief from the sun

We had a fantastic lunch at a home where the family makes traditional Turkish rugs and we got to see the whole process

All of the rugs here are made by hand and takes months to complete

We were able to experience the displaying of rugs and there were many beautiful rugs that we wanted to take home

We visited the house of the Virgin Mary where it is believed that she spent her final years

Our final tourist destination in Ephesus was to the temple of Artemis where not much is left

Our last day started by going up the Galata Tower to get a good view of the city and later we took a ferry boat ride to get a different experience to look at the city

Walking around the streets of Istanbul we felt safe and the people were very kind

We came upon this old trolley that still runs

We walked through a spice market and bought us some “Turkish Delights” from this shop owner who thought Kalani looked Turkish

We got to visit the largest cistern in Istanbul

Inside the cistern there are two “medusa head stones“

We stopped by a pottery shop and watched a master potter create a vase that he then turned into a water pitcher within minutes

Some of the pottery in the shop glows in the dark since they used some special crushed material in the clay

As we were walking back to the car we walked through a park and the kids had a great time playing and running around

Everyday we would visit the hammam in our hotel and fill up these sinks with warm water and throw bowls of water on each other or ourselves

We had a wonderful experience exploring Istanbul and our tour guide, Emine, was a big reason why we had such a great time.

With the weather being so lovely and no humidity I convinced my siblings and their kids to go for a walk a few hours after we landed. The kids all loved running around on the grass and just enjoying each other’s company.

My brother lives only a couple of blocks away from the Provo Temple so I took the opportunity to show our kids that temple and any others that we came across. It had been 16 years since I was last at this temple, before serving a mission in El Salvador for our church.

Since we arrived on the 4th of July, it was great to see the kids play with their cousins and use sparklers to celebrate.

When I knew that we would be in Utah, I started the ball rolling to have a reunion for our church ward family from the Philippines. Not as many people came who said they were going to be there, but it was still fun to meet up with people who we shared time with in the Philippines.

My friend forgot about our Philippines church reunion, but we were able to meet up with her and her boys at a dinosaur museum.

As soon as we got home from the dinosaur museum we went out to dinner with my sister-in-law and her boyfriend.

We ate ice cream the Provo City Center Temple grounds and enjoy the scenery and company. A few days later we took the kids to this temple also.

My sister is going to school to get her license to cut hair. I trusted her to cut my hair a couple of inches before we left for the family reunion.

We stayed at Camelot Resort on the Strawberry River up the Provo Canyon. The kids really enjoyed the view and were excited to see our cousin from Texas already at the resort.

One of the first things we did after unpacking was to go on a short hike with any cousins that wanted to join us.

A much bigger group went on a longer hike that ended at an area that over looked our resort.

The kids enjoyed tubing down the river even if the water was really cold and only about 15 inches deep.

After breakfast was a morning of crafts that my sister planned. Painting rocks that we found on our hike, Fruit Loop necklaces, Kool-Aid lip gloss, etc.

We had nearly 30 cousins participating in a Kid-Friendly Olympics that my aunt and I planned.

Mason participating in the pool noodle javelin throw.

Kalani racing against her cousin in the pool noodle hurdles.

The finale of our Kid Olympics was to have these two cousins run around with candy glued to their shirt…they were a human pinata and it only lasted about two minutes before the candy was all taken.

After lunch my aunt and I set up slip-n-slide kickball for anyone who wanted to participate.

It was so much fun to play with kids of all ages.

After family photos and dinner we had a family talent show. My sister and I performed a song we learned from a church girls camp.

After we packed up and left the resort and grabbed some lunch, we made our way to Salt Lake City to see the temple, walk around Temple Square and meet up with a friend of ours from the Philippines.

We befriended Leslie in the Philippines and encouraged her to serve a mission. She returns home the end of this month, so we count it very fortunate that we got a VIP tour of Temple Square with her and her companions. Here we are inside the Tabernacle.