Sioux City Iowa

 Today was one of our shorter days with 6 hours planned on the road. It always turns out to be a few hours longer with all of the potty breaks and pit stops. 

The road side turnouts across South Dakota and Iowa were pretty impressive though!

The scenery was filled with a lot of farm land, much like home. After a few days of travel under their belts, the kids were finally starting to get used to the seating arrangements and routine. 

When we arrived at our hotel and the kids saw the pool from the lobby they could barely contain their excitement! It was decided that there would be swimming before dinner, and they swam for a very long time!

I was glad I had the foresight to pack Lily's life jacket. After swimming lessons this year, she has become quite the swimmer and was basically independent the entire time we were in the pool. She would climb in and out on her own and paddle and kick her way around. 

She could barely contain her giggles and her "Grampa! Watch this!" or "Mommy! Look at me!"

Hyrum was sweet enough to let Oliver use his goggles for the evening, which really made his night.

After expressing a bit of frustration over not being able to actually jump in and swim like his brothers were, Hyrum decided to make the best of it and wrapped his splint in a towel to keep it as dry as possible while he waded around the edge of the pool.

When they finally had their fill, we headed upstairs to our rooms to change and go out for dinner. Hyrum found himself feeling blue and one of the little boys noticed his eyes welling with tears and asked what was wrong, did his hand hurt? Hyrum told me a few minutes earlier that he was so so mad at himself for taking that jump on his dirtbike last week and frustrated with his broken hand (he was still on some extra strength tylonel at this point to manage the pain from his surgery). Through tears of my own I provided an explanation, "No buddy, his heart is sad because he can only watch everyone else have fun in the pool and he can't join in." I saw compassion flash across his little brothers face as he climbed on the bed next to Hyrum and asked what he could do to help make it better for Hyrum. A short time after we all wiped our tears, we went to McDonalds for dinner. After dinner, the big kids went back to the pool with Grampa while I put Sawyer and Lily to sleep. When they returned from the pool, I left the door cracked to our adjoining room and Hyrum and I snuck out to Walmart for a little while for some special time together. Just one more sleep until we see Daddy and Camilla!