Raising Wanderers

Tuesday

2011-07-20T22:30:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning, I finally felt better. We all went down to the pool. It was so much fun getting to watch the kids show off after being stuck inside!

While I was sick, Jarrett did some shopping. He saw an ad for a car on the bulletin board at the hospital and went to look at it. It ended up being an amazing deal on a car that he's always wanted so he bought it.

Jarrett's mom and sister had been visiting Grove, OK and were about to head back to California so they agreed to drive car back to Parker. Jarrett's mom loves old cars so she had a good time driving it.

In the evening, we left for St. Louis. We arrived late, around 10:00. Our campground was directly across the river from the Gateway Arch. When Kelly saw it, he thought it was a rainbow. We're excited to visit it tomorrow.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday

2011-07-20T21:38:00.001-07:00

Apparently, the heat really doesn't agree with me during this pregnancy. I wound up in the hospital on Saturday. Luckily Jarrett is wonderful and took the kids swimming and fishing and took care of me while I was sick in bed. He sent me fun pictures like this. The kids LOVE swimming!

There was a fishing pond at the campsite and the kids had a great time fishing. It was an amazing little pond. Everytime the kids cast, they caught a fish within five minutes.

There was only one problem with their catches...they were tiny!

Friday

2011-07-20T20:56:00.001-07:00

We left Friday morning and drove to Miama, Oklahoma. Jarrett's aunt and uncle live there. Jarrett had fun catching up with his uncle, he hasn't seen him for years.

Jarrett and I stopped by his grandmother's assisted living home. She was doing better than we expected.

We drove on and into Joplin, Missouri. Jarret's cousin rides BMX bikes and brought everyone to the indoor park where he rides. James and Kelly (and Jarrett) all really wanted to try it.

We drove through town and saw the tornado destruction. It was so sad to see.

This is the local high school. There was supposed to be a gratuation here on the day of the tornado but they had moved it to the college. It probably saved hundreds of lives.

We drove through the evening and pulled into Springfield, Missouri for the night. We took the kids down to the pool for a late night swim.

Thursday

2011-07-20T11:43:00.001-07:00

Yay! We have AC!! We're not sure what the repairman did but it's working!

We woke up late today and went into town to see Cars 2. The kids have been so excited to see it. They all loved it but Jarrett and I weren't impressed, the first one was definitly better.

In the evening, Jarrett took the kids down to the lake to fish. They didn't catch anything but they still had a good time.

We watched the sun go down over the lake. It was very pretty here but the heat is just to much. I've felt sick since we first arrived. We're going to change course and head towards the Great Lakes instead of Louisianna, We're hoping for some cool weather!

Wednesday

2011-07-20T11:28:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday, we met Jarrett's step mom and sister at his cousin's house. She lives on Grand Lake. The kids went out on her paddleboat with their cousin.

We spent the day there, swimming in her pool and trying to stay out of the heat. The kids really want a pool now!

While we were at her house, we had a repairman out to look at the air conditioning on the RV. It's just TOO hot. We're planning on going through Louisianna and Texas but I don't think I can do it without better AC!

Tuesday

2011-07-08T16:53:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, we went to Jarrett's favorite restaurant from high school. We have to stop every time we're in Wichita.

After that, it was off towards Grove, Oklahoma. On the way, we passed through the little town that Jarrett lived in when he was a kid. It's definitly a small town. There was a baseball game going on near these signs and when we stopped to take pictures, everyone waved.

This is their old house and barn. When Jarrett was a kid, none of the trees were here. It was a really cute little house.

As we drove on, the heat was crazy. It was 107 outside but inside of the RV it was a balmy 99. It was miserable. I had contractions through the entire drive, the baby doesn't seem to like the heat.

Jarrett stopped near our campsite to fill up the RV and came back with these.

Monday

2011-07-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

Monday morning, the kids and I went exploring through the RV park. The Concordia RV site is also their airport and veterans center, so there are a couple of old tanks on the site. The kids had a great time climbing all over them.

In the afternoon, we headed to Wichita to Jarrett's mom's house. We bought more fireworks on the way and the kids were excited to set them off.

Jarrett's mom lives on a lake and the kids always have a great time in the water. They can't swim in it but it's fun for wading.

Midnight sat on the dock and watched.

As we were playing, a tiny duckling swam up to shore and started waddling towards us. Just as I got done telling the kids not to touch it and scare it, it walked into Riley's hands. Apparently ducks don't scare as easily as you'd think.

The boys held it also and then we tried to return it to it's duck family. We found the family and brought it down but it was obviously the runt of the family. The other ducklings were twice it's size and could swim much better. The mama duck tried to bring him with but he couldn't keep up and kept coming back to shore.

We kept him with us through the fireworks, ducks really don't like loud noises! Actually, neither does Kelly.

James doesn't have that problem!

We looked up baby duck diets and found out that they eat mostly worms and soft bugs. Unfortunately, we didn't have either of those. We had no idea what to do with him!

As we were looking for the duck's family, one of the neighbors had told us that the geese will sometimes adopt abandoned ducks. After the show, we took the duckling down to shore near the geese. He must have been really hungry by that point because he squeaked like crazy! Sure enough, the geese swam up as soon as they heard him. We're looking forward to checking on him when we go back to Wichita again.

Sunday

2011-07-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

We pulled into Concordia, KS around lunchtime and met up with Jarrett's family. This is the little town where his mom grew up. a lot of his family is still here. The kids played for a little while on the playground and then came back for a nap, we wanted to make sure that they could stay up late for the fireworks.

Every year, Jarrett's family does a softball game as a fundraiser for the fireworks in honor of Jarrett's grandpa. The show is always on the third of July in a local park. The family sets off tons of fireworks before we go to the show. Riley and James LOVED setting off the fireworks. Kelly was pretty nervous about it but had fun watching.

One of the rockets tipped over accidentally and grazed Riley's leg. We were so thankful it wasn't worse, she ended up with just a tiny scratch.

The show was wonderful. You're able to sit so close to where they set them off that the fireworks are directly overhead.

Saturday

2011-07-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

On the road again....

We started off this trip a full 24 hours later than we had planned. So we ended up staying where we had planned, we just stayed there a day later. We left Parker around 5 on Saturday and stayed the night in Colby, KS. It was another Wal-Mart stay, the kids think it's funny that we stay there because I hate Wal-Mart.

We have a new addition to the RV this trip. Pepper is very confused but finally seems to be enjoying herself. She spent the first hour of the trip with her hair on end and a wild look in her eyes, laying on Kelly's lap. If she doesn't do well, we're going to drop her off in Kansas with Jarrett's mom but so far she seems to be okay.

Our plan for this trip is to start in Concordia, KS for their 4th of July Celebration (it's actually on the 3rd). Then it's off through Oklahoma, Louisianna and Texas. Jarrett is excited to go to Corpus Chriti. After that we'll be back in Kansas to help Jarrett's mom move and then on to Arizona for a trade show for Jarrett.

Thursday

2010-07-08T23:30:00.001-07:00

In the morning, we went to the KOA playground. There were lots of kids around, we had fun making new friends. The slide had a ton of static electricity, Kelly's hair stood on end everytime he went down.

After that, it was into the car for a LONG day of driving. Our destination was Nebraska, so that we could end up on Kansas for Jarrett's family reunion on Friday. The beginning of the drive was amazing. Utah was just beautiful.

We stopped to get the Wyoming sign. We missed quite a few on this trip because it was hard to stop with the RV and the Jeep.

We've been through Wyoming before, on a trip back from South Dakota. That time, the wind had been so strong that it ripped the awning off of the RV. I was worried about running into the same type of thing but this time, the trouble was the heat. It was so hot in Wyoming, and just hilly enough, that we overheated every twenty minutes or so. For a large part of the trip, Jarrett could only go about 35 mph.

By the time we got to Cheyenne, we had decided to drop the RV off at home. Going all the way into Castle Rock would only add an hour onto our drive time and we'd easily make it up when we were able to drive the speed limit again. It was a sad end to the trip. We didn't tell the kids where we were going, the were shocked when they got out to see the new campsite and we were home! I tried to get pictures but none of them came out- the kids were so excited, they couldn't stop moving.

Riley was sad that the trip was ending. James was happy to see his stuffed animals and his room. Kelly was scared to sleep alone, he had gotten used to big brother. He was tired enough to finally crash though, they were pretty happy to have their comfortable beds back.

Deja Vu

2010-07-08T07:55:00.001-07:00

Almost a year ago, last October, we went to Lake Tahoe and stayed for a couple of days. On our way back, we stopped in Elko, Nevada for a night. In the morning, we woke up to frigid weather, so the kids and I ran to the store and bought warm clothes, then went to McDonalds to wait for Jarrett.

This trip, we got off the highway becuase Jarrett was getting tired. I took the kids into a McDonalds to let off some steam.

Funny, isn't it? James immediatly recognized that we had been there and taken pictures. It's funny to see how much older they look less than a year later.

Wednesday

2010-07-08T06:59:00.001-07:00

We decided to stay on in Salt Lake another day so that Jarrett could get some work done. The kids and I took off to the Children's museum. I would have rather taken them to the lake but I had mentioned the museum and they were super-excited, so that's what we did.

They had a blast. They did some construction,

Put on a play,

Climbed a rock wall,

Did some shopping,

Worked on a farm,

Delivered the mail,

Gassed up a car,

And flew a helicopter.

I think I'm going to install one of these in our time out spot at home. It's a life vest that they anchored to the wall. Kelly strapped himself in and was completely stuck!

After the museum, we went back to the RV park to swim and have a movie night. We watched Up, the kids liked it but it scared James a bit. Jarrett and I had planned on everyone being so tired, they would fall asleep right after the movie but things didn't really go as planned. The kids couldn't sleep. They whispered to each other and bounced around until 11:00. Tomorrow is our longest day of driving, 10 hours, and I'm guessing they're going to be tired and grumpy!

Tuesday

2010-07-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

We got a late start in the morning, Jarrett was exhausted so I took the kids to the playground for the morning. It's funny, none of the playgrounds on this trip have been very impressive but the kids act like each one is Disneyland!

On the drive to Salt Lake, we saw the Salt Flats, the kids were convinced the salt was snow. We saw the lake out of the window which was nice, we're probably not going to stop there on this trip.

We got to Salt Lake and went to the planetarium. We saw a show in their dome theatre on the night sky. It wasnt very exciting but it was interesting. Luckily Saturn is visible in Utah right now, it's James' favorite planet. They showed images of the planet and Titan, it's largest moon. James was mesmorized.

After the show, the kids played with the 'Newton's Daydream' sculpture. Riley could have stayed all day and just watched.

James learned more about his Saturn. He was excited that some of the ice chunks in the rings are as large as cars.

After the planetarium, it was home for a late bedtime. We're not sure if we're heading out tomorrow or doing another day here.

Monday

2010-07-06T13:26:00.000-07:00

James was a little jealous of yesterday's early morning fishing trip, so he and Jarrett woke up early to take a trip of their own. James caught his first fish, too! His was a catfish that was big enough to keep. This time, Jarrett brought the camera, here are the proud fishermen.

We packed up and left for Salt Lake City. The drive was nice, lots of flat land with just a few hills. It was hot though, so we did overheat quite a bit.

We stopped about two hours outside of Salt Lake City. The drive to Salt Lake was nine hours and driving the RV is hard. We had also promised James that we would have his catfish for dinner and didn't want to get in to town too late to do that. So we stopped in West Wendover, NV at a KOA. The KOA had the first decent wireless service this entire trip, hence the flurry of posts! It's much easier to post from the computer than from the phone.

We took a quick dip in the KOA pool and then started a fire. We kept the kids up late to watch the stars.

The fish was wonderful, Jarrrett is a great cook. Since we had corn on the cob, we made corn cob dolls.

The kids love these, especially Riley. She made her doll an apron and she and James pretended they had been turned into kids that live in the time of Little House on the Prairie.

Tomorrow it's off to Salt Lake, we want to make it in time to catch a show at the Planetarium.

Sunday- Fourth of July

2010-07-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning, Jarrett and Riley woke up early to fish. They snuck out of the RV armed with fishing poles and ice cream (fisherman need their nourishment) and set up by the pond. They caught one small fish, Riley's first! Unfortunately, they didn't get any pictures. They came back for breakfast and then we left for Lake Tahoe.

On the road, Riley read James the last of the American Girl Molly books. I bought the set before we left and they have loved them. Riley reads them first and then reads them aloud to James. I'm sad that they don't have any more.

Tahoe has an amazing fireworks display, the largest West of the Mississippi. They were amazingly crowded though. Thousands of people were partying on the beach when we got there and it was only 4:00 p.m. We grabbed some ice cream in town and then got back in to head towards Carson City. We stopped once for a gift for grandma, can you guess what it was, mom?

In Carson City, we found out that there was a carnival going on so we went to check it out. It was lots of fun, a total small town carnival.

Kelly loves the Merry-Go-Round. He had a blast on this.

James decided he liked riding with Kelly because he loved seeing Kelly's excited face.

Riley rode all of the real rides with Jarrett, so I didn't get any pictures of her. She's an adrenaline junkie, she loves the crazy rides.

After the rides, we played some games and then sat on the park lawn to watch the fireworks show. It was a great show, we all loved it.

After that, it was home for bed, all three kids fell asleep while I read them their chapter of Little House, they were exhausted.

Saturday

2010-07-06T10:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning, we packed up and got ready to head out. James said goodbye to his first real camping friend, Dominick. James was pretty said to leave, Dominick actually cried a little. They were inseparable for the few days we were here.

We drove towards Nevada and had a lot of trouble with over-heating. We frequently drove well under the speed limit and had the heater on. We had to stop once to cool down. If you're ever over-heating on Highway 89 in Central California, this is a great place to pull off the road.

It was a more difficult hike than we planed on. We were all wearing flip-flops.

It was still a fun adventure.

We came through the woods towards the sound of rushing water.

At the end, we found an old table nestled between giant rocks and trees. It was covered with cobwebs, no one had been there for a while. I wish we could have had a picnic.

Near the table was the waterfall, it was beautiful. There was a little pool that would have been perfect for wading but the mosquitoes were eating us alive by then so we had to head back.

We kept going and made it to just outside Carson City, where our campground was. Our new campground has a stocked fishing pond, the kids are very excited to try it out. We took a walk to get a look at it and watched the sunset.

Friday

2010-07-06T09:43:00.000-07:00

My uncle and his wife live in Eureka, CA so they came down to visit us today. We haven't seen them in a while, so it was nice to catch up. We did a little lake swimming, of course, then cooked out by the fire. James was excited because Uncle Loren is a backpacker, hiker, explorer kind-of guy, so they had to go exploring together.

Here are the explorers after their adventure. Poor Loren ended up with all of the kids and his dogs, I'm guessing it was a fairly busy adventure.

After dinner, we tried to get a picture for mom, since she doesn't see her brother very often either. Have you ever tried to get three kids and two dogs to sit still for a picture?

Eventually, I managed to snap one without too much chaos.

It was a great visit. Jarrett and I are talking about doing another trip to the Pacific NorthWest soon and hopefully we'll be able to see them again in Eureka, It's supposed to be beautiful.

Thursday

2010-07-02T08:40:00.000-07:00

In the morning, we woke up and waved goodbye to the Pacific. The kids were pretty sad that we weren't going to be on the ocean for the rest of the trip.

We drove inland towards Clear Lake, we were staying in the little town of Kelseyville on the lake. Unfortunatly, Kelseyville confused our GPS pretty badly, so we ended up stuck, on a one lane road, at a dead end about ten miles away from our campsite. With the Jeep in tow, we shouldn't back up at all, the Jeep's steering doesn't adjust and the wheels end up dragging instead of rolling. So we had to disconnect the Jeep in order to get the RV out of there. The road was narrow enough that the RV ended up getting its first damage, it scraped against the railing and actually pulled the fiberglass away from the front end a bit. Jarrett was able to get everything back in place, it's just scratched. Jarrett says it gives him a good excuse to paint the RV, so if you see a K-State Purple RV driving down the road next year, that'll probably be us!

This is Clear Lake, it's in between San Francisco and Sacremento. It's supposed to be the best bass fishing in the US and it's also popular for archery fishing for carp.

We arrived in the evening and took the kids down to the swim beach to 'wade'. James wasn't entirely sure what 'wading' was, I turned my back and this is what happened.

Eventually he convinced Riley to try it. She loved it! She said it was the thickest water she'd ever swam in, it was pretty muddy.

Kelly was a lot more practical.

The kids were excited about this campsite, there were other kids running around-other than cousins, we haven't seen many kids on this trip.

Wednesday

2010-07-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

In the morning, we had a lot of laundry to do so we stayed at the park. The kids and I took a walk to see if we could find a way down to the ocean. Instead, we found lots of these signs...

After the laundry was done,we headed into town. We had lunch on Fisherman's Wharf.

We took a walk and saw the trolleys.

In the evening, we went to the Aquarium of the Bay. The tour person said that we should look very closely because some of their coolest animals like to hide. James said that they probably didn't have any cool animals and she was just saying that, he's a skeptical boy, he's a lot like Jarrett.

They did have cool animals though. Lots of Seven Gill Sharks and Leopard Sharks, tons of huge Starfish and Rays. At the end, there's a touch pool where you can pet baby Leopard Sharks, Bat Rays and Skates.

Riley loved the skates. One of them swam up to where she was and just sat there, she was able to pet it the whole time she was there. She really wanted to bring it home.

The baby sharks were very cool. They swallow water in order to intimidate enemies, they can swell to twice their size. After they swell, they pop up and spit out the water, swimmming vertically. James petted the sharks but was a little freaked out about them.

Also in the aquarium they had a video and section set up to educate about 'finning', when people cut off the sharks fins and then throw them back in the ocean to die. If you go, I would avoid it with little kids, or at least be prepared. It was pretty gory. James was fairly bothered by it.

Tuesday

2010-07-02T08:12:00.000-07:00

This is the view from the front windows of the RV in San Fransisco...I really love it here.

In the morning, it was off to the Golden Gate Bridge. I had a book about it that I read to the kids, so they were very excited to see it. Jarrett and I marveled at the engineering.

Riley loved the view, here she is trying to see ships in the bay.

We could just barely see the bay bridge through the fog.

We had to stop to see the statue of Joseph Strauss, the lead engineer. James had seen it in the book and wanted to see it more than the bridge.

After we left, we drove down Lombard St. Riding with Jarrett is always an adventure so this was enough for me to be clutching the Jeep safety bars. The kids loved it, they put their arms up like they were on a roller coaster!

We made it back in time to catch the sunset, I'm going to miss the view.

Monday

2010-06-30T14:33:00.001-07:00

We left Pismo Beach in the morning, still driving up the coast. We parked the RV and drove the jeep inland through wine country, heading towards Hearst Castle. It was a perfect day for the jeep, the kids usually complain about the wind or the temperature, today they really enjoed themselves.

Kelly enjoyed himself also but didn't want his picture taken.

Jarrett and I drove down the coast through wine country on our honeymoon, so this drive brought back lots of memories. We stayed at a bed and breakfast near Paso Robles in these hills.

When we got back to the coast, it was foggy and cool. I love the fog!

We arrived at Hearst Castle just in time for our tour. None of us knew anything about it, so we signed up for the Experience Tour, which is geared towards first time visitors. The castle was incredibly decadent. William Hearst's father made a forune in silver and bought tons of land in California. When William Hearst had made his own fortune in newspapers, he started the castle. He was 57, at that time the average life expectancy was only 61. The castle was in it's prime for about ten years- until Hearst ran out of money. After seeing the castle, I'm amazed his money lasted even 10 years!

Hearst had collected tons of amazing art, artifacts and arcitecture pieces throughout his career and had them built into the castle. His builder was one of the first women ever to earn an engineering degree. The castle contains ancient Egyptian pieces, 2000 year old roman artifacts, tapestries and statues from around the world, etc. It was baffling to think of the origins of everything. He also had a full zoo on the premesis, one of the animals in his open range area was the zebra, the zebras have continued to live there and breed. On our way out, we actually saw a herd of zebras grazing near the coast!

The tour was very impressive. The castle is a bit inland, maybe two miles in. It's in the hills, so you can see all the way down to the water. Riley loved the castle, so far it's her favorite part of the trip. Here she is at the Neptune Pool. It's one of the most recognizable places. Part of Sparticus was filmed there and it was on the cover of Life Magazine in the fifties.

Here's James at the entrance to one of the guest houses. Neither of the guest houses had kitchens because Hearst insisted that his guests always dine with him in the main house. Supposedly Winston Churchill requested tea in his guest room and Hearst said no and made him come to the main kitchen for it.

This is the entrance to the castle, some of the sculptures on the front are over 400 years old. On the terrace out front, there were marble pieces that were 2000 years old. There were equally impressive things in the castle but there was no flash photography allowed so I didn't get any good pictures.

This is the Roman Pool, it was the last stop on our tour and it was gorgeous. The ladders in and out are all marble. The entire pool is 10' deep but the tiles are laid specially in order to make the bottom appear curved. The gold tiles on the floor and walls are actually real gold, 22 carat. Is it any wonder Hearst ran out of money?

After the castle, we headed on to our next stop, San Francisco! Unfortunatly, the GPS was confused and lead us into the heart of Castro instead of our RV park. Poor Jarrett had to manuver the RV through super narrow, crowded, one way streets in the dark...did I mention that he's a superhero?

Sunday

2010-06-28T20:03:00.001-07:00

Pismo Beach was wonderful! We ran around the RV park on scooters all morning, then left for lunch. The restaurant had a dolphin fountain out front, so Riley was in heaven.

After lunch, we went to a great playground near the beach. Riley and James rode dolphins and an orca.

We walked along the cliffs over the ocean and went down the pier.

There were lots of people fishing on the pier, the kids really wanted to fish too. We went back to the RV to get poles and went to Shell Beach. Jarrett and the big kids fished while Kelly and I searched for shells. There were tons of them. You can't see very well in the picture but we found a lot of intact shells, two broken sand dollars and a whole black sand dollar. While we were searching, we found an abandoned sand sculpture, very cool!

Afterwards, we drove down the beach and into the sand dunes and then home for bed, everyone was SO tired!

Saturday

2010-06-28T18:48:00.001-07:00

We left from Vista in the afternoon and drove along the coast towards our next stop, Pismo Beach.

The drive was beautiful, we went through the Los Padres National Park near Santa Barbara. My phone pictures don't do it justice.

At the end of the park, we saw Cachuma Lake. Again, the picture isn't that great but it was a fantastic view.

Riley and James were horribly carsick, so they just snuggled and moaned. Kelly was excited to do his favorite page for letter I, he's a do-a-dot marker freak. After he does each letter, he totally annihilates the entire page.

James' Sweet Tooth

2010-06-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

James is a bit of a health nut, he's always been that way. During the summer, he'll sit in the garden and eat his little heart out. For dessert, he loves green beans or grapes. He turns down cookies, cake, candy and chocolate whenever they're offered. I was fairly certain there was nothing sweet that he liked, until...

Apparently, James loves ice cream! He'll only eat it out of a cone. I probably shouldn't get such a kick out of him liking junk food but this is the first time I've seen him finish a sweet. It was pretty cute!

Bible School Dropout

2010-06-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

My husband's eldest sister is the wife of a Nazarene preacher. Every year, she does an amazing vacation bible school, last year she had 200 kids! She works on it all year long.

So, even though we don't belong to the Church of the Nazarene, we were really excited that it happened to be the week that we were here. My in laws signed all of our kids up- not mentioning to me that the minimum age is four years old.

My youngest, for anyone who hasn't met him, is 3 1/2. He's very mature for his age... but he's also very small for his age, he's just started wearing his brother's 2T hand-me-downs. He's yet to hit 30 lbs! As I said, though, he acts much older than he looks.

His instructor was his 17 year old cousin, David, who is amazing with kids, so I wasn't too worried about him. Plus he had his 3 1/2 year old cousin in his group- apparently, we're a family of rule-breakers, who cares about age cutoffs!

The first day he did really well. He participated and sat on his cousin's lap for most of the activities. When I picked him up, though, he told me that bible school is fun but he's never going back. I'm stubborn, so I brought him back Tuesday. He had a harder time with me leaving, so I let them know to call if they needed me.

They didn't call, but when I got there to pick the kids up, I ended up talking to one of the teachers. She asked who my kids were and when I told her she said, "I know Riley and James... Is yours the tiny Kelly who cries all the time?"

Um, yeah, probably.

Oops, turns out day two didn't go so well, he cried (silently, according to the teachers) until they switched him to the group with Riley and James. Then he broke all of James' crafts, intentionally, and refused to participate. I guess he's stubborn too!

So he dropped out... I've had that 'Beauty School Dropout' song from Grease stuck in my head all day!

Sunday - Friday

2010-06-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

Father's Day was not the best one we've ever had. Jarrett insisted on cooking breakfast for everyone (no complaints here) and then we packed up and were off to California. Jarrett wanted to get to his dad's house, in Vista, on Father's Day. Unfortunatly, the RV overheats fairly easily while pulling the Jeep, we were driving through the desert and a lot of hills so it was a stressfull day for him.

The In-Law's house was a welcome sight. Jarrett's parents live with his sister and her family in the hills of Southern California. This is the (amazing) view from their patio.

My mother in law is a home-ec teacher, she sets a beautiful table. She says, "Italian food must be eaten outside."

Wile in Vista, we took the kids to the beach. To me, this little walk is what makes the vacation, we always go to the same beach.

Riley and James loved it. We practically had to wrestle them out of the water.

Kelly said that he didn't like the ocean, turned his back on it, and pretended it wasnt there. He helped his cousins and uncle work on a 'hot tub'.

I also took the kids to Legoland. They're Lego-obsessed so it was a huge thrill for them!!

Here are the kids with some cousins, crawling all over a Lego-Man...

We rode some rides...Riley was faking excitement, the rides that Kelly can ride aren't too much of a thrill.

The kids got airbrush tattoos. James wanted a hummingbird, sweet thing, but eventually his boy cousins (nicely) convinced him to get a turtle.

It was a great stop but we were all excited to keep moving.

One more picture for mom. Yes, that is a donkey made entirely of Legos!

Saturday- Grand Canyon

2010-06-28T07:10:00.000-07:00

We made it!

Our campsite was about an hour away from the canyon and the drive was beautiful, rolling hills, lots of trees. We stopped and bought buffalo jerky from roadside stand and read up on the canyon during the drive and read up on the canyon.

This is a little of what we learned. The canyon has been carved by the Colorado River. It was long a home and revered place to various tribes- mainly the Pueblo. Native Americans first brought Europeans (Spaniards) to the canyon 600 years ago. They showed the Spaniards around without showing them the river so eventually they had to leave to get water, not realizing that there was any there. It was about two hundred years before Europeans returned so the trick worked pretty well!

We learned that five million people visit each year. Jarrett was skeptical of that number until we got there. People were everywhere! We waited in line to drive through the gate for half an hour. It was definitly worth it though.

This was our first glimpse of the canyon...

It was amazing!

We were on the South Rim of the Canyon and there were lots of places to climb. The boys, unfortunatly, were fearless. They had a wonderful time but there were places that made me nervous.

James loved the canyon. He plans to go back and climb it when he's older. He wanted to stay forever.

Riley was scared of falling. At first she clung to my hand and tried identify all of the other languages people were speaking. Eventually, she got a bit braver and did some hiking. Despite being scared, she loved it.

We stayed about two hours, stopped at the gift shop for a book and headed out. We could have stayed much longer but it was getting dark. We stopped at the East Rim on the way out and saw the sunset. It was beautiful but so bright I couldn't get a picture.

As we drove away, you could see the line carved by the canyon for miles.

The kids were exhausted, James fell asleep on Riley's lap on the way home. It was a great day.

The Giant Buffalo

2010-06-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

Before Jarrett bought the new map, the kids and I were tracking our progress on this little map that we bought from scholostic last year.

Once I showed the the kids this map, James was SO excited about the Grand Canyon. When will we be there? Can we go faster? I can't wait.

As we got closer though, he got a little nervous. Do I have to go? Is it dangerous? I did my best to reassure him that it would be okay.

As we got closer still, the questions got a little weirder. What if I get squished? What if it smashes me? I was getting pretty confused until the next question. What if the giant buffalo steps on me?

What giant buffalo?!

Aha! Totally makes sense. We had a long talk about maps and symbols and he feels much better now!

Friday

2010-06-27T10:44:00.001-07:00

Friday morning, the slider on our RV broke, so Jarrett ran to the Camping World superstore that was a couple of blocks from our campsite. (The word 'superstore' should have tipped me off that it was going to be a long morning!)

The kids and I stayed in the RV for a while. Riley read to James, he's enjoying her American Girl books almost as much as she is.

Can you tell where Riley spends most of her time?

It was amazingly hot, I guess we're not used to the desert. The kids and I went to the RV park pool to cool down. Considering it felt like it was 100 degrees in the shade, we were expecting a fairly warm pool.

Wow, were we wrong! The pool was freezing. The kids rescued ladybugs while I got up the courage to climb in. Once you got used to the water, it warmed up a bit but it was still pretty cold. We had a great time playing sharks and mermaids and convincing Kelly to come in, he's not much of a water kid!

I knew the kids had seen a couple of ladybugs in the pool but I had no idea how many there really were, one entire corner of the pool was full of them. The kids kept going back there to work on their rescue mission. Riley worked on her swimming, James pretended to nap and Kelly climbed in and out- over and over! I tried to teach them Marco Polo but only Riley understood.

After a while, I realized all of the kids' lips had turned purple and Kelly's purple was spreading to the rest of his face, so we decided to head back. It was amazingly cold! I have no idea how they could even keep it that cold in the middle of the desert!

Jarrett had found quite a few things he needed at Camping World and had come back to start fixing things. We ended up finally leaving Albuquerque around 3:00, hopefully, that's not going to become a pattern!

The scenery that we were able to see before dark wasn't very impressive, lots of desert, some interesting rocks but I never grabbed my phone in time. We passed the Arizona State sign and did our picture.

The kids also added Arizona to the really cool US map Jarrett bought at Camping World. I love this thing! We started reading Little House on the Prairie and the kids had fun tracking where Laura and her family were.

We stopped in Flagstaff, AZ for the night. It reminded me a lot of Colorado mountains. It's less colorful there but they have the same big pines.

Woohoo, Grand Canyon tomorrow! We're all so excited!

Thursday (finally!)

2010-06-23T05:54:00.000-07:00

In answer to your question mom, no- we didn't make it to the fair, we had something much more exciting to do. For my husband, there something really exciting about buying supplies. We made a list (6 items) and he ran into Walmart with the boys while Riley and I got ready.

We got tired of waiting though, and went in after him. He only had a few of the things from our list but he already had a full cart! The Walmart trip led to a couple of hours of reorganizing the RV which was fine with me. There was a high wind advisory until noon and driving the RV in the wind is even scarier than driving it at night. When we left Larkspur it was already three. The wind had died down substantially and we had talked it over and basically threw out the plans we had made and decided to wing it for the rest of the trip.

We finally left Colorado that evening. The kids jumped out if the RV for our obligatory state sign picture. We try to take one everytime we enter a new state. So far, we all like the Colorado signs best, they're made of wood and stone, not metal like this one. This is the worst sign we've seen yet, tons of grafitti and litter.

For some reason, everytime we take these pictures, James has to use the bathroom...we have a lot of pictures of the poor kid looking uncomfortable! I snapped this picture while we were there, everytime I see the full caravan, I'm amazed that Jarrett can drive it.

What did we do while Jarrett drove? Well, Kelly did some file folder games-really hard while driving. He kept saying that his letters didn't like the RV.

James and Riley did some workbooks that they like. James' dominos didn't like the RV either!

James read his new Flip-A-Word book and Riley read an American Girl book. It was a pretty fun day!

We made it into Albuquerque that evening and settled in for our first real night of camping. We were all so excited to get there and lay down!

Riley and the Snake

2010-06-23T05:41:00.000-07:00

Coincidentally, Riley has been asking for a pet snake! After holding this one, she says she want one just like this, only smaller, calmer, cuter and tamer...

And We're Off!

2010-06-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

And you thought I'd never do it... I've had to set this up on my phone so it probably looks horrible. Not to mention it takes forever so my posts are delayed a bit!
As you know, we were planning on leaving Wednesday afternoon for our first big RV road trip. What is it they say about the best laid plans?

Wednesday morning, our house was nearly buzzing with activity. Jarrett went off to work while the kids and I ran around in circles trying to get everything loaded and organized. The plan was for Jarrett to come home at noon and load his things. We would take off at 1:00, pick up the Jeep (it was at the shop, getting set up to be towed) and leave town at 2:00- arriving in Sante Fe around 8:00, just in time for bed.

Except that things were busy at work, so Jarrett didn't get home until 3:00. The kids and I weren't totally packed (and Kelly was napping) so Jarrett left with the RV to get the Jeep and then come back to the house, load up and leave. We'd be about four hours behind but we're both night owls and the kids sleep really well in the car. It was do-able.

Except that the RV place, which is 30 minutes away, forgot we were coming and told Jarrett to come back in two hours. So he arrived home an hour later, with no jeep, seriously stressed out. I risked certain death by sneaking out of the house during critical packing time and bribing the lawn guys to hook up the sprinklers for my strawberry plants. Then I snuck into the garden and frantically planted peas and rhubarb. I know my priorities! So we left the house at 6:00, planning now to grab the Jeep, drive four hours to Pueblo and make up the extra time on Thursday.

Except that the RV shop owner seemed a bit overwhelmed with the whole idea of hooking the Jeep to the RV. We waited two hours then the kids and I left- walking around town in the dark- to get something for dinner. When we got back, the RV shop owner had caught a bullsnake for the kids...and almost hooked the Jeep up. We finally left at 10:30, planning on driving as long as we possibly could.

Except that the Jeep is black, making it virtually invisible at night, and Jarrett had never driven the RV with a tow. We drove for a while, with me hanging out the back windows of the RV on every turn (to make sure the Jeep didn't run into anything). By this point, the kids were too exausted to fall asleep, Jarrett was seriously stressed out and I was sick of running between Jarrett, the kids and the rear windows.

So we set up camp...at Walmart...in Larkspur. Yep, that's right, we camped 30 minutes away from our house.