2011 in Pictures

Hotel Life

We took another long road trip back to the NW.   Overall it was a very pleasant journey, we had a few road bumps along the way but it was a nice trip and we were certainly glad to make it home.    We stayed in several different hotels along the way ... here a few of my favorite pictures from those stays.  :)

A Stop by the Fishbowl...

Yes, on our road trip to Mississippi, we stopped in the great state of Utah and met up with my college friend, Lori. Now Lori and I keep up with each other's lives pretty regularly. In fact, I sometimes forgot that I never had actually met her oldest son - since the last time I actually saw Lori she was still pregnant with him. Crazy that with technology being so available that so much time can pass without actually seeing people. As soon as we determined we were making this road trip I knew that one of our stops had to be Utah. I didn't care if it added an extra day on the trip - it was a must! My husband had never met any of them, and our kids NEEDED to meet! It just was imperative and so we made it so!

Having spent three days (or 2.5 really) in the car already Ace so SO thrilled to arrive at a destination that had toys. Garrett was excited to show them to him and Matthew was as well. Although Matthew spent more of his time protesting Lori holding Mae, but I suppose that is to be expected. :) After dinner (which was homemade and yummy!) the boys went outside to run around and play with swords. Loving Husband got in on the action and had a blast with the kids.

It was a wonderful visit and I wish we lived closer to each other so that our families could spend more time together. We had a wonderful breakfast and headed out around 10am allowing them to get off to church. :) Can't wait to see them again.




(Mae was sleeping, so we let her stay that way.)

He is Risen!

How anyone can look at our sky and not believe there is a Risen Savior baffles me. Jesus died for our sins and rose from the grave today. What a beautifully painted sky he gives us every day. Happy Easter, everyone!

Ace and Mae Crossing the Country

For this adventure I spent several weeks preparing individual bags for Ace for each day that we were on the road. I made sure that he had something new and exciting in each bag. I bought some fabric with his favorite characters on it and made him some bags for each day. I filled each bag with several different types of excitement and each day he got a new bag. We did buy in a dvd player and a tray for his car seat as well. Both very good investments. Ace did GREAT! Honestly, he was very little issue and never once was itching or fussing to get out of his seat. Certainly happy to get out - but never once fussed or threw any fits about having to get back into the car. It was blissful. He was super excited each day to get a new 'surprise' and then at the end of the day was excited to get another bag to play with. I'd happily take another road trip with him.

Mae, our three month old little girl, did amazingly well for having very little wiggle room or understanding as to what on earth was going on. My little girl who is used to nursing to sleep and snoozing in my arms until she's ready to wake up, wasn't terribly pleased to have to get a snack and be plopped back into her car seat for more driving. She however was compliant and didn't fuss unless she had a need. Our day with her often went: feed at the first gas up before heading out. We'd usually get 2.5 hours in that stint of driving and then she'd need to eat again. She'd require us to make impromptu stops whenever she was poopy because she would FUSS quite loudly. She'd usually take another 1-2 hour nap after lunch and then she'd have awake time which usually required me to go in the back seat with the kids to just be around her because she was lonely. Overall she did wonderfully and while we had a few extra stops due to diapers or gas bubbles - she was amazing as well. We never were too off schedule on our drives.

Overall we had a great adventure and the kids did such a great job traveling those 3000 miles. Two happy kids, made for two happy parents. Loving Husband who did all the driving and this momma who did a good portion of the entertaining of said kiddos.

Road Trip

Our family is off on an extended adventure! The beginning of which was to travel from the NW to Mississippi... with two kids.... both under the age of three. Are we insane? Likely. But 7 days, 9 states, and 3000 miles later... we have arrived arrived!

So the big question was answered: we all survived! :) Yes we had a great trip. Ace did WONDERFULLY and for a very alert three month old, Mae did great as well. In fact, I think if it had just been Ace and the two adults that we could have made it even quicker. He did great in the car. There were even days we didn't break out the dvd player because he was content with other things. Mae required the more frequent stops usually stretches of driving would last no longer than 2.5 hours and then a stop was a minimum of 25 minutes. It wasn't bad.

We saw some beautiful country along the way! We took a non-direct route (or at least not the route when you put "the NW to Mississippi" into Bing Maps would take you.) our first stop was in Oregon to visit some folks and then we headed onto Boise, ID and then onto Salt Lake City to visit Lori and her family (a separate post on this exciting visit to come!) our next stop was Farmington, NM, then Amarillo, TX, and then Dallas TX and our ultimate destination: Biloxi MS. The last day was our longest in mileage but we pushed through until the end and did a-ok.

If I had to find a picture that would best describe each state in between home and MS it would be the following...






Oregon




Idaho




Utah




Colorado




New Mexico




Texas




Louisiana

It was a great trip and it was a fun adventure as a family. Will we do it again? Well we do have to get back to the NW eventually. :) Posts on the kids adventures on the road to come soon!

Flashback Friday

Exactly 5 years ago today Carrie and I were in San Francisco visiting my Aunt and Uncle on our first stop towards the NW on our road trip! It was a pretty bland trip mostly I-5 and not a lot of cool stuff to look at, we were limited on time and I was anxious to get settled at my in-laws and start studying for the bar exam. However, while in San Fran we went to the infamous Pier 39 and enjoyed some lunch and and site seeing around the area. Coit Tower is what is what is off in the distance in this picture. It was a good visit. Lots of wine was consumed and good times were had. I always enjoy visiting with my Aunt and Uncle!

We're Here!

Although it doesn't seem as anyone BUT Carrie cares that we are... since there were no other comments except from my road-trip buddy... but I digress and plan to write a stellar blog that all of you can simply be amused by and leave no interesting feedback for me. (I'm not sad or bitter, really!)

So, we left San Carlos around 10:30am on Sunday morning. A bit later start than we intended, but that's ok. Carrie took this leg of the drive! Some say it saved our lives... just because I'm a fast driver and twists and turns don't mix well with that... hmmph! Well, thank you Carrie for saving my life and yours!!! ;-) We stopped in Starbucks where we acquired and extra riding buddy... nameless until we hit the town of Willits, where we appropriately named him Will Carlos (Adopted from the San Carlos Starbucks) He's a bear by the way... not a serial rapist that couldn't catch a cab.
We drove on the 101 for many many miles on Sunday. We went over a very foggy Golden Gate Bridge, drove past many green trees and few blue skys, said hello to Paul and his pal Blu and somewhere around 5:30pm we said goodbye to California!

We continued our trek into Oregon and for the most part were clouded over, but still a great drive. We amused ourselves with dashboard photos and random shots out the car, T-Rex "replicas" and attempting to find a decent station to play our iPods on. We drove well into the evening and even into the night where we finally stumbled into Coos Bay on the Oregon coast and got a hotel room at 9:30pm. We wearily approached the counter, requested a room and got one with a spa in it! Oh yah! So Carrie and I took our belongings to the room and went back out to McD's to get ourselves Oreo McFlurries. Came back hopped in the spa, ate our delicious treats and watched SATC. Excellent! It was wonderful!!! We got to sleep around midnight.



We woke up around 8am on Monday morning and again Carrie started the trek up the 101 after an hour or so we cut over onto the 126 and headed towards the I-5. Got ourselves some lunch a little up the 5, switched driving positions, and then drove straight on into town around 5pm. Yay!!!! We had made it. Had dinner with Loving Husband and his parents, saw my kitties and then came back to my home to watch a movie on the computer while sitting on the air mattress and drinking some champagne. What a way to end a road trip! It was most excellent.

This trip was far more interesting than the last one, and I can't think of anyone I would have rather done this trip with! Love you Carrie!

On the Road Again...

Well, Carrie and I enjoyed excellent shopping at the Outlets and were quite successful with a few purchases on our way up to San Jose on Friday, enjoying a few stops for food, clothing and gas. We arrived at my Aunt and Uncle's around 6:30pm on Friday, not too terrible, we were worried that we had spent too much time browsing through clothing stores and we were going to miss dinner, but we made it. My Aunt fixed us a lovely meal and we all spent the rest of the evening and well into the night sitting around and chatting and consuming way more than the recommended dosage of wine (for any of our tastes) ::cough:: 6 bottles. We finally all headed to bed around 2am.


We then awoke way too early for any of our tastes on a NORMAL day and we got ready and my Uncle, Carrie and myself headed to Monterey Bay to see the World Famous Aquarium. One more "theme" park for me to visit before leaving California. However, before we headed to Monterey we had to go shopping, yes it is true we really had to. My Aunt and Uncle had been invited to a rather posh birthday party for a co-worker of my Aunt who was turning 50 and Carrie had to purchase a dress, and we both had to buy shoes. (Yay for packing all shoes I own but flip flops). So we accomplished those two tasks and headed out to the Aquarium. It was great. The jellie fish were by far the greatest, they were amazing. We walked around for a few hours and enjoyed the view and excitement of the area and then we were headed North again back to "home".

We arrived back to the house and got ready for the party. It was a lot of fun, the hordourves were amazing! I couldn't believe all the exciting different things we had to chose from, but man did we get full. :) We socialized minimally, enjoyed another glass or two of wine and then headed out after we partook in the amazing dessert spread. Delicious. We got home and had a mild evening and turned in rather early. We were all dead from our excitement the night before.

And now I sit typing away... getting ready to leave here and head back out onto the 101. We will go over the San Francisco Bridge and see many lighthouses in Oregon. And at some point we will simply crash in a hotel for the night - wherever we are too tired to go on at. :) So wish us luck! There will be another update when we arrive into our final destination on Monday!

Road Trip

1348 miles later - I am in the NW.

The road trip was most excellent and although Carrie and my adventures were limited mostly to the I-5 and Outlets, it was a great time. On the top of the list of wild and weird things we saw, was for sure the boat trailer that lost a wheel on the freeway and the lone tire rolled off and started a brush fire. Poor boat people, but still mildly comical after 500 miles in the car. It seemed that we beat the rain at all of our stops by a few days and the whole trip was great and sunny. Heck even in the NW.


My second favorite memory was the tiny town of Kalama. :-) Population...10? It was great and a nice break before we powered on into town. No cops stopped us... an added bonus, considering at points I was pushing over 100mph. We killed almost all of God's created bugs. Made stops in places such as Buttonwillow, Gilroy (shopping!), and Willow... sadly no stops in Corning or Weed. And this by far, besides gas was the cheapest road trip EVER. We stayed every where for free. Everyone bought us food, at most we paid for lunches. It was great! Thanks to Carrie for coming with... it wouldn't have been nearly as fun AND neither of us would have been able to read Harry Potter while touring through all the cow-farms of the I-5! How sad would that have been?

Carrie left in the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday and I started to settle in. I am enjoying the stay, but much studying has already set in. I am a note card making machine. :-) AND I treated myself to iPod with all graduation fundage. Yay me!

Loving Husband and I are doing well - much to the shock and dismay of all that know that I am in the NW and he is in CA. We're amazing like that. ;-) Hope all of you are well... I still need communication with the outside world, people! You know the email address! Enjoy the sunny So Cal summer.