Well....WE'RE BAAACK!!!

September 17th (Gideon turned 21 months old today! AAUUUGGHHH!!!! Where has the time gone?)



The reason I couldn't tell y'all where we were going was because we went out of town for 2 weeks to CALIFORNIA!!! For obvious security reasons Michael and I didn't feel comfortable sharing that we were leaving our house empty for that long. (However, for the record, we do have a good security system.) We went to visit with Michael's family. The first place we went was to his oldest sister Pamela's house. She is married to Nash.



The "thing" I was referring to in my last post was taking my - not always obedient, and fairly hyper- children and toddler on a plane for FIVE HOURS!!! It is not my favorite family memory. :) It was VERY difficult at times. Actually the two older boys did fairly decent. It was the baby we had the most issues with. We tried Benedryl twice but it DID NOT have the effect we were hoping for. If anything, it just irritated him. :(:( People were making snide (quiet) comments at one point and I wanted to turn around and say something, BUT, I just clenched my teeth, prayed for patience, and tried to nurse him to sleep for like the 7th time. Even though the plane ride was a bit *challenging* there were good moments too. Thomas' excited voice floated over the seat as we took off, "We're FLYING Mommy!" Judah wanting me to hold him tightly as the place took off, looking out over the desert with the boys as we flew. All those were precious memories that I will hold in my heart for years to come. (that sounds too sappy for me. ) We got through the airport and caught the "train" to the car rental place. That was fun because the boys got a free ride that they enjoyed. In fact, we rode twice. :):):) The car rental line was SOOOOO long and I wasn't about to subject either them or me to the long wait; so, Michael stood in line and the boys and I rode the train around the airport and back to the rental line. That was fun because they just loved on Gideon and enjoyed the ride. We navigated out of San Francisco to Pamela and Nash's house in Auburn with relative ease. It was another 2 hour drive though so we were TIRED. YOu'd have thought the kids would sleep in ...heeheehee Nooooooooope. Jet lag time. We were up at 5:00am. hehe

We tried to contain them until N and P woke up (around 8:00am) but it was pretty difficult. However, I have felt God's peace continuously throughout this whole trip. He has been SO much a part of my thoughts and emotions. Thank-you God for being such an AWESOME Daddy!!

I got to eat at an In N Out Burger today. It was great! There are only 3 choices of burgers on the menu: double cheeseburger, regular cheeseburger, and a hamburger. It was shocked at how few choices there were but was IMMEDIATELY relieved because it only took me about 3 seconds to decided what I wanted. (For those of you who know me I know that you are considering that a MIRACLE.) I also got to ride in my first convertible today. So FUN!

Tomorrow we are going to lake Tahoe. I'm excited about that. I'll write more tomorrow. -

Well, I didn't write more "tomorrow" as I'd planned but we're home now so I will finish the story of our trip.

We did get to go to Lake Tahoe. It was BEAUTIFUL!! I regret that we have no pics but our camera is broken and I really didn't want to take the video camera with us because it was so expensive and it scares me to have to be so careful with something. (sigh) We ate lunch in a restaurant deck overlooking the lake. After lunch we drove around the lake. We stopped at one point to hike on some rocks. That was fun. It was good for the boys to get out and have a bit of outdoor fun. Oh, we did stop at Donner Pass also. If you've never heard the story you should research that. It's fascinating. The cannibal jokes started soon after the stop. I was still so sleepy and I get nauseated when I'm that tired so I wasn't very thrilled with the joking. Normally I would have joined right in but not that day. :):) The day seemed very long because of all the driving. The next day we just hung out around the house. It was more relaxing but stressful too because their house isn't kid proof. They have really nice things. :):):) We even had to keep them away from lots of things outside. sigh. Thankfully they had a park across the street next to the lake. There we only had to keep them out of the lake. LOL (it was TOO cold for the lake) One morning I took off running. I was only going to be gone for 20 minutes. I was going to jog one way for 10 minutes and then turn around and jog back. I was so proud of myself for paying attention to the street signs so I would know how to get back. (I get lost really easily.) However, the day was so beautiful and the lake was so pretty (they have a lake in the middle of their gated community) and I thought I was about halfway around it so I decided to keep going. :) 32 minutes later I stopped jogging...something about jet lag, Gideon NOT sleeping well at night, and no breakfast made my body exhausted!! I walked for a bit and FINALLY came to the guard shack. I was relieved that I knew where I was but not so relieved when I remembered how much farther it was back to Pamela's house. Anyway, I walked/jogged the rest of the way back (Did I mention that I was also pushing Gid in the stroller during this episode?) and arrived back before Michael sent out a search party. The 20 minute jog ended up turning into a 1 hour and 15 minute escapade. :P I'm still surprised that michael didn't send out a search party for me. :) I couldn't even call him because my phone had died about 1/2way through the journey. oops.

We had a great time in Auburn, Ca. We left there on Thursday morning for Sequoia National Park. That was really awesome. I never thought I'd get to see sequoia trees. I remember studying them in school and wishing I could see them. :):) We stayed at the lodge in the Forest. It was nice. We had to unpack EVERYTHING from the van because of active bears. We even had to remove the kids' car seats because of bears. Once inside we ate the pizza we had picked up on the way in. We also had some fruit we bought at a roadside stand. Both were GREAT!

The next morning, after a wonderful breakfast buffet, we hiked around the park for about 1 hour. We hiked to the General Sherman tree. The hike was probably the most HUMILIATING experience with our kids to date. :) They were tired, cranky, fleshly, etc. Judah and Thomas fought and whined about EVERYTHING from the first step to the last. At one point I just burst into laughter because it was so embarrassing. I had to laugh or cry. They did like looking at the big trees. Michael and I enjoyed it too. In between trying to correct the kids' behavior.

After the hike we had a bathroom break and a change your clothes break and piled into the van to head to Michael's brother's house in Agua Dulce.

We started at 12:10pm. The drive was supposed to be 4 hours. We figured that we would at least get there by 5:00- in time for dinner. hehehe

The ride took...are you ready for this...8 1/2 HOURS of travel time to get there. AAUUUGGHHHHH

First we got stopped on the way out of the park for construction. The wait was 45 minutes. :( We ate our lunch from leftovers in the van. :) Then once we finally got down the mountain we made pit stop and Michael had to do some phone calls for work. I nursed Gid during that time so I wouldn't get mastitis. Then for the rest of the trip it was just one stop after another, bathroom, bathroom, bathroom, dinner, bathroom, stopped to get coffee and realized the Starbucks wasn't open for 2 more weeks. AAUUGGHHH!! Stopped at Target to return something. We FINALLY dragged our tired bodies to their door at around 9:00 pm. They looked tired too. :) I was immediately aware that their "outside" dog was NOT really an outside dog. sigh. I am allergic. This was a rottweiler. We had to get her used to us. That meant subjecting myself to her sniffing and licking me so that she would feel comfortable with me. Within an hour I was sneezing and knew we were going to have a problem. The GREAT part about Jacque and Nancy's house was that it was very kid friendly. They had obviously thought ahead. VERY SWEET! They also have a tennis court on their dirt (can't really call something a yard that doesn't have actual grass. LOL They are in the desert.) and the boys LOVED that! We did too. They could play outside and have fun without breaking...much. Their "flowers" weren't in danger because they were blooming on their cactus. LOL

The really ironic part about the dog was that she DIDN'T LIKE me and growled at me a lot and lunged at me a couple of times. So ANNOYING! I was the one person that was the LEAST amount of threat to her. I would have been happy to stay AWAY from her but we had to keep having her smell me and me feeding her from my hand, etc. to make sure that she knew I was her "friend". go figure. She was actually a really nice dog. She let my kids love all over her. She just didn't like me for some reason. She would be fine with me petting her, feeding her, etc. and then all of a sudden she would growl at me and come towards me. RME (rolling my eyes) I did get through the week stay there without getting bit. I consider that a blessing from God. Really.

Mom (MIL) had a nice get together for us at her house in Newhall (about 10 minutes from Jacque's) on Saturday night. It was really nice to see some of Michael's family. I got to meet my great niece. She is ADORABLE. I had fun holding her. She did too. I was swinging her around and she was squealing. :):) Judah and Thomas LOVED on her A LOT! She really liked Judah!

the rest of the week was spent hanging out at Mom's gated community pool, eating out, drinking expensive coffee from Starbucks, and seeing family.

We had a really great time. The plane trip home wasn't quite as bad but it was pretty rough. I decided, in advance, that if anyone around us made snide comments I was going to turn around and say, "Benedryl doesn't seem to work on our toddler but you're welcome to take some of ours if you'd like." I was really hoping to be able to use that line but nobody seemed to mind him. The flight crew was definitely MORE cranky on the second flight. They acted like EVERYTHING you asked them to do was a inconvenience. It was really getting annoying to look at their sour faces. (they MUST have been working a double shift) Anyway, I asked the guy for more cookies at one point for Gideon. When he brought them back I said, "Thank-you, and EVERYONE around us thanks you too." He laughed and broke out into this HUGE smile. He was a attractive young man when he smiled. The girl who was working with him started smiling more as well. Just goes to show how far a little humor can go. Thank-you Lord for laughter!

We have definite jet lag but we are glad to be home. We did manage to unpack and do school today; along with laundry and defrosting the deep freezer. Tomorrow we need to go monthly shopping at Walmart. We ate most of our food before we left. LOL

Anyway, this may be a light blog week. We'll see. Have a great week everyone and I have to say, "It's SO GOOD to see green grass again!!!! I love Georgia!!"

Blessings!- Angela :)