The kids have been looking forward to our trip to Arizona for months because we promised them a swim in the hotel pool. The kids think hotels are awesome! I was even able to get Calvin to wear his patch in order to earn some new goggles for the occasion of swimming the hotel pool. I didn't realize 'til we got there that the kids didn't know the real reason for the trip - my cousin's wedding. But it was just as well since they weren't invited to the wedding anyway!
This was the only pic I took at the wedding. I don't remember a moment when Trish wasn't smiling so it isn't very represenative of a great evening but thought I'd post it anyway...So, here are a few highlights of our trip. most occurred in the car since most of our trip occurred in the car! Overall it was a really good trip. We squeezed in a lot of fun and didn't (very often) think we wanted to dump any kids on the side of the road and leave them there to rot in the hot AZ sun. :)
1. The first funny and notable incident occurred before we left the house. We were all in the car and I ran back in to get something in the house. Dave teased Clare by saying, "let's just leave mommy here. Let's go on our trip w/o her!" Clare said, "NO DADDY! NO!" and he said, "okay bear, we'll wait for Mom." then sweet little inquisitive Clare stated, "dad, you always lie to me. Everyday you tell me lies. You are such a noob." (Noob is a wonderful word that dan introduced to our household. Recently Calvin brought home some school work where he had practiced the letter N. For one of his n words he wrote noob. It is still hanging on the wall as one of Dan's favorite homeworks for the year!)
2. We passed the biggest cow farm I have EVER seen. we showed the kids the cows and then it started to stink, of course! CAlvin said, "DAD, Alexey is stinky" and leaned over and smelled Alexey. He repeated "Alexey has a stinkey diaper" and Dave said, "no, Calvin that is just the cows." Calvin smelled lex again and said, "nooooooo, it is alexey." He was getting pretty upset now.....Dave repeated, "Calvin the cows are stinky, not Alexey." now Calvin is in tears.....
"Dad. STOP TEASING ME. ALEXEY IS STINKY." By now, Dave and I were in tears too, from laughing so hard that we couldn't answer him. In a minute or so the bad smell passed and Calvin did eventually believe us when we told him it was the cows.
3. You might have heard about the 7.2 earthquake that hit Mexicali. It was felt here in SD and all the way into LA. When the earthquake hit we were in YUMA -- about 100 miles from Mexicali -- inside Carls JR. letting our kids stretch their legs in the play structure (after 4 hours of driving). The building started shaking and the play structure was pretty wobbly. I would say the shaking lasted 30 seconds, which is quite a long time. We had time to get our kids down and step outside. After the shaking passed we went back to let the kids play only to feel another little earthquake, much smaller, but we decided to hit the road. Carls didn't feel like the safest place to be!
4. warning: some race-ism and law breaking in this one. You have been forewarned.
There are several border patrol check points along the I-8 which at some points runs right along the US/Mexico border. At all checkpoints we were told to keep moving since we are clearly white and our car was filled with even whiter kids and obsiouly had no room for extra passengers or drugs. As we came to one checkpoint on our way home, dave says, "Denise, how about when we get to the stop I will jump out and start running."
"Why?"
"For fun!"
"Okay dave, but just know that I will not stop for you and will abandon you here."
"well, I don't want to be left here so I guess that isn't a good idea."
"oh really, not a good idea?!!!!!" (where does he come up w/ this stuff?)
At one point on our car trip home Calvin was falling to pieces b/c he wanted to sleep but didn't have room. (We drove in Dave's Mazda3 so the kids are packed in like sardines in the back seat.) He finally decided to lay down on the floor of the back seat and slept there for a couple of hours. I know, I know we are terrible parents and you are feeling the need to call CPS now. Anyway, as we enjoyed a quiet and peaceful couple of hours w/ Calvin sleeping on the floor of back seat we came to a border control checkpoint. I wondered if they would be concerned to see a kid w/o a seat belt so I covered him up w/ his blanket. Dave thought this was super funny as it resembled smuggling in Mexicans. That is all. It is an anticlimactic story but it was funny to us. I guess too much time in the car can make a person a little loopy.
Side note: at this particular checkpoint in 2009 they found 10,000 lbs of drugs. crazy.
Kid movies for the trip: Mary poppins, Kung Fu Panda, Backyardagins, Little Einsteins, Monsters INC, Annie, ....
Dave and Denise book on CD. Superfreakanomics. (RATED PG-13. The first two chapters are about prostitution and have some interesting details). Reminded me a lot of Outliers which was our last travel book. In fact both books reported the same findings about athletic success and birthdays.
Out of the car highlights:
(Sorry I don't have hardly any pics to document our fun trip)
-visiting the Ben and Vanessa Peterson and family!
-seeing my cousins and their kids + dogs (lexey heaven)
-kids swimming in the hotel pool
-seeing Heather Carter who happened to be in town and was willing to babysit our kids for the wedding. bless her heart.
- Trish's wedding and seeing many of my relatives there.
- Two nights of Dave sleeping w/ Calvin (ie - I didn't have to get up w/ him at 4am. so this was a highlight for me and not so much for dave)
-breakfast w/ Bob,kari, shi, joyce, cal. Grandpa pushed the "go" button on Alexey by singing tomorrow with her. She let out all the stops and sang at the top of her lungs. He was quite surprised as he had no idea how enthusiastic she was about annie!
-Calvin got to play Shi's nintendo DS at breakfast.
-I remembered to pull out the camera at breakfast.
dad and kari
a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhet-HyG8nWfXh7UMakVPiG1cMezdFW1m62CpeY-BTYrhGmbBbI6Ajj-ykQ8PyGQCVJXgykfr4Y9QBYwOYM5A22wBpVSG7aq1s4fGR40U3Z9vraidTtkPjEtY8MYjTq2Hanmdq3Svvkf9uP/s1600/013.JPG">
my dad and alexey after singing tomorrow
me and my grandma joyce
clare took these pics
grandpa calvin
5 comments:
I'm impressed that you made it there and back with all of your children (I'll do just about anything not to drive more than two hours with my kids in the car!). Also - on a side note, once when my dad was crossing the border from Tijuana to California a guard asked him if he was bringing anything back with him - and he answered 'oh, you know, just the usual paraphernalia'! Great choice of words. They realized he was just insanely naive and let him pass without further question.
I love the cow story. We will see you guys in a few weeks!
sounds like a fun trip! I've been to Yuma before.. they are pretty famous for breakfast burritos. Glad you made it through the earthquake!
What a fun trip! When I was reading your post, I kept thinking, it is too bad Denise didn't know Heather was going to be out there... so that was fun she was able to watch your kids!
Are you still going to Ohio sometime this summer?
Sounds like fun! My dad tried to make me feel guilty for not going by telling me I was the only (girl) cousin not there. But somehow I couldn't see going with a 3-month old. He also said he found someone (Alexey) who speaks my David's language.
Post a Comment