How We Spent Our Fall Break...

Total Days of Vacation: 9
Time Spent in Car: 44 hours (4 days of driving)
Miles Driven: 2,789
States Traveled Through: 7
In-N-Out Hamburgers Eaten: 16 (between all of us--4 dinners x 4 people)
Bathroom Stops: Way too many to count

Driving Itinerary:
Saturday, Oct. 10th: Drive to Grandpa Keith's and Grandma Megan's house, 13 hours
Thursday, Oct. 15th: Drive to Sacramento (en route to Southern California), 14 hours
Friday, Oct. 16th: Drive to Southern California, 7.5 hours
Sunday, Oct. 18th: Drive home to Utah, 9.5 hours

The Details:
Kevin was on Fall break last week. Tyler had Thursday and Friday off, so we decided we would take advantage of our vacation time and travel up to Washington to visit my dad and Megan. We left at 11:30 on Saturday morning. We had to stay for Tyler's last soccer game--and good thing we did because he scored 2 goals! The drive went really smoothly. We had a great time at the farm (I, however, failed to take any pictures). The kids loved seeing the animals--especially the dogs and cats. Funny how scared they used to be of the dogs because now they love to pet and play with them.

On Monday, we went out for Chinese food and watched "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs". The food was good, and the movie was great. On Wednesday, Megan took the kids on an adventure into town. They went to story time at the library, out to lunch at the local Log Cabin restaurant, and on a walk on the Fire Interpretive Trail. The kids had a great time. Basically all week long I rested and relaxed while the kids were taken care of by Megan. Thanks Megan! Megan had all sorts of indoor activities planned for the kids (since the weather was a bit chilly--it was as low as 15 degrees one morning when we woke up). She had made lots of homemade play-do and a fabulous farm memory game. We took both fun things home, and the kids have continued to enjoy Megan's homemade masterpieces since our return.

On Thursday, we packed up early in the morning (5 am) and started our 2-day drive to Southern California. We stopped 14 hours later to stay at Kevin's aunt and uncle's house near Sacramento. About 20 minutes before arriving, we exited to buy our first In-N-Out hamburger of the trip. Just as we were getting off the exit ramp, Susie called out from the back, "I'm going to throw up!" Unfortunately we have been cursed with a child who gets car sick. But, she wasn't ever car sick on our trip over the summer, and she hadn't been sick up to this point in our trip. I thought maybe she had grown out of her car sick days. Guess not. We told her to hold on, found a plastic bag, held it under her mouth, and she managed to get every drop of throw up into the bag! Amazing for a 3 year old! She's obviously had practice.

We stayed the night in Sacramento, then left for Southern California by 6:45 the next morning (Friday). We went to Southern California because Kevin's uncle had passed away earlier in the week. The viewing was Friday evening and the funeral was Saturday morning. We had considered driving from my dad's house back to Utah and sending Kevin down to California with his brother, but I'm really glad we didn't. Although all the driving was treacherous, especially with 2 kids, it felt really good to be with Kevin's family, showing our love and support. Including Kevin, there is a total of 38 cousins in his family. 34 made it to the funeral. I don't think I have ever been at an event where so many people made the effort to attend. It was really good to see so many people who we hadn't seen in a long time. And, a couple days of warm, sunny California weather always does a body good.

We stayed in Southern California for all of Saturday. Then, we woke up early once again, and left for Utah by 5:45 California time (6:45 our time). We made it home in record time. We walked into the house at about 4 in the afternoon (9 hours, 15 minutes later). We made spaghetti for dinner and ate a yummy, homemade dinner for the first time in many days. Our vacation was great, but it always feels so good to be home.