Road Trip: California March 7th & 8th

California Love!

Juan, Noah(2yr 10mo), Elijah(7mo) and I all took a road trip to California in March. We left March 7^th at 4:30am. It was nice driving so early in the morning. We left Noah in a pull-up. I nursed Elijah right before leaving. The kids slept most of most of the way until we got to Utah. But right before we got to the McConkies, Noah vomited all over himself and his car seat! Luckily our friends are so awesome and helped us wash his car seat and bathe him. Noah has always sort of gotten sick in the car. I have no idea why but boy is it annoying. We stayed with our friends for about 2 hours then we hit the road again.

6 hours later we arrived in Las Vegas! We were excited! I mean, its Vegas baby! But NO WAY. We hated it. We found this deal for a night at the stratosphere. Once we got to our itty bitty non-smoking hotel room it smelled like smoke and just nastiness. The housekeeper handed us a spray deodorizer. She was very nice and explained that although it was a nonsmoking room people still smoke and they couldn’t do anything about it. We left right away. They refused to give us our money back. We still left and went to a more expensive but way better Marriott. Vegas isn’t for me. I just didn’t like the feel of it. I know people that have gone and loved it. Maybe it deserves a second chance. Maybe next time we’ll go on our own..or not at all..ever.

The next day March 8th we drove 6 hours and made it to San Diego! It rained some of the way. But we finally got there! it was beautiful and green! That night we walked around old. It was pretty nice. We got dinner at a cool Mexican spot and the mariachi men came and sang to me J it was super cute! Then we came back to the hotel and slept! It was a good night.

The kids were troopers on our road trip to California. We left noah’s nasty smelly blanket in Vegas. Luckily the Marriott was nice enough to ship it to Katelyn’s house. Noah got whiny and annoying in the car for a little. Once, he did say he was tired so we told him to just fall asleep in his car seat. He said “I wanna sleep in a bed!” another time he said he was hungry so we offered him as granola bar or fruit leather. He said “I want to eat rice.” We didn’t stop anywhere to get food. I made granola bars, muffins, fruit leather, we brought fruit and veggies from home and lots of water. We were good to go even if we got tired of eating the same thing for two whole days!

****Side Note: I just wanted to write about the McConkies. We met them through some other friends of ours, the Walkers. Chet invited us to conference weekend over at his sister, Alisa’s house back in October 2008. It was such an awesome experience. On our way down to Plain City, Utah it was pouring and our windshield wiper broke off and left us driving terrified in the rain! It was awful! We got there safely. We were amazed with this family of 9! Juan and I both come from pretty broken, dysfunctional homes. So coming into this home after 6 months of being married and on our own, it was a BIG learning experience. We soaked it all in. They were nice and welcoming. We felt like family! We talked to them and asked tons of questions and they were happy to answer. We learned so much that weekend. We had a lot of homemade, made from scratch, homegrown food! I was in love with the homemade raisins! They have a nice size house with a big yard. Nothing fancy. But we were blown away as if we had walked into a mansion. They had us sleep in one of the kids rooms, If I remember correctly(which I may not, it was 5 years ago) I think there was a ton of food storage. I mean this lady did it all. It was awesome.  We went to a conference session with them. Juan and I fell asleep. Then after conference we were soooo hungry. She had zucchini bread. Im pretty sure I never had yummier zucchini bread! I got a bran muffin recipe from her that I call mormon muffins. She and her husband gave us advice since we were just getting sealed that month. We have lost touch with the friends that introduced us to them but we still keep in touch and are very close to the McConkies. They keep our car for us when we fly from slc. We go see them every time we go to Utah. They were(and are) the way I want my family to be generations from now.