We left early on a Monday morning, at 5am. We drove all day long and pulled into my parents house at 11pm. It was a LONG day of driving! We had a stop to make in Wenatchee, that took us about an hour, before we really got on the road. Then when we were in the middle of Oregon the check engine light came on. Since I knew most of the drive is in the middle of nowhere I decided we'd better stop in La Grande and see what was up. I went to an O'Riley's auto parts store and had them connect there little thing up to read the computer. Except it wouldn't read it. There was a fuse out somewhere. It took us almost 30 mins to find the right fuse so we could finally get a read on why the light came on. Turns out I was completely out of oil! It's a good thing we stopped. We added 3 quarts of oil and then something else the guy recommended so that the suburban wouldn't burn oil.
By that point it was lunch time so we found the only Subway in town, it also had the longest line ever, got sandwiches and went to this super awesome park the auto parts guy told us about. I let the kids play for a good 20 mins while I ate and fed the baby then they ate in the car. What should have been a very simple stop took us almost an hour and a half.
It always seems that someone has to pee when baby doesn't want to eat and there is no forcing baby to eat if she isn't hungry so we ended up making way too many stops. But I was doing well and wasn't tired so we pressed on. 17 hours of traveling and we finally made it.
We hadn't been inside my parents house for 5 mins when the 3 big kids sat down to play games with Papa. It was late, grandpa had to work in the morning, but they were having so much fun I let them play till almost midnight.
We gave Malia a tub in the kitchen sink one night because there is no tub downstairs where we were staying and sometimes it's just too much work to go all the way upstairs to my moms bathroom. She loved it! She LOVES taking baths.
On the 4th of July we had a bbq at my moms and lit fireworks. We're finally getting to a place that our kids aren't super scared of fireworks. Carter wants to light them all. Hanna wanted to try lighting them this year too. Malia was already in bed by the time we started fireworks so she missed out on all the fun.
My sister's little boy is about 7 months older than Malia. They were fun to watch together! Though Sawyer would scream if his mom or grandma had Malia and not him.
We had a family reunion up in Pocatello, ID the first weekend in July so I thought it would be fun to go up to Idaho Falls the day before and go to Bear World with Papa Blair and Grandma Rhonda. Kimberlee and Avery came along too. We drove up and met Papa Blair and Grandma Rhonda at the hotel, all piled into the motor home and drove up to Bear world. The AC in the motor home wasn't working so well....it got a bit hot in there!
Malia was SO grumpy! She was so tired, but had the hardest time falling asleep. She finally fell asleep just before we got to the end of the drive through part...but then didn't stay asleep after we all got out. Sigh. Traveling with babies is hard.
It is always fun to spot the animals while we drive though. There were so many bears up and roaming around. The kids loved the rides, it seemed like we were there forever! It was so hot! Grandma Rhonda spoiled the kids and bought them each an over priced snow cone, which the all loved. Papa even sneaked bites to Malia and she loved it. She'd screech at you if you didn't give her more fast enough.
After Bear World we went back to Idaho Falls where our hotel was and got dinner then hit the pool. That is always the kids' favorite part of staying in a hotel.
Friday morning before we had to head out to Pocatello we went to the Friendship garden in Idaho Falls. It was such a pretty place! We didn't have a whole ton of time to explore, but if we are ever in the area again I would totally go pack. The kids loved exploring all around.
The family reunion was with my mom's siblings at the police cabin in Pocatello. We have gone to evens at the cabin for as long as I can remember. My mom's oldest brother was on the police force there in Pocatello and that is why we were able to use it.
We had lunch, visited, took some pictures...and for some reason a water fight broke out. I think it started with water balloons, but many people ended up SOAKED. The kids especially enjoyed attacking my cousin, Toni, and Aunt Tanya. We laughed so hard. Thankfully I was spared because I was holding the baby. My kids were so wet that we had to change them out of their clothes into jammies for the ride home. It was so much fun! We don't get to see that side of the family often, many have never even met most of my kids, so it was really fun to hang out for an afternoon.
A few kids passed out shortly after getting in the car, all the fun wore them out!
We spent a morning at a trampoline park. .The kids loved this too! They now ask to go back every time we're in UT. They had a Ninja Warrior course and a cliff to jump off. My cousin, Oleg, was with us. He is in the Marines. He was TERRIFIED of the cliff jump! Carter and Hanna both ran and jumped off the edge, jumped up and went and did it again. Oleg had to talk himself into doing it, while at the top! Then when he finally did jump he screamed, hit the bottom and said no way was he going to do that again. Carter and Hanna could have done that all day long! Hunter found a wall that he figured out how to jump/climb. Andrew just bounced all over the place. We spent probably 2 hours there, though we only paid for an hour, they never called our color wrist bands to tell us our time was over.
One afternoon I looked out the kitchen window and saw two little boys picking through Grandma's flowerbed. I groaned inside knowing what two little boys could do to flowers and went outside to tell them not to pick Grandma's flowers. Turns out they weren't picking flowers at all, they were picking slugs out of the garden. We all had a little giggle and then returned into the house and left them to pick out the slugs.
While we were in UT it was 7/11...free slurpee day at 7/11. I'm not usually one for waiting in HUGE lines to get something for free, I just don't care that much, I'll pay whatever it costs to not have to stand in huge long lines. But I got talked into going to 7/11 for free slurpees. The line was long, but thankfully it moved pretty quick and the kids were thrilled to have a free treat!
Our very last day in UT we were up in Ogden at Blair & Rhonda's. We were going to spend the day with them but Blair got asked, last minute, to take one of the other grand kids half way to CA and had gotten home really late the night before so he wasn't up to doing too much. Then Rhonda ended up not feeling well. So Kimberlee and I took the kids to Boondocks. Jamie and her family met us there.
SO. Much. Fun! We paid a whole ton of money to have the unlimited pass. They could go on all the rides they wanted to. And ride they did. They did bumper boats, go karts, and more bumper boats, and more go karts. There was batting cages too but you had to have closed toe shoes on and all Carter had was his flip flops. We spent the entire day there! There was video games, bowling, a climbing/slide thing for the little kids, laser tag, bumper boats, go karts. Seriously so much fun!
We met Blair at Red Lobster, Rhonda still had a headache, with the crew that had been at Boondocks for dinner. Red Lobster is one of our kids favorite places to eat, they love all things sea food. Carter and Hanna got crab legs, Hunter got shrimp...they were in heaven!
We got up really early Saturday morning to head home. It had been a really long 12 days and we were ready to be home!
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