On our trip up, we saw a coulple semi trucks delivering carrots. I've never in my life seen so many carrots and I sure didn't think they were transported out in the open like this...
We did the drive up in one long trip. We stopped at one rest area to tend to feeding the munchkins and go for a little walk to stretch our legs. The sun was already setting and we had still several hours of driving left. A nine hour drive is long no matter how you look at it.
The kids were really great though, and we didn't stop again except to get gas. We were very tired when we finally got to the ranch, but we had comfy beds waiting for us.
The next morning would be spent taking in the scenery and enjoying the fresh air.
I took the birthday girl and her baby sister out to lunch for tacos (as that's her constant crave these days along with hot dogs...) and then even though I tried to get the eldest of my daughters to nap for over two hours, she absolutely would.not.go.to.sleep.
So when it came time to go to her pizza party that evening, she was tired. And amazingly well behaved considering she hadn't slept.
And by the blur on the above picture, you can note my exhaustion level as well. Wow, I was so tired.
So tired in fact, that I didn't lift my camera to take a single picture of her blowing out her candles on her Princess cake after pizza. Or snap a shot of her glowing smile when we all sang her happy birthday. There were 10 adults that attended her party...and her little face shone brighter than the two candles on her cake. She grinned from ear to ear and you could tell she felt like the most important person in the world. When we stopped singing the song, we asked her, "Do you want us to sing to you again?"
And she replied with the sweetest, little, "Please." you ever did hear. So we sang again and she melted all over again. I can only hope that I can get copies of some of the pictures that other people were taking.
One of her precious gifts she got from her Auntie was a Cabbage Patch Baby. The grandmas wanted to see the two infants lying side by side, so they were laid on a soft blanket on the living room floor. My toddler didn't miss a beat though and went and grabbed her Cabbage Patch Baby and laid it on the blanket right next to the other babies. It stole the show and one could hear a unified, "awwww!" across the room from the ladies and men alike. Again, no energy to lift my camera, so hopefully I'll get a copy of that moment as well.
As I played my Mommy Card that evening to bring the festivities to a close and get everyone headed to bed, one of the last conversations was to have my daughter rehearse her animal sounds again. She's so darn cute when she does this which is probably why we ask her over and over to perform.
"What does a dog sound like?"
"Woof! Woof!"
"What does a kitty sound like?"
"Meeeewwwwwww" <--this response right here is just the sweetest sound ever...
"What does a cow sound like?"
"Moooooooooooo!" "<--said with authority...
"What does a lion sound like?"
"RRRAAAAAAAWWWWWWWRRRRRRRR!"
"What does a bird sound like?"
"Chirp chirp"
And since my husband was holding her at the time, we threw in for good measure...
"What does Daddy sound like?"
And if she wasn't sweet enough already, she leaned over and gave him a kiss...
"Aww Daddy does sound like kisses!"
And with that we left.
We all slept well that night, just not nearly enough.
Saturday was spent running a couple errands, and my husband spent some more time scouting out some more land we purchased. This is a picture my husband took of the hill we bought...
And here's one shot my husband took of the view...
While he was busy doing that, I was enjoying time with the kids and filling all the bird feeders on the ranch. I've never had bird feeders, but it was so much fun watching the birds and getting out all the fun bird seed, that I think I'm going to buy some!
We had a wonderful dinner before we headed out where my daughter got to open even more gifts. She had a very spoiled birthday weekend.
We drove about half way home and stopped at a Holiday Inn Express for the night. It was late. We were so tired. The kids were sleeping in the car.
My husband got a room and we as quietly and quickly emptied the car. Of course, both children woke up. By the time we were situated and both kids were back to sleep, it was 12:30am.
My husband and I had just drifted off...about ten minutes later, believe it or not, the smoke alarm batteries reached their low point and the thing started to CHIRP loudly... high pitched, LOUD, chirp every few seconds at 12:30am.
My husband starts standing on the bed to fiddle with it, and I hollar out, "NO! Don't touch it! My gosh, if the stupid thing goes off the fire department will show up!"
So he gets down and calls the front desk and they tell us we need to move to a different room.
I tell my husband to go to the next room first and get it all set up exactly how are current room is. That way we can transition the toddler from one room to the next hopefully without a whole lot of hoorah. I could manage the baby and all the bags if he could just tend to Munchkin #1.
Off he went with our oldest daughter, and shortly after I followed with the baby slung over one shoulder, and the diaper bag, the toiletries bag, the blankets, and snack bags, and my purse, and shoes, and and and...I was loaded! When I got to the new room's door, I tried to push it opening thinking my husband left it unhitched for me to sneak in. Nope. The door didn't budge.
So there I am in the hallway after midnight of some strange hotel thinking, "Ok, well I'm sure he'll come get me as soon as he gets our daughter settled..."
I wait.
I wait.
I wait.
I'm rocking our infant from side to side on my shoulder and entirely bogged down with bags and other things.
I wait some more.
Finally after about five or more minutes of waiting, the door opens with a very groggy husband looking at me in his tshirt and underwear, "Um are you going to come in and sleep or what???"
"Well, yes that would be nice as soon as you.let.me.in!"
He thought I had a key of my own for the new room and he.had.gone.to.bed!!
Glad he came to look for me...
The next morning we finished our drive rather uneventfully and arrived back home in the early afternoon.
I think I'm done with road trips for a little while.
Now to unpack and do laundry...
2 comments:
Whew! What a trip!
Aw..it sounds like you guys had a great time. And man, that's a whole lotta carrots.
;)
~L.
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