Erik's Stache

I forgot to put a picture of Erik's 70's stache. He had a fine day at work today and tomorrow he goes to Seattle to get his uniform. I also forgot to tell you that our house is in the process of being sold. Ernest money has been put down by our next door neighbor's dad (yes, you are thinking of the right one which we highly suspect sells pot). Apparently they are going to tear down the house to build an apartment complex on the two lots. Erik is slightly sad about the work he put into it and Mom is sad about her fridge but I say who cares when we wouldn't've been able to list the house for what it was listed. They are buying the house for 4,000 under what we asked but are using our agent so we have to spend another % less on that and they are putting up cash so we don't have to pay closings or anything.

Podunk Plus #4: Kids having a place to try to ride bikes today.

The Drive Back

Take into consideration this: Erik and Jared drove 17 hours in the truck, I drove 11 hours with 4 kids. Erik and Jared flew 2 hours to LAX then we all drove an hour to Anaheim, 3 hours total to get to and from Sea World. 1 1/2 hours to and from Universal Studios so the total driving/flying time for Erik and Jared to this point: 24 hours. Total driving time for me and kids: 16 hours. Now we faced a 20 hour drive to get to Port Angeles from Anaheim. Oh, poop. We decided to go to the Redwood Forest on our drive to break up the monotony. Before going there we had to first get lost in San Francisco. Unless I have a deadline to meet, I never mind getting lost in a city because I like seeing what's about so I enjoyed pointing out every sign to Erik that said Golden Gate Bridge. Imaging Erik's frustration. At this point he has spent two or three days going in between Port Angeles Police Department and Salt Lake Police Department trying to get his records transferred with everyone on vacation. According to him, everyone was upset at him and now he is lost with a lot of travelling time left. We crossed the bridge and took pictures on the other side. I loved it there. It was beautiful and I liked seeing Alcatraz. I am still amazed how the "Golden" Gate Bridge is red.

After leaving San Francisco we made it to the hotel. What a cheap poop hole: no tub, smells funny, old as death. After many jokes about paying for the hotel by hour and finding room for all of us, we slept. We left as soon as possible the next morning. We drove by great scenery and finally made it to the beach. It was cold and beautiful. That coastal highway in Northern California is more beautiful than I could have imagined. I would love to go back. I was tired and kept falling asleep but every time I looked outside it was gorgeous. I would have loved to have taken more time driving up and just stopping at various beaches and seeing lighthouses. Maybe my next trip should be to Astoria. I want to see the Goonies rocks.

After we went to the beach we reached the Redwoods. They were tall, they were big, they were astounding, they were not as gigantic as my own head led me to believe. It was amazing scenery but where were the places where you could drive your car through a hole cut out in a tree? We also made a couple more stops where Erik man-handled a bear, we saw the remnants of a fallen-down bridge, and I saw my first real lighthouse.

About one in the morning we arrived in Port Angeles.

Erik Total Traveling Time 34 hours

Angela Total Traveling Time: 26 hours (Not including getting lost and trying to find food.)

It is really beautiful here too and the most beautiful thing about it was when I made Erik cut his scruff to be a 70's stache. I am oddly attracted to it more than I thought I would be. Today I am getting kids registered for school and Erik cut his facial hair off to start his new job. He is there now.

Podunk Plus #1: Scenery

Podunk Plus #2: Over 300 pictures printed at Costco in under 1/2 hour

Podunk Plus #3: Not having to be at Walmart for 1/2 hour in line.

Universal Studios - Not Baby Friendly

Let me preface this by saying Jeff and Calista loved Universal Studios for three reasons: the water play park, the Jurassic Park ride, and the Mummy ride. Those were fun but not worth the cost of entrance (though we got a city pass making it only $100 extra for all of us which did make it worth it). The park was not little kid friendly. Their strollers stunk with no baby support, they didn't have elevators down the five sets of escalators you have to go down to get to the rides and there were no children activities near the older kid activities. The younger kids' activities were in the upper part of the park and consisted of meeting a few characters and a different water play park which closed by the time we got to it. Even the studio tour was closed. We did like the special effects show because there was a very flamboyant man/host who made it all worth it. I made Jared, Jeff, and Calista go through a haunted house with me and they were all really scared. Calista cried the whole way, Jeff, in his off-hand nature, mentioned we could just take each and every exit, and Jared stayed in the back so we didn't have to see how jumpy he was. It was great, just my kind of thing. The day was fun except for the sitting around with the young ones while the older ones went on rides and the fact that Ewan threw up all over my shirt and the shirts there weren't great enough to buy so I had to walk around thinking to myself, "What smells so much like puke?" and then remembering it was me. Universal Studios Cost: $100. Total Rides: 2. Being Repeatedly Puked on: Priceless.

Ewan's Not-So-Fun Vacation

Ewan started out having a baby of a time with feeling sleepy because of the sun, looking around, and being contented watching and being carried around to bark-coughing, throwing up, feverish, and general miserableness. He stayed in the car a lot sleeping, screaming, or throwing up or he was carried around while thrashing about. He is still sick and hard to deal with. Even now I am wishing he would just go to sleep. It looks like he has croup. Yea!

The Wonderment that Is Calista

Calista started the coughing. She was coughing at Sea World and continued through the trip though she never was flemmy. As is her nature, she had a great time following everyone around,

trying to vie for attention with her constant, "hello," and talking, making up songs, and finding ways to entertain herself. She is now taking the initiative and telling Jeff what to do though more often than not she listens to him.

Jeff's Magical Adventure

Jeffrey also had a great time at Disneyland. Jared took him on rides with Calista so they could ditch the babies and the parents. I made him ride California Screamin' and he didn't care for it much though I loved it. Even Calista wanted to ride it again. Jeff is a great kid. He likes the bigger rides but he likes going on the little ones too because he enjoys showing things to Carson. He did start coughing the second day of Disneyland and then started feeling progressively sicker.

Carson's Character Quest

The next day was Mother's Day and we went to Disneyland. Carson loved the rides but what she truly enjoyed was character finding. She didn't like the people ones as much as she liked the animal characters. She was slightly sad she didn't get to see Pluto (except as he rode the carousel), especially after buying and loving a Pluto hat. We did stand in the princess line for over an hour to meet three princesses. It sucked. She didn't want to go to the Bug land because, "I hate bugs," she exclaims over and over. She loved it after we went and now she says, "I like fake bugs...I hate alive bugs." She loved the Winnie the Pooh characters most.

Leaving SLC for SeaWorld

So, we left Utah. Jared flew in from PA to help move. We packed the truck and they set off for their 17 hour drive. They did make a short stop in Pocatello to see Dad and Diane. Thanks for the moped Dad. I dropped the older kids with their dad and I stayed with the young'uns at my mom's. She took us to the Cheesecake Factory which had a delectable chocolate cake. After two days we headed off. I picked up the older kids from their father's house and we all started to cry. Kevin, Beth, and Kennedy cried and Jeff and Calista started to really cry. Seeing my children emotionally hurt made me start crying. Amazing beginning to a vacation right? I think it finally hit that we were leaving. Then, we headed to Vegas. Alisha had forewarned me of Sadie having croup but said she was feeling better and wasn't contagious. We had a great time at Alisha's.

We went to the park and Alisha gave me tons of burned dvd's. I left thinking I should've visited her sooner as I doubt I will get back there for quite some time. Who knew that nice, short trip would bring such disastrous consequences.

We left to L.A. I like and hate travelling with kids. We stopped at Peggy's 50's diner which was nice and fun but odd being stared at for having so many kids. I hate needing to use the bathroom and having to cart in so many kids. I followed my directions to what I thought would be the hotel in Anaheim, just to find out I followed them to LAX. I then had four children and two hours to sit around and do nothing. Sit I did, with a bottle in my pocket which leaked all over my bum. Deciding not to sit around might be a good idea so we went to Starbucks and had snacks (and a much needed coffee to appease my insanity). With 10 minutes till Erik's and Jared's flight came in, I decided to see how many times I could drive around LAX before seeing them: 4. Finally, we headed to Anaheim.

Even though we stayed in Anaheim, we went to Sea World first. It was busy. We didn't make it to any of the shows but the dolphin one which was fun. Again, I wasn't able to see the manatees, my second favorite next to the sting rays. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy0HEXPlI_Y&feature=related

The highlight of Sea World, to me, was watching the Sesame Street 4D movie and having Carson freak out and be scared. Another long-lasting memorable moment would be seeing Orca whale penis which made me oddly fascinated, repelled, and uncomfortable all at the same time. I had no idea.