Road Trip

Mom and I left Great Falls at 5:30 a.m. to get the girls in Pendleton.  By 6:00 a.m. we were calling Dad to report that a silly little deer had run into us!  The poor thing was confused and ran right into the side of us.  She bounced off the front side panel, missed the driver door, and bumped her way down the rest of Dad's Suburban.  Mom kept driving...I asked if maybe we should stop and check out the damages...I guess we didn't really need to since there wasn't anything we could do.  My Dad said exactly the right thing..."Was anybody hurt?"

This is our route for the whole trip! If photos are proportional to miles...I only took one for every 200 miles...poor documenting on my part but I can't say I wasn't etching every second of every day in my memory.

We pulled into Pendleton just in time to get our hair cut by my beloved hair dresser...man I miss her!  Ummm...no pictures but imagine a beautiful Carolyn and Stacy walking down Main Street Pendleton :)

After enjoying a night seeing my much missed girlfriends we picked up the girls and hit the road.  First stop was the Bend/Redmond area.  The girls talked the whole drive and had lots to share about their busy and fun summer with Joe. 

We tried not to make the drive to California too rigorous by making several stops but somehow we did it on one day! Thirty miles out of town we had to take a detour in the dark off of I-5.  OnStar guy got an earful when he told me to pull over while he downloaded a new route.  They didn't have the updated maps of the area...thankfully my iPhone was there to save the day.  Pam's beautiful home and family were all waiting up for us as we wearily pulled in.  

Look at these beautiful girls! 

 Kyndra and Avery learned how to make friendship bracelets this summer.  This is Syd showing off her new addition.

I tend to be a local traveler...exploring the place I'm living not traveling too far from home.  If it wasn't for my sister I would have never gone to Ohio, Minnesota, Iowa, Japan, and now this part of California.  As usual, we were on the go during our stay....even with an infant, have I mentioned her? We went to San Francisco two days after we arrived in California.  Dan and Mom stood in line for tickets and we ran to be the last 9 on board.

There was a Giants game that day and many of the passengers were headed to the game.  I must have looked like enough of a tourist shivering, freezing, sipping my Irish Coffee out in the splash of the waves that one of the fans explained to me that in San Fran during baseball season you dress like it's football season, and in football season you dress like it's baseball season.  Did you know that?

We watched the sea lions roll around and push each other off the dock.  Why do they go to that one dock and only that one dock?

 We waited for the Golden Gate Bridge to clear off.  It never happened.  By the time the marine layer cleared off it was rolling in again.  It still was a perfect day and the girls enjoyed every minute of it.

 Morgan and half of the boat fell asleep on the way back.  I love this picture.  Ever since Morgan was a baby she has needed her sleep.  What made me giggle was that half of the boat was asleep!  Look at these people behind her!  SLEEPING all of them.

Everyone held the baby...good grief is she cute or what?

Next we packed Amelia and the other 8 of us ladies to the Jelly Belly factory.  We went on the tour of how they make Jelly Belly, got samples, and ate lunch.  It was crazy with kids, sugar, and smiles.  

Cameras weren't allowed on the tour...it would have been fun to shoot with all the colors and smiling sugared up faces...but I restrained myself.

On the way home we hit Larry's Produce that had the same effect on me as the Jelly Belly Factory did on the kids.  I couldn't believe all the fresh, cheap, yummy, delicious, produce!  What a place.

This will be such a nice change for Pam and her family who have been living on over-seas horribly expensive produce in Okinawa...ok, I found one thing to not like about Okinawa...glass half full, right?

That evening Amelia Grace started interacting.  I swear the little darling was smiling.  Look at all this love witnessing the youngest edition to our family pass gas...I mean smile :)

Pam and I had been talking about a photo shoot for this little Made in Okinawa girl.  We went through all of her treasures from their time there and found this wood basket-carrier that we thought would work great.  Pam called it...she said "Should we try?" and I ran to get the props ready...

I had asked my boyfriend Tony's advice on setting it up...he said a shop light with a soft bulb or a window.  They hadn't  bouthtand then my favorite lens decided to stop working so we just set her in the wood basket.  She immediately went to the bathroom and started crying. 

It only took Pam a couple minutes to settle her down and I folded the green poop inside the blanket and we kept shooting in the hot upstairs bedroom. Pam and I were sweating but little miss was happy as a clam in her soft blanket in the sun.

A couple of things got done on Pam's lists...not many...but one was painting some book boxes for Brenna's room.  This brave girls starts high school next week in a new school...good luck lady!

Then the next picture was us at home...somewhere in between there was a trip to IKEA and a celebration of Pam and Dan's 19th wedding anniversary and friendship bracelet making and cousins giggling and Shadrach waiting at home for us...and and and.

We are home...it was a great memorable trip...and we are all home.  Thank you Pam and Fam!  Glad to have you all stateside where we can get to know you again via texting from one time zone away.  Love you all!