The Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong Drive

I was a little nervous about our cross-country adventure, but mostly excited because there’s a big world to see! At a minimum our trip would be 33 hours, but throw a couple of kids in there and you’re going to be in the car 4-5 days depending on how things go (excuse me while I try to relieve the tightness in my chest from thinking about being in the car for four days..). I thought and I planned and I crafted and I tried to come up with everything I could think of to entertain our children. Turns out those mornings of entertaining themselves while I cleaned or worked or baked, or whatever I may have been doing that didn’t directly involve them, were good practice for entertaining themselves in the car!

We quickly realized that being the driver was actually the coveted position, as the passenger was faced with constantly contorting to meet the whims of the children in the back seat. And the whims were abundant. As you might guess, I am far more contortable than my inflexible husband, so he won the driver’s seat most of the time. And, I have to say, even for as long as it was, the drive was quite fun!

-  Driving on a two-lane road is astoundingly easy after living in LA for a year. I kind of felt like I didn’t even need to pay attention (but, never fear, I did!). I didn’t realize how stressful that driving really was until I felt the relief of something easier!

-  The landscape of the southern US is incredible and incredibly diverse, which I was not expecting. Sadly, it’s just not the same on a camera as it is to see it in person, so you’ll just have to trust me.

(This stuff was crazy.. there were thick black rocks and mounds all over the place. Looked like lava had bubbled up and hardened. I really wanted to touch it, but I refrained from requesting a pull-over :)

I think my favorite were the plateau formations. They were layered and colorful and so interesting to look at. It seems I didn’t bother photographing them after seeing how indistinct the previous photos turned out, despite how incredible the scenery was. My apologies!

-  We drove though a lot of minimally populated areas. The questions that kept coming up every time we passed another lone house were things like, 'So, what do you suppose you do when you live out here?' 'Do you think they have friends?' 'Where on earth do they get groceries?' It was very puzzling. But, also made me realize there are a lot of places in the US to make movies when you need a remote location.

-  The desert is stunningly dry. Obvious, you might think, but I felt like I might as well have been crawling through the sand for how constant my thirst was.

-  Turns out there are elk in Arizona. And we almost hit one. Now we know.

-  The Grand Canyon might not be as fun as you expect. But it is gorgeous nonetheless.

Asher was really into photos

We gave up on the kids :)

I love Asher's facial expression with all my heart.

Some poor international person was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was asked to take our lovely family photos. The kids were really not happy about a family photo. I don’t know what got into them, but the Grand Canyon made them crazy! We were glad to get back in the car – ha!

I can also say, this was my last day wearing non-maternity jeans (for apparent reasons!). Sitting for that long in something that wasn’t stretchy was just unacceptable for Blueberry and I!

-  Long meals with ample opportunity to use the leg muscles are a treat when you’re living in a car. Somewhere is a really cute picture of the kids running around at dinner one day. Just imagine them inexplicably and repeatedly showing us their bellies as they run circles around a picnic table. That about sums it up!

-  It seems the movie ‘Cars’ was pretty accurate. Route 66 could use some love from Bessie. And Roadkill Café has a delicious salad bar. Asher tells us it’s a good spot to poop.

-  Oklahoma is beautiful after several days in the desert! We couldn’t get enough of the green. Though, it was sobering to drive past a bit of the devastation from recent tornadoes. And, it was an almost immediate relief to my unquenchable thirst when we left the desert behind us!

-  Our kids are total troopers. They were astoundingly (some might say shockingly) longsuffering and allowed us to make enough progress to arrive at Nena and Papaw’s house a day before we expected to! I could hardly believe it.

I cannot express enough how impressed I was with how they just took things in stride. If we rolled into the hotel after midnight (which we did almost every night), they were like ‘whatevs.. we’ll just sit here and drool over Nascar racing while you set up our beds.’ Everyday they were ready with excitement to get back in the car to head to our next stop. I just couldn’t (and can’t) get over it. I know there were so many praying for us, and it was so evident. Despite that, we were very grateful to roll into that Indiana driveway and know the trip behind us.

It took longer than I expected to get over the ‘car lag’ of the time changes we drove through, but within a few days we were good as new.

I’m not looking to do a crazy long drive again any time soon, but I can tell you that I wouldn’t be afraid if we needed to. Added bonus, the 5 hours it takes us to get from here to Indiana seems like nothing now! :)

The Ideal

I have been struggling. I am so far behind on this blog and it drives me crazy. I hate the thought of things being out of order, or missing out altogether on things that were special to us. Because I don't have time to sit down and resize photos and write about all of our adventures, I just keep doing nothing. And yet life goes on. And I miss out on opportunities to reflect on and think about what happened today. And I don't like that either. Because my kids are cute. And my life is changing. And my husband is excelling. And I want to mark all of that in this little diary, too.

Today it occurred to me that this is like a tiny version of being paralyzed because of the false hope of achieving perfection while life just passes by. I'm not sure I'll do it just right, so I do nothing. I don't want to fail, so I wait. Until the perfect moment, just the right day, just the right mindset. Trouble is, that kind of 'just right' doesn't really happen very often. So here I am. Everything is about to change.

We are expecting another baby, we are about to drive across the country, Ian is starting a new job, and we are all starting over again. We are tired and excited and sad and a little bit nervous. We have quickly learned that leaving is a lot harder when your kids are saying goodbye, too. I am stunned at the community we have found here in such a short time. They are leaving big and little people that have been consistent, that have been sweet, that have been treasured and talked about. And they know it. I am used to that feeling of loss. I know what it means, what it feels like, to move on again and lose what was gained. You remain touched and changed, but relationships cannot carry on in the same way without physical presence. It is a loss. It is new for them. And it is hard.

But, tomorrow has enough trouble of it's own. We will focus on today. It feels like there are a million things waiting to happen, fighting for attention. My mind is struggling to keep up. It will all happen. We will move on. We will lose. We will gain. We will live as fully as we can in each day, knowing that whatever may come tomorrow or two years from now will come just as it should. We will say we're sorry when the stress gets the better of us, and we will breathe thanks in moments of peace. We will lean on Jesus and know that he is good. In all things, he is good. We will pray for spirits unwavering.

And we will bid farewell to this crazy place that has brought us so much that was unexpected. We will remember the way the Lord has provided and we will trust that he will do it again.

A-pickin’ we will go!

One of the many things that made me uncomfortable after we moved here was this insatiable desire I had for the seasons to change. No matter how angsty I felt about it, the temperature refused to lessen and the leaves refused to change. I’ve never lived in such a stubborn location. Therefore, I rebelled. I decided I couldn’t handle it, and that Fall was a necessity. If Pasadena couldn't provide, then we’d just have to go find it somewhere else! Hmpf! We gave it a good chance and waited until October, but Fall never showed. So, off we went!

I scouted out a farm about 1.5 hours east of us that had apple picking, pumpkin picking, carriage rides, hiking, a petting zoo, a cider press, hay bales to climb on, fresh pies to eat.. everything you need to remind yourself that in some parts of the country, it really is Fall. We picked a Saturday and went to find some Fall. And oh, was it wonderful.

Just the drive to the farm got me all worked up simply because there were trees that were a different color!

See the clouds? We were high and they were low - beautiful!

This farm also had grove of Redwood trees (or possibly Sequoias, because who can really remember these things? Oh.. maybe the kind of people that don’t try to write things down 6 months after they happened? Well.) and we got to walk right on through it.

It was just as magical as these things should be, for everyone involved.

We didn't even tell him to.. a natural-born tree-hugger!

We found a cute little bench, so we took some cute little pictures..

And even a family photo for the memory books!

We continued walking and found a lake! A lake of the beautiful and picturesque sort, all too tempting for the Short-Leggeds among us.

Our hike was stunning. Stunning and wonderful and naturey and not-sweltering. Everything I’d hoped for.

Well, we ran into a bit of trouble on our beautiful hike when we got a flat tire. Turns out there are lots of little burrs to be had in the woods that are not-little enough to poke holes right on through the inner tubes. So we re-routed our hike out to the road and plodded along, steadily uphill, wishing our children weren’t quite so heavy.

In an amazing turn of events, we discovered the local fire station (that the road we were walking along ran right passed) was having a bake sale! We didn’t buy anything, knowing that many good things awaited us back at the farm, but the bake sale meant there was a fire truck out and open for us to see! Aed was speechless with happiness. He loved it so much.

He was too excited to bother looking at the camera, so all the pictures look like this.

Then it was time for… apple picking! Joy of joys!

Did I mention it was a beautiful day?

We got to pick from any tree, and found that many trees had some amazing-looking apples way up high and out of reach. Ian then patented a new picking technique, pictured below.

Needless to say, the Picker loved it. The Non-Picker had quite a good time as well. (The mysterious arm there belongs to Ian's coworker, Peter. He came along with us and made the trip that-much-more enjoyable!)

Unfortunately, the apple orchard was full of those pesky burrs, so we flattened another tire, and by the time we got home, all three were flat! I spent the next days picking burs and prickers out of the tires and trying to fix up that buggy so we wouldn’t lose more inner tubes. Worth every prick.

Then the petting zoo..

Adorable.

And the hay bales..

And the occasional nap..

Which all led to enjoying the spoils of a proper Fall in our very own home where Fall refused to come.

I also supplemented with a spicy-sweet candle to give us the right aroma. It was a beautiful thing.

One last picture that I think is adorable.. the munchkin acting like he knows what to do with one of those.

He, of course, didn’t and got bored with it after about 5 seconds, but it made for a cute memory.

The day was absolutely wonderful, definitely one of my favorite memories of our time here in CA. Ian and I reminded each other many times of what a gift that day was, how thankful we were to have had it. It honestly was sweet refreshment to our souls. I have learned that changes of season are so important to me, figuratively and literally. I grow when challenged with something new, and this stage of life brings mostly new things. Change is good, welcomed or not, and I’m thankful that we had a time to revel in the beauty of a changing season. Just remembering that special day brings a sigh of relief and satisfaction. A good day.

A trip to the aquarium

We love animals. We love water. We love adventures! Naturally, a trip to the aquarium can only be fun, fun, fun!

We started with penguins. The best part about the penguin exhibit was not the penguins, obviously. It was the climbing! Our little climber had to be torn away from the steps in front of the penguins' window.

He may have noticed a few penguins, the jury's still out.

The big one, on the other hand, he was in the know. The steps sang a siren song to him as well, but he got a kick out of watching the pinguinos. He even got to stand right up next to one and pose with it! It was of the statue variety, so wasn't overly animated, but a three year old with ants in his pants is plenty of animation for a photograph. (and no, I'm sorry, the photograph is not included here. It's probably still on Daddy's iphone or something. These things happen. I'll try to get my act together.)

We moved on to a few other outdoor friends. Such as this little fellow..

He was so very tiny. And I don't honestly know what he is. He's like a miniature albino heron. That's the best I've got. But he wins for cuteness! (Well, in the birds-at-the-aquarium competition at least.)

He could never compare to THIS:

It's almost like the people at the Aquarium of the Pacific had Tiny People in mind when they designed this space.. so cool! And so fun! Even for Less Tiny People! (That's a look into the penguins' pool again, in case you were wondering.)

There were many wonders to discover inside as well. And, there were many reasons we were thankful that we weren't literally swimming with the fishes, but one of them was THIS:

This giant fish (it was definitely bigger than it looks in this picture) seemed very intent on getting to know our biggest Tiny Person. He STARED. He stared long time. Aed thought it was super awesome. And he was right. But I couldn't help wondering if the giant fish thought he looked like a tasty yellow morsel. :)

Also, very fun for the tactilely-driven among us, we got to touch sea urchins! And starfish! And they were weird and prickly and slightly in danger of being mangled by a one-year-old! The water was freezing, but it was so fun. 

Aed's favorite part, to this day, was the jellyfish. I think we could have watched the jellyfish for a very long time. He is very intrigued by sea-dwellers of all sorts (especially giant squids), but man, those jellyfish are extra special.

Sweet, sweet. 

We got to play on some boats and touch stingrays and sharks. And I'm pretty sure the usual fits were thrown when it was time to leave. But, we made up for it with a shrimpy dinner.. 

Mmm, mmm, good!