Travel, Griswold style

No trip in our family is complete without a few hiccups along the way.  Usually, those hiccups are caused by me, and relate directly to me, but sometimes other things happen that make us laugh, or panic, or both.

Here is a run down of the Arizona trip "highlights".

Leaving dinner on Friday night Quinn fell off of a very tall curb and skinned his knee up pretty bad.  He cried so hard that once Ross got him in the car, he was so worn out he fell asleep in about 30 seconds.  It was a pretty bad crash.

On Saturday morning, it was raining pretty hard.  We'd planned to go to the zoo, but the rain made us second guess ourselves and we decided to go to a small aquarium in the mall.  It opened at 10 am, we stood in a long line and once we got to the front, realized that the line was for people who had passes or who had already purchased tickets.  Doh!  Of course, there were no signs indicating differences in the lines, and, once we got to the back of the "need tickets" line we decided to give up and just go to the zoo in the rain.



Lucky for us, the 2 hours we were at the zoo, it didn't rain.  I still spent $12 on ponchos for the kids, but no rain.  We did however have a couple of adventures at the zoo.  Adventure 1: we were chased by a very fast, very vocal, very crazy road runner.  It was roaming free in it's enclosure and it gave us a run for our money, and plenty of giggles.  Adventure 2:  My blood sugar started to drop pretty rapidly when we were about finished - joy of diabetes - and just as I put a glucose table in my mouth, Wyatt came around the corner, excited to tell me there was a whole cage of Scarlet Ibis - my favorite bird.  Well, in my attempt to be excited about the birds, I inhaled my chalky tropical fruit glucose tablet and it got stuck in my throat.  I could not breath.  I was chocking.  For a good 30 seconds, I thought that I might suffocate and die.  Once I could breathe again, my throat was on fire and hurt for the rest of the day.





Saturday night we had tickets for the Arizona Coyotes NHL hockey game against the San Jose Sharks.  The game was supposed to start at 6 pm, but the first 10,000 people were going to get a FREE bobble head of a former player because the team was celebrating it's 20th anniversary.  We arrived one hour early, to get our FREE bobble heads and then had to sit there, with the five other people who came early for an hour before the game was going to start.  The big boys really liked the hockey game, but Quinn?  We were there so early that he fell asleep right after the National Anthem and slept almost through the first halftime.  By the way, hockey games take forever.  Ross said they were fast, they are not fast.  20 minutes of play, 20 minutes of half time, 20 minutes of play, 18 minutes of half time, 20 minutes of play.  We didn't make it for the last 20 minutes because, hello!  We arrived so early.  But, it was still fun.

On Sunday, we drove up north to the towns of Cottonwood and Prescott Valley.  Driving to Ross' parents house in PV, we were following a route outlined by google maps.  Well, that route came to a dirt road.  We paused momentarily to see if Google was serious.  She was. (can google be a girl?)  I told Ross that I thought it was a bad idea to drive on a very wet and very muddy dirt road.  He, being the man, told me we would be fine.  We maybe drove a quarter of a mile before it got really wet.  I began to plead for us to turn around.  We continued a bit more until - yes, you guessed it -we were halfway in a muddy ditch.  Yeah!  I felt justified in my "I told you so moment" but that didn't change the fact that we were stuck in the mud.

Ross got out of the rented mini van.  I climbed over to the driver's seat.  He pushed.  I floored it.  After a few intense minutes, and let's face it, many silent prayers on my part, we got out of the ditch.  But then, because I was driving, I had to do a u turn, on the slippery muddy road and drive us off that road.  Where was Ross you ask?  Well, his head, arms, and torso were inside the van.  His butt, legs and lower half were hanging out the window.  He was a wee bit muddy once we got back to the road and switched seats.  Sometimes, Google leads you astray.

The biggest screw up however was on my part.  Sunday night, while eating dinner with Ross' parents, I realized that I'd left ALL MY INSULIN in the fridge in our airbnb apartment in Phoenix.  Swear words!  I had 60 units left in my pump, enough to get me until the morning and I was panicking.  Everyone was calling or texting people who could either write me an emergency prescription or help me solve the problem.  Finally, Ross was able to talk to the small town PV Walgreens pharmacist and he was sure that they could get my prescription transferred in the morning so I could get enough insulin to get home.

It was.

I did.

The end.

Driving, Driving, Driving

Last night we returned from a whirlwind adventure to Arizona.  We went intending to spend all of our time in Phoenix and to visit as many members of Ross' family as we could.  But, plans changed, and we ended up, in 5 and a half days putting almost 2000 miles on a rented mini van, driving all over creation.

Ross' grandpa, Grandpa Ted, at 86 years old chose to get baptized as a member of the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  He was baptized the first Saturday of the new year, January 7, 2017.  Because of Ross' work commitments, we were not able to get to Arizona for the event, but started planning a trip to Phoenix to visit Ted and Grandma Bea.



Well, on January 24th (or 23rd), Grandpa Ted fell during a trip to the library and broke his hip.   He was treated at a hospital in Phoenix and stabilized and then it was decided the best place for him to be for rehabilitation was in a town called Cottonwood, in Northern Arizona, where Ross' uncle and aunt (Ben and Joyce) live.  Cottonwood is about an hour away from where Ross' parents live in a town called Prescott Valley.



Knowing that visiting Bea and Ted was our number one goal, but not wanting to be in Northern Arizona for our entire trip (warmer and more things to do in Phoenix), we started planning.

Drive to Springdale, Utah on Thursday.
Drive through Zion's National Park, Kanab, Page, Cameron, Flagstaff and get to Phoenix.
Spend Friday in Phoenix - go to the zoo and a Coyotes NHL game.
Drive to Cottonwood then Prescott Valley on Sunday.
Drive back to Springdale on Monday.
Visit and do some easy hikes in Zion's National Park on Tuesday and drive home.



We had bad weather most of the trip, and pouring rain on Phoenix which was a super bummer.  The rain did stop long enough for us to go to the zoo, but we were soggy and cold for most of the day.  Our visit with Ross' grandparents was nice, and I'm very happy we were able to see them.  The boys were so well behaved and good - sometimes visiting old folks is hard for young folks, but they were champions.  Elliott even pushed Grandpa Ted around in his wheelchair which I think they both got a kick out of.

But, with every trip, I'm ready to come home about a day and a half before it's time and nothing beats being able to sleep in my own bed.

time passes quickly, doesn't it?

It's been over a month since my last blog post.  Funny isn't it how time just marches forward, whether we pause to document it or not.  It's nearly Christmas however, and the end of the year and I probably don't want the final blog post of 2016 to be me whining about, what is proving to be, a really horrible election outcome.

Anyway, November.

November went by so quickly.  The boys were off-track for three weeks, even though Quinn still had school three days a week.  The month was eventful and uneventful all at the same time, if that even makes sense.  We had our fair share of ups and downs in such a short four week period.  We also had a really rough 11 days or so, right in the middle of the month where chaos reigned supreme.

In an 11 day stretch of November the following things happened.

*Ross parents returned from the 18 month mission to Africa to our home.  They stayed for 8 days.

*Wyatt broke his toe and had ear infections resulting in a late night Insta-Care visit and some antibiotics.

*We went bowling.

*We hosted a small Thanksgiving with a standing rib roast that Ross prepared and a smoked turkey, we bought from a bar-be-que joint.  The food was delicious and my parents and Willie came by later in the evening for dessert.

*I sewed my heart out for a holiday market in, Holladay, right after Thanksgiving.  Set-up, volunteer in a blizzard and take-down all in a three day span.

*In 11 days, we attended, in some combination of family members, three or four Utah basketball games.

*We got a flat tire on our way to a cousin's baptism.  Luckily, my dad and Willie were close by and they came to help with the tire and take the boys with them to the baptism.  Ross and I headed to Costco to try and get the tire fixed, but because the tire shop was booked up for the rest of the weekend, we had to wait until Monday to repair the tire.  That meant we got a teeny tiny rental car from the airport that, I hit my head on the hood every time I got into it for a couple of days.

*The same day as the flat tire (the Saturday after Thanksgiving) I had a rough day.  Any combination of factors could have caused it, but I had climbing blood sugar all day long and finally, around 5:30 or 6:00 pm that evening, Ross took me to the emergency room because my blood sugar had spiked to 546 (normal is 120).  I cannot say I remember a lot except that I was cold (probably because of the IV), my speech was so slurred that I couldn't talk, and my body was heavy as a rock.  After a few hours of fluids and insulin, a blessing from my Dad, Willie and Ross, I was released to go home.  The next day, Sunday, I felt miserable, like someone had kicked me 50 times in the back.  I couldn't stand up straight or concentrate, and my speech was still slurred for most of the day.  It was a pretty pathetic experience.

*We purchased nine sub-for-santa gifts and helped out a sister missionary at the MTC from Madagascar.

*Quinn stopped sleeping and went completely insane....after a few nights of feeling like we had a hysterical newborn, Ross took him to the doctor, and he too had ear infections and a sore throat like Wyatt the week before.

*I volunteered with a neighbor to clean the temple in the middle of the night.

*I sewed and sewed and sewed for another Christmas show in Provo.

*We got out and set-up all our Christmas decorations.

*Play dates with friends were arranged.

*Off-track was survived (barely)

*Went back to school and had a band assembly.

*Driving to IKEA on Bangerter, a rock found it's way into my windshield.

*Saw Jim Gaffigan at the Delta Center.

It was a lot for a small 11 day stretch.  Ross and I were so tired and worn out from all the commotion, extra people, illness and food preparation and consumption that I still don't think we've recovered.  I made this list on Instagram a few weeks ago and my mom commented that I should look at it not as everything that happened, but as "holy cow, look how much life you still accomplished in spite of all the drama."  She is right.  Even though everything fell apart for eleven days, we still managed to get all our things done.  Our house was clean, our children happy, everyone was fed and watered.

I guess rather than a list of stress, in hind sight, I can look at it as a list of productivity.  Even under pressure, we can get stuff done.  And that, that's a pretty good feeling.

3 weeks of summer

As much as I complain about year round school, the reality is that in a lot of ways, it really works well for my kids.  I found myself, the whole month of June, pining and whining for days off, ready to just check the boys out of school and be done with it.  But now, as we have only a few days left in our summer, I'm really tired and realize that I don't know what I would do with the boys if they were home for 3 full months.

Elliott starts 4th grade on July 26.  Wyatt will start second grade.  But, they only go for three weeks and then, we have summer number 2.  But summer number two will be without cousins and grandma's and uncles because they will all be back at work and at school.  But, at least almost every where we go, will be empty.

Anyway, in three weeks, we have crammed in a lot.

Fireworks.
Summer NBA games.
2 days of grandma camp, with no moms
Lagoon.
This is the place state park.
Swimming in the day.
Swimming in the night.
Soccer practice.
Cub Country.
Parade float preview.
Lots of lunch (lots of little Caesar's pizza).

We've got a few activities left to complete before summer #1 is officially over, and then we will put the list on hold for a couple of weeks for round two.

February blahs

We are at the end of our first week off-track.  The boys sort of get screwed out of vacation time with year round school, but no more so than their November and February breaks.  For both, the weather is rotten, the air not safe for breathing, and we're pretty much trapped indoors with our screens.  Add to that, regularly scheduled stress induced freak out sessions by the mom, and it makes for a challenging break.

Lately, my brain is crammed with too many things to think about and that could be the reasons that I've had a migraine for 11 days.

I worry about my friends.  My best friend since 7th grade had surgery this week to remove breast cancer.  I'm so worried about her.  My aunt has cancer with a cloudy prognosis.  I worry about her, too.  I have a million and one things wrong with me that no doctor can figure out.  I worry about that daily, as well.  It's difficult going to doctors with legitimate complaints and having said doctors look at you like you escaped from the loony bin.  I exercise and eat right and cannot lose weight.  My diabetes control hasn't been the best lately.  Then there are the swollen legs and the acute pain in my left foot.  Ug!  And the headaches!  Screw those completely.

I worry about my children.  What they watch, what they do, what they don't eat, how they interact with each other and their friends.  I worry that they have to spend too much time with me, but then I worry that I get in their way and just need to let them be.  I worry that I'm not doing it right, that I buy them too much crap (giving them too high of expectations), and that we are too easy on them.  But then again, they do need to help with jobs around the house, or how else with they ever learn anything.

I worry about my husband.  His job stresses him out, in turn stressing me out.  Between work, and church commitments, and spending time with his kids, and all the things that I do every week, we never see each other, or talk to each other.  There isn't a baby sitter to ditch the boys with every week for a "date" and so it's just us, trying to squeak out time with each other as we fall asleep every night, or trying to have a conversation in the front of the car with the eaves droppers in the back.  Ug!  Being married is hard work.

I worry about my small little business.  How do I grow it just a bit bigger? How do I take better advantage of ETSY?  How do I find more shows to sell my items?  How to I manage my time and my money and the mess I make in the house without a dedicated "Annie's junk room".

And then, the future?  Cars, vacations, basements, messes, family time....there is just too much to even try to list.  Well, actually, I have a list but my list is, I learned this week, very different than my husband's list.

Go figure.

All of this is enough to drive any one crazy.  And I have a pretty good life with really good kids and a husband who tries hard.  It's just exhausting, isn't it?  Trying to keep everyone a float with out drowning.  Keeping everyone happy, without losing yourself.

Or maybe, it's just February.

February might be the worst.

Thanksgiving Weekend Activities

It's Sunday now, with nothing planned but fighting the kids at church.  And some kind of dinner.  But, our Thanksgiving weekend was pretty full of activities.

On Wednesday, we met Haley and her kids in West Valley City to ride the trax train downtown to look at the Macy's Christmas windows, and meet grandma for lunch at the City Creek food court.  The kids loved the train, were very well behaved and minus a few meltdowns in the Disney store after lunch, we had a nice ride home on the train as well.

I didn't take Quinn's stroller.  He had to walk.  It just about killed him and he slept on my lap on the train the entire way home.

Generally, I shy away from public transportation because, weirdos, but we had a pretty harmless round trip journey.











On the Friday after Thanksgiving, I had a meltdown.  Pretty typical actually, but a meltdown nonetheless.  It was small, and largely due to a miscommunication about how much work from home Ross was actually doing, but a drink and tots from sonic fixed it right up.  On Friday night, we met all the famdamily up at the Utah basketball game.  We left early because it was a blow out and I didn't feel well.  Also, pretty typical.

On Saturday, we celebrated the Petersen Family Christmas Party.  Uncle Paul was in charge.  We all went bowling and then had lunch in the rec room of his condo complex.  It was a great party and so much fun.  My kids love bowling. It was a really great day.  There were a lot of Petersen family members who were not present, but those of us who were had a great time.  My kids love their cousin Max and just gravitate towards him - Max, thanks for hanging out with my boys!

Off Track (again) :: Week Two

Well, another week off track is finished.  That's two down, two to go.

Last week, I felt like I was under an enormous amount of pressure.  I've got some big deadlines looming for a holiday market next week.  I felt foolish because I dropped out of a second December market and lost my entrance money because of it - but I just couldn't do two shows back to back.  We've also had trouble with our season basketball tickets, Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming, and my kids just want to go to lunch every day.  Now, by no means am I opposed to lunch every day, if there were, of course, options other than McDonald's and Little Cesar's.

But, we survived the second week, spending a lot of time at home, but hopefully doing a few fun things, too.

The boys spent a lot of time playing with friends.  Mine craft with Owen and Lego's with Jake (from state farm).  Our "classic" movie for the week was "Home Alone."  They thought it was funny  That movie is really dumb, and it takes a LONG time to build up to the last 20 minutes, but listening to Wyatt laugh those last twenty minutes was pretty priceless.  What is it about boys and nuttal injuries?  I don't get why they laugh.

We went to the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point.  We hadn't been since February and it was pretty empty which was even better.  The boys had plenty of time to explore and play with things that they don't always have the opportunity because it's usually so crowded when we are there.  And of course, we stopped for fries and cokes on the way home.

Elliott still has band practice when he's off track so it's been good to get him out of bed every morning as he's generally been the couch potato of the three.  But, Wyatt has willingly filled that role and hasn't been getting dressed until around 10:30 every day, driving me nuts.  So, we've been trying to get up and dressed and out of the house the last few days, even Saturday or we will never be to school on time when it's time to go back.

We also helped grandpa with some kitchen projects and on Saturday night, we watched "Jurassic World".  Though many more people were eaten than Ross said would be, it was actually pretty entertaining, fast paced and not scary.  A little violent, but also quite campy.  Nothing like the original which still makes me jump a little.  I guess though, since they made it through this movie unscathed, maybe it's time to introduce them to the other three?

Or, maybe not.

Off Track (again) :: Week One

There is a lot going on in our house.  And, as usual, off-trackedness has fairly rotten timing.  The November off-track is 4 weeks.  It's too cold to be outside, and too close to Christmas to spend all my money at museums and out to lunch.  So, we are left to our own devices to figure out how to occupy 20 weekdays.

It's fun to have the boys around, but it's hard.  You parents who have your kids home all summer can feel my pain, right?  I have a lot going on, and need time during the day to get some quality sewing time in.  The boys want to DO and GO and my children have always struggled finding things to do in their own home full of stuff.

Last week was our first full week off.  I won't lie, Monday and Tuesday were tough, but we finally started to get into a bit of a groove, faster than we normally would, and for that I am grateful.  I think part of it is that Elliott still has to get up and get dressed to go to band practice Tuesday - Friday.  That helps get part of the house rolling.  It's those days where at 11 am, no but me is dressed or has peeled their warm bodies off of a couch that are a little tougher to fight our way through.

The big boys played with friends.  Elliott tried, and mostly on his own, baked cookies.  I introduced the boys to "Jumangi" on Netflix and it both terrified and intrigued them and they (all three) didn't move a muscle the entire movie.  We went on our yearly trip to the aquarium.  We attended our second University of Utah basketball game.  We lunched at Costco and went to Lowes to buy a new Nest thermostat when ours bit the dust.

Pretty successful week, right?

Coming Home from Vacation

wood arrives for new hardwood floors.

we wait.

hardwood is installed.....s l o w l y...

installer runs out of wood and leaves.

new wood arrives.

no one comes to install.

Oven breaks.

 

The day we needed to leave on our vacation:

Annie has an early AM blood draw

Annie goes to her cousin Emily's temple sealing

Ross home with boys, mowing the lawn.

The floor guy comes to finish installing and start sanding

The oven guy comes.  He finds the problem, but doesn't have the part.

The house is chaos.

I arrive home, we hurry and pack up and leave so the floor guy can finish.

Commence vacation.

Arrive home with new, beautiful floors.  New rugs.  Kitchen in the family room.

Spend 45 minutes upon arrival trying to set up the new kitchen rug under the table.

Baseboards haven't been put back on.

Guy comes to fix the oven.  Under diagnosed the problem, need more parts.  Starting week 4 with no oven.

No baseboards.  Call Steve the floor guy repeatedly to find out why.  He doesn't know.

Baseball rain out

No baseboards another day.  Call Steve.  He tells us that we aren't supposed to put rugs or big furniture on the floor for 30 days.  Oops.  Thirty days is a LONG time.  We decide that the rug doesn't work under the kitchen table anyway, and pull it out.

Annie gets sick. (and is still sick 10 days later)

Baseball game.

We got to the zoo for our last off track activity.

Ross is supposed to go to scout camp.

Boys have 5 baseball games in less than 24 hour period (One on Friday and 4 on Saturday all at the same times); Ross decides not to go to scout camp.

Guy comes to nail baseboards back on.  doesn't caulk or cover nail holes.  We thought he should.  He says he doesn't and leaves.

All the furniture is still in the garage.

The fridge breaks on Saturday night.

Sunday morning, we take everything that can be saved and put it in the fridge in the garage.

Monday morning the boys go back to school.  The fridge also gets fixed.

Tuesday the oven gets fixed, finally, at 7:30 in the morning.  We should have baked cookies, but we didn't.

The week home from a vacation is always a little rough, isn't it.

The Redwoods, Day Four: Avenue of the Giants

On our last full day of vacation, it was time to leave the magical and mystical world of giant trees and head back to the reality of drought stricken California via a seven hour drive.  And, of course, the reality of heading home.  We decided however, to head home with one more scenic drive, a pretty touristy drive called the "Avenue of the Giants".  It is a 31 mile scenic route that travels through some very small towns (think, population: 31), and some very big trees, along highway 101.  Not only was it an absolutely beautiful drive, but it saved us from some of the more treacherous and curvy stretches of the highway that made us (okay, me) a little sick on the way north.



The Avenue of the Giants was pretty crowded, much different than the farther north forests we'd been in days before.  After a lot of research, I'd decided that our best bet was to just make one stop, inside the Roosevelt forest in Founders Grove.  Here, we'd find some walking trails and we'd also be able to see the Dyersville Giant, the tree that had been the tallest documented tree in the redwood forest (well over 300 feet tall) until it fell down decades ago.





This stop did not disappoint as it had the Founders Tree, which was 325 feet tall and just amazing to look at and had a dozen or so giants that had fallen.  Their root structures were absolutely amazing and so large.  We learned on our first day that redwoods have very shallow and wide root structures and that if the ground around them is trampled too frequently that it will destroy the roots and the trees will die.  So, when a tree actually does crash, all it's roots become exposed and just hang out.  It's really a pretty cool thing to see and I was pretty excited that we were able to stop and see them.







Once we finished walking and seeing and stretching, it was time to get some lunch and get back to San Jose with as few stops as possible.

We did our best.

The boys were definitely running out of steam, but we'd had a great vacation and were ready to head home.

We managed to avoid all the traffic that we hit on our way to Eureka and with a stop at an outlet mall got back to our hotel with only moderately numb butts.  After finding some dinner, getting the boys showered and bathed, it was time for bed.  Our sleeping arrangements were a little odd for the night; Wyatt was alone on the fold out sofa; I was with Elliott and Ross was with Quinn, but it worked out well and I think that Ross and I, sleeping on tiny beds with tiny bodies probably slept a little better than we had the rest of the trip. Minus Elliott kicking me in the face and Quinn falling out of bed head first anyway.

As with all trips, they end in a pretty anti climactic manner.  We got up in the morning.  Found some breakfast, packed our bags returned the rental car and made it to the airport.  Our flight was on time.  Quinn had a complete and total melt down that was so extreme we thought they were going to kick us off the plane because he didn't want to wear his seat belt.  Then, he fell asleep for the entire flight.

The flight was uneventful.  Which is always a good thing.

It was so strange, in the last few minutes before we arrived home, to realize that the day before, we'd been among literal giants, and now we were at an intersection with a Walmart and a Costco.  But, I guess that's the beauty of a vacation.  It lets you experience those amazing and cool things with your family that you wouldn't otherwise be able to experience.

This trip ended up being part of my birthday present.  It was the best birthday present.  I'm so grateful to Ross for planning and cooperating and being so willing to go along with my schemes.  The trip was really an absolute dream.  I couldn't have asked for anything better.



Except for maybe a glimpse of a real bigfoot.  But, that maybe would have been a bit too much.

The Redwoods, Day Three: Lady Bird

Day Three of our adventuring got off to a slow and rough start.  You know how sometimes on vacation, you just can't seem to get going?  Well, that was today.  Lots of in and out of the car.  Lots of fighting boys.  Lots of wrong roads.





We started our morning with a visit to Humbolt University in Arcata.  We wanted to find the bookstore to look for a souvenir.  We finally found the bookstore, but not without some 8 and under bruised knees and egos.  Like I said, it was a rough morning.  The bookstore however, was a little on the lame side so we left with nothing more that two key chains.  One of which we had to buy because Quinn declared it his and ripped off the price tag.

Next stop was a gas station for a drink - from a soda fountain that didn't work - and a bathroom break - from a dirty bathroom that you had to get the key and make a purchase - but the soda fountain didn't work.  The boys got a drink so we could pee.  Then, it was a few miles up the road to Trinidad to see a lighthouse, that wasn't nearly as impressive as I thought it would be.  A light house that is on land, and no longer out on the rocks generally isn't that impressive.  Nor are the "tide pools" that aren't actually tide pools but just the jagged rocks that you can see when low tide is out.  We did though, eat at the lighthouse grill in Trinidad and they had great garlic fries.





We suffered from some severe bathroom problems on our trip.  These bathroom problems required a lot of stopping - preventative and necessary.  We ate lunch at noon, but felt like we'd already stopped a thousand times to use the bathroom.

Finally, we were on our way after what felt like a wasted morning.  I have to admit I was getting a little nervous that the trip was going downhill, and I wanted it to be spectacular.  Little did I know that Lady Bird Johnson had something spectacular in store for me.

In the 1960's LBJ's wife worked with then Governor Ronald Reagan to save the redwoods.  Because of her apparently valiant efforts, they preserved a whole grove of trees (hundreds of acres) in her name and made a one mile scenic walking loop through the grove.  Here you can walk and touch and gaze and these giant trees.  It's not a drive by like the Drury road the day before, but it's up close and personal.  Like if you could touch the gorilla at the zoo instead of just looking at him through very thick glass.  I have absolutely no words for the trees.  I realized that I love trees more than I ever had any idea and I was pretty sure, walking through this grove, that at least for me, this is what heaven looks like.  It was just spectacular, amazing, delightful.  There aren't enough adjectives to describe the beauty that exists in this forest.  I'd just never seen anything like it in my entire life.  At one point, our little family got separated and I seriously thought for a moment that maybe Ross and Quinn had been swept away by a forest inhabitant.









I told Willie in my weekly e-mail that I'm certain these forests are inhabited by fairies and gnomes, pixies and trolls and the like.  He replied and told me that after living in Lithuania for the past year, and experiencing some of it's forests, he too believes that mythical creatures exist, and that they are just much smarter than the people who are looking for them.  After visiting the redwoods, it has definitely got to be true.









We left Lady Bird and decided that it would be fun to drive through down town Eureka and spend the late afternoon, before dinner wandering through a cute small town.  Two problems with that.  One, Eureka (and Arcata) were hosting a "kinetic sculpture race" and the towns were full of weirdos and two, Eureka is not a cute small town.  It is a gross small town.  We really spent the whole day just driving around aimlessly it seems so once we gave up on that, we headed to dinner.  A roadside burger joint with duck taped seats called Toni's.  It was delicious.  One more fabulous food stop on our trip.

The boys were done being in the car by this point and really wanted to hang out at the beach house and let's face it, we were all done being int he car at this point, so with a day close enough to being over, we headed back to our rental and spend the evening reading Charlotte's web, watching movie's on phones (because there was no Internet service on the island where the house was) and generally having a really nice evening "at home".