Sunday, July 26, 2009

Home again - the journey is over the memories are strong

Well I will be posting photo's shortly - but just wanted to let you know we are back home and i had email and internet issues so could not post to our blog while gone.
We headed to Cresent City, CA off the coast in the Redwood Forest and camped our first night and had a nice time there seeing the amazingly and beautiful 1,000+ year old trees.
The next day we were able to pet sharks at this little aquarium which was a highlight for Reagan.
Then we drove a good 8 hours to San Jose and stayed at our friends the Austins who were not home but were gracious to let us use their place.
Day 3 we headed to Anaihem to spend 2 days there and spend a day at Disneyland. So Sat 18th we got to the gates as they opened and left at 9pm in time to watch the fireworks from our hotel room across from the park. It was an exhausting day and my feet hurt for 2 days but the kids did well without naps and all and we had a full-packed fun-filled day full of rides, parades, princesses and Mickey!
Then we headed south to Scottsdale AZ to see relatives and spent 3 days there meeting cousins and their kids whom we have either not met or had not seen in 8 years. The kids had a blast and Scott celebrated his 43rd there and we had a party for Reagan and his 2nd cousin Caleb - their birthdays are a day apart and they both turned 7. The kids got in a lot of swimming in the 118 degree weather and had a hard time leaving these new friends. Then we ventured north again and stopped in Palm Dessert to see my mom's cousin. We had such a wonderful visit there too.
The kids really amazed us by behaving very well and many commented on how well behaved they were - God was blessing Scott and I. We had packed along our DVD player - but decided to not use it unless necessary and the kids just soaked up the different environments like we did in the "old" days. I can still hear Reagan saying "look - cactus's" he thought that was so cool.
We packed along coolers and water and picnic along the way to keep costs down. Our car had a check engine light go one one day and had to take it into the Toyota dealer but it only stopped us about 2-3 hours so we were so blessed and now we have after 3,500 miles - just about 217,000 miles on our little beast and she keeps ticking - hoping to get 300,000 miles on it before we have to replace her.
We continued on Thurs to San Jose again and spent a wonderful evening and morning with our friends Chris and Rhonda - their son Benjamin was born with cleft lip and was my inspirtation to adopt a CLP child and thus we got Reagan - they are just over a year apart and just clicked and Abby and Kaitlyn are only months apart and the same. Chris and Scott also are tight and Rhonda and I have 23 years of deep friendship from meeting in Japan with Life Ministries - oh to live closer.....
So then we left Friday for Mt Shasta to do our last night camping in the heat - it went well - we got there at 7 pm just mins before they closed and then found we were about the only campers.
Scott went to tackling the tent and i to cooking.... and spraying the kids down with OFF. Kaitlyn is a tastey morsel to the mosquito's and pays dearly if mother is not on top of her duties.
The ground was a wonderful red clay dirt which has been fun removing - but yes this is camping
the site was a bit too close to the hwy so all night we heard semi's using their airbreaks and then trains - so may not pick that site again - but it was pleasant the same and the kids loved doing smores and picking up sticks for the fire. We sat through one of the lectures and heard about Rattlers, King snakes and Black Bears all in the area - oh what fun :-)
Scott and had trouble sleeping so sat and enjoyed a movie on the laptop and we finally crashed.
Sat was Reagan's actual birthday and we had a 10 hour journey home ahead of us - so we just plowed through and got home at 10 pm after potty breaks, a quick lunch at a gas station and dinner at a truck stop.
Today has been loads upon loads of laundry - which includes sleeping bags... and the sort.
Thankfully the weather is good so can do some drying outside.
Tomorrow another very busy week starts with Reagan going to his first camp ever for the whole week - praying he will not get homesick and will stay dry at night :-0
Hoping to post more later and only 12 days until Kaitlyn and my China trip.
Lavonne 7-26-09

1 comment:

Teresa said...

Lavonne ~

Your trip with your family sounds absolutley amazing!!! I'm thrilled you all had such a great time ~ that is wonderful!! I'm also very happy for you that you are starting your companies ~ I feel that God will bless you and the many you touch beyond measure!!