Day26 Saying goodbye and the end

We said our good byes and were on the road again, this time our destination........home sweet home!! (p.s. doesn't her hair rock!) We did bear minimum stopping and we stopped in Palm Springs for dinner at Panda. We were hit with the ever so stunning heat as we got out of the car. Yuck!! Rich said my skin was instantly flushed, and we still had 10 degrees hotter to get, yikes! We texted our great friend and house checker, Tori and asked her to turn our air down, so it wasn't so terribly hot when we arrived. She did so and had the feeling to check our fridge. She had to be the bearer of bad news and tell us it was dead, and not the slightest bit cold, disgusting!! Luckily they had a fridge we can borrow for a bit, thx Brunsons! We stopped by the store and got the necessities and made it home at around 11:30 p.m. The kids got to see their dear friends who were waiting up for them to get home. Time to unload and put away, as both of us worked in the morning. Short night, we got to bed at 2:30. Nothing like getting thrown back into real life!! We decided we along with all of our friends and family need to move somewhere cooler, and more beautiful. But we were glad to see our home, for it is in fact home sweet home. It is great to be home, even if it is miserably hot!

Day 25 Jelly Belly Factory

We had to check out the Jelly Belly Factory. We took the tour, it was interesting. The kids sampled flavors, and believe it or not one of the fav's was baby wipe- gross. They said it was tastey. We loaded up on the necessary flavors, (not baby wipe) and got some "belly flops" for camping treats. They were the defective ones, wrong size, etc.

We took Saber along again. On our way back to the Penrods we picked up pizzas and cheese bread from our new favorite place, Papa Murphy's, (thx Dan and Tiff). We ate, I did a couple of haircuts on our hubbies and tried to go to bed. I decided to use their washer and drier and get all the laundry done and back into bags, since I had a CRAZY schedule full of hair appointment waiting for me.

Day 23-24

Sunday we relaxed and didn't do too much, had a bbq With Shirley and Jon and their family. Rich and Logan had fun playing pool. The babies got lots of attention, and the rest of the kids played and we didn't see or hear much from them. Carson and Logan got to use the fireworks they bought in Wyoming. They had fun.

Monday we went to Monterey Bay Aquarium. We took along with us Graycee and Saber. (8 kids) We had fun looking at all the wonderful sea life that they had on display.They had some interactive things for toddlers, it

was cute to watch them, it seems all kids like to play in water. We went back and fixed dinner and had an evening of hair coloring, since there was 3 girls with major growout:) and they just so happen to have a beauty supply about a 1/2 mile away from their house. Late night, I think it was 3:15 when we finally finished.

Day 22 San Francisco

We went to San Francisco and went across the Golden Gate bridge. We stopped to take pictures,and it was so windy, got to love my hair:) We could see Alcatraz from a distance and went to Fisherman's warf. It was so crazy busy, and we knew we wouldn't be going back for fireworks for the 4th, especially with kids. But, we did get to get clam chowder, mmmm my favorite! We went down the famous Lombard street, aka the most "crooked" street. It was so crazy weird. The streets were so frieky, so extremely hilly, so steep. It scared me but everyone else loved it. I'm just glad I wasn't driving, I know I would have panicked! It was a fun day! We finally made it to our friends the Penrods house, just a couple days late. We had a great time catching up and laughing. Shirley is recovering from 2 spinal surgeries and isn't able to do too much, so it was pretty relaxed, which was fine with us.

Day 21 Day 2 of Redwoods

We stayed at a campsite in the Redwood forest. It was a really cool campsite, right by the river. It was really nice. The campground host told us after we started setting up already that a black bear likes to wander around this part of the campground. At first, we thought it was kinda cool, until it got dark and we could hear it splashing in the water. Paij saw it walk right by our campsite and down to the river and had a panic attack. In the morning Rich saw the paw prints of the bear, scary!

Sydney gave me a small break from holding Ash, he is SO heavy, my arms hopefully will be really buff when we get back, I'm really worried that he is going to have a hard time when we get back, I have held him non-stop the entire trip. He is cutting all 4 molars and is extremely clingy to

only me, lucky me. It is sweet, just exhausting!!

This was a house inside of a tree, the kids thought was pretty cool.

Day 20 Redwood National Park

We went through the Redwood Forest. The kids really thought it was cool. Lots of places to hide and play. About every 10 steps Carson wanted to pose for a picture, and even Ivy would take her binkie out and smile for a change. We camped at an awesome campground right by the Klamath river. It was beautiful. It was also right close to the coast, where the river flows into the ocean. Carson is posing into the "kissing tree" as he called it and he is standing on the lips that are stuck together:) We had to get a picture of the boys with Paul Bunyan, too funny, and the ox baby blue

Day 19 Leaving Vancouver and Silver Falls

We left Vancouver and wet to Silver falls and saw this beautiful waterfall. It was a great park that we wished we had more time to spend at, I guess it's a good reason to come back:) We met up for lunch with some friends Harry and Andrea Topliss that moved to Oregon about a year ago. We had fun catching up and meeting their newest little guy Landon.

We thought it was so interesting that there were tons of Christmas tree farms. Rich and I wonder how much $ could really be in that, it seems like it would take a long time for them to get big enough to sell. Something weird we thought about Oregon is that it is ILLEGAL to pump your own gas------WEIRD!! They say it was started in the 80's to create jobs. Rich tried to help the guy by putting the hose back up, and got yelled at.