Road Trip Day One

We left Friday around 2:00pm headed towards Paulden, AZ - my second home growing up. I used to spend the summers here with my grandparents and it always feels like coming home when I'm here. They live in the middle of nowhere and it's so quiet here it let's your soul relax from the chaos of the world.

We made it to the Walmart parking lot in Kingman Arizona on Friday around 10:00pm and decided to sleep there for the night (we are traveling in my dad's 5th wheel). Jacob and Emma were in the same bed and they kept bugging each other - the old "he's touching me" or "she's breathing on me!" routine. I finally got up and threatened them with life and limb if they didn't settle down and go to sleep. As I crawled back in bed they both started crying because I "hurt their feelings". My first thought was "be quiet or I will give you something to cry about!" but then I chuckled under my breath because we were all just so tired it was comical. I got a few hours of sleep between sweating to death and the yellow flashing lights of the Walmart security guard truck until Ben woke up at 4:00 am and decided he was ready for the day. He and I hung out in the cab of my dad's truck so he didn't wake up everyone else and then at 6:00 am we headed over to Walmart for something to do and so I didn't have to keep hiding my dad's pack of Tums from Ben. I felt like a piece of work walking around Walmart at 6:00am in my pj's with a baby in his shirt and a diaper only. Nice.

We headed off in the morning to my grandparents and have spent the last few days here relaxing, eating homemade ice cream, and crushing rocks. Yes the poor rocks here dread when they hear us approaching for a visit. Jacob's favorite thing to do here is crush rocks on a vice my grandpa has mounted outside.

Last night was the first night I got a full nights sleep as Ben decided to have more midnight escapades on Saturday night. I was looking forward to a bleak vacation with no sleep but I think we've turned a corner. ((fingers crossed))

Today we are headed off to Tucson to visit great friends of ours who moved out there this year, and then on to New Mexico to explore Carlsbad Caverns. The kids are being pretty good so far, let's hope it lasts. I'm trying to teach them to be patient and in the car I said to them "hold your horses!" as they were all barraging me at the same time for something. Jacob started looking around and said "what horses?" Such a funny kid.