Our 5000 km driving Adventure

I thought I'd get a chance to write something on this blog before now, but you can only spend as much time in a day as you have available...so this is the first thing to go! I'll try to do a quick version of our whirlwind vacation!

We thought we'd leave on Tuesday morning, then I convinced Nathan we should get over the border the night before...then his work was mostly finished up, so I convinced him to leave Sunday night, so off we went! Our friends, Josh & Sundhya have been good enough to house-sit for us, so they're taking care of the place.

Left Sunday on the 1 pm ferry. Got through the border extremely easily considering last time we were in there for 2 hours while they checked out our story, our vehicle and everything else. This time they just had Nathan pay a $10 fee for business and we were on our way! Ate pizza, and got to my cousin Kathy's place in Mt Vernon, WA by 6:30 or so. We had a nice visit, went to bed and woke up at 3:30 because we thought the wind was going to lift the roof off the house. I don't think I've ever experienced wind like that before! We got up, packed the kids in the truck and were off before 4am! We drove all day until arriving at my Uncle Paul's in North Bend, Oregon around 3 or so. I was glad to get there that early so we could visit with my Grandfather who is now in a nursing home. When we arrived, he was in the hallway in his wheelchair and seemed happy to see us, even though I don't think he knew who we were. I had prepared myself and the kids for that as best I could, but it's still hard. I explained who we were, and he just kept saying it was so good of us to come, but never really gave us any indication that he really knew us. I had sent a slide show of our last trip to his place for the 6 weeks we spent there nearly 2 years ago, but I don't think he connected the details. Just said his mind wasn't working properly but he was sure glad we came.
The kids loved Uncle Paul & Mi Young's huge rec room and were thrilled to run around after being in the truck all day. Unfortunately we didn't get to the sand dunes-just saw them, because the babies were sleeping as we drove by and then we wanted to visit Grandpa and then get home to get settled in for dinner. We had a fabulous lamb dinner with Paul & Mi Young and were all asleep by 7:30!
On Tuesday, we woke up at 3:30 again and decided to set off to try to make it to LA by Tuesday night. It was raining like we couldn't believe! Crazy weather. I was really hoping we would get to LA than night because staying in a hotel with 5 kids is really not a lot of fun! Drove all day and finally stopped at a rest stop for a picnic lunch and a game of bocce and a lot of running and jumping and climbing in Southern California. By now, the weather was sunny & warm and beautiful...more later...the family has arrived back!