Here is where it gets really good. So far, the trip had been fun, mostly uneventful. No kids throwing up in the car, no massive tantrums, nothing really to report. We were due.
It all started on the morning of July 4th in Chula Vista. We were planning on getting up, eating breakfast, loading the car and driving to my parents' house in Mesa, Arizona. We were hoping to get there in the early afternoon so we could spend the rest of the day relaxing by swimming in their pool. My parents were barbecuing hot dogs up that night and then we were hoping to watch fireworks. We got all our stuff together and were sitting down to breakfast when suddenly Corey noticed that he did not have his wedding ring on his finger.
Corey never takes his ring off. Ever. Not for work, even though he works in food. Not to shower, not to put on sunscreen. He didn't even put sunscreen on at the beach as he intended to stay under the shade structure my brother brought the entire time. Using lotion or sunscreen are the only times he'll take it off, but even then sometimes he won't. We looked through the bed we slept in. We decided to go look for it at the pool, where we'd gone right after the beach. We got back from there and decided to go look for it out in our car.
When we went out front to look in the car, we discovered, to our horror, that the car was not there. Immediately we ran back into the house and alerted my brother to the fact. He and his wife promptly contacted the right people and discovered the car had been towed, despite us having three different parking permits on the dash board. We called the place and found out they did not open until 9:30 (it was only 8:00). So then we had to wait a little over an hour before Corey and my brother could head over to pick up the car.
I wish it had been so simple--get the car, come back, pack it up and off we go. But no, not even. Corey called from the tow yard to tell me that when he got there, the side back window, the one by where Caleb sits, was gone. I do remember that the window had not been closed all the way the night before. These are the kind of windows on the backs of minivans that open outwards only an inch or two, to pull the air through the car from the front. First, he had to file a police report. Yet there was no evidence the window had been broken purposefully--no glass inside the car and no glass in the parking space where the van had been. Once the police were gone, Corey was able to bring the car back. At this point, it was almost noon as all that had taken several hours. When he got home, we fed the kids lunch and then figured out a way to cover the window for our drive to Arizona, after much debate on whether to even go to Arizona. We decided that we'd either have to wait for the 5th (due to the 4th being a holiday) in Chula Vista to get the car repaired and would have to drive straight home to Utah or we could drive straight home to Utah, but then it would be better to wait because we didn't want to leave for Utah at 1 pm. We finally decided to go ahead and go to Arizona as planned because we really wanted to see my parents. So we covered the window with cardboard and a plastic bag and off we went.
This is our car with the cardboard on it just after we got home on Friday. We didn't take any pics with the window gone or of it with the black trashbag over it--which made it look almost like there wasn't a window missing. But the black trashbag blew off before we even left Phoenix.
We arrived in Mesa around 7 pm, at which point, we got out of the car, pulled out the swim bag, and went swimming right away. My parents had dinner pretty much ready, so we then got out of the pool and ate dinner. After dinner, everyone put on some clothes, the kids in p.j.'s, and we walked around the corner to view some fireworks that would be going off a couple blocks from my parents house. Even though we got to my parents' house about five hours later than we'd wanted to, we were still able to swim, eat dinner and see fireworks.
Pit stop at the In-N-Out in Yuma for the kids to go to the bathroom. They are doing In-N-Out stickers while we wait for Daddy.
Swimming in Grandpa and Grandma's pool after arriving
Westley flying
More swimming
Mesa Visit
On Thursday we spent the day at my parents' house. Corey took our van in early in the morning to hopefully get it fixed before tackling our 12 hour drive home on Friday. We spent the day hanging around the house, visiting with my brother and his wife and my mom, and swimming some. We didn't have a car, so we weren't able to visit any of our friends who lived there. Unfortunately, when Corey finally checked in with the car place around 2 pm (he'd left the car there at 7 am), we learned that they didn't have the right window and had to special order it and the car wouldn't even be done until 10 am on Friday. So, we went over and picked it up, covered the window back up with cardboard, and prepared to make the journey back without the repair done. We enjoyed dinner that night with the family and visiting some more and then we went to bed early so we could leave bright and early the next day.
Driving Home
We left Mesa around 6:30 a.m. We had to make about six stops along the way to check the cardboard on the window. I thought it was strange because we drove the whole six hours from Chula Vista to Mesa without having to stop once the check the cardboard. We stopped at a gas station in Kanab, Utah for lunch and then made one more bathroom stop later. But we arrived home just before 7 pm, so we had made good time. My parents were also coming up (my mom's uncle died on June 27th and the funeral was Saturday July 7th) but they were about 30 minutes behind us the whole way. We were disappointed that we missed our favorite rest stop on Highway 89 with them (I forgot completely about it until we had already passed it), but luckily we got to our house before they did and were able to unload the car and run to the store and get buns to make mini pizzas for dinner.
In the car somewhere along the drive home from AZ
In the car on the drive home
Driving home
And that was our vacation!
