Blessings and car rides.....

It's cold.  The second week in July, and I have to wear a sweatshirt.... I must be in Oregon!  Home sweet home....  This is where I spent my early years, chasing after ice cream trucks, and playing in the river.  I spent a lot of time in the library, and picking strawberries in by the creek at my friend's old house.  Driving around town made me think about a lot of random memories that I hadn't thought of in years.

Let's start with the journey here...

Sunday was the last day to actually get ready and pack before we had to make the long long drive from Utah to here.  But that wasn't the only thing going on.  Tegan had her baby blessing on Sunday, and we had around 60 people over at our house afterwards eating food.  So we moved the garage around and set up tables and brought all the food down so that people could mix and mingle and eat in a more open area.  Which was awesome.  There was a lot of food.  A lot of family.  And a lot of love.  It's hard to have a small get together with my family.... Because we're not so small anymore.  7 kids, 6 spouses, 15.5 grandkids, a mom, a dad, two grandmas and a couple aunts and uncles and just a few cousins.  It makes for a good time.... My sister was in town from Arizona with her family, so it was fun to see them while they were here.  Her boys are huge... Yes, I'm talking about you Tyler, Jaron and Cameron.  McKaden is pretty big too, but he's only six.  They all need to stop taking their vitamins and shrink back to the tiny kids I remember them as.

My dad gave Tegan a beautiful blessing.  He made sure she knew that her family was always going to be there for her.  It was very well thought out.  There was another blessing before hers and it seemed so short in comparison.  But it was just as meaningful, I'm sure.

Okay....  On to the drive.

I had the car all packed and ready to go.  My mom had packed all the food.... bla bla bla.  Tegan was strapped in her carseat, and we were on our way to Oregon at 7:30 in the morning.  Pretty good, considering we didn't get a lot of sleep the night before!  We made it to about 45th South on I15, when my mom couldn't think of where she put her wallet.  Which made me wrack my brain to figure out where I had put mine.  Mom found hers, and I couldn't think for the life of me where mine had gone!  I searched the diaper bag, my purse, and every place I could think of.  I remembered putting it somewhere, but I had no idea where.... So we turned around.  We made it to the point of the mountain when I realized I had put it in my backpack that was in the back seat.... I'm a genius.  Wallet in hand, we turned back around and headed up I15 again....

WHEN.... I realized I had to pee when we got to the exit by my grandma's house.  Stupid coffee.... Keeps me awake and makes me pee.  I should drink it over a longer span of time... not in five minutes.  So we made a quick stop at my grandma's house in Bountiful and said goodbye... and then we were on the road once again.

Mom drove the first part of the way.  Bla bla bla, yadda yadda yadda.  Nothing to interesting happened.  We talked.  I slept.  We listened to music.  I pumped while she drove and fed Tegan in her carseat so we could stop less.  She did really good riding in the car for such a long time... But I felt terrible.  Part of the time she was screaming, but I couldn't do anything to stop her.  We made multiple stops so we could get her out of her seat and play and snuggle a little bit, and continued on our way.  I drove through part of Idaho after we got some gas.  And got pulled over for... Guess what?  Go on ahead... Guess!  Okay, I'll tell you.... I was going 5 over the speed limit.  5 over!  Are you kidding me!?!?  He was nice and let me go with a warning.  Whatever.

By the end of the trip, I was in the back seat, holding Tegan because she couldn't stop crying.  Her poor little butt must have been so asleep.... riding in a carseat for 14 hours.... The poor thing didn't understand.

We finally made it into Lake Oswego and the Lakeshore Inn at 10pm.  Not too shabby.  Chelsea and Maclain came by and said hello and played with Tegan....  Maclain was absolutely adorable with her.  He's going to make a great daddy one day, but I'm hoping they'll take their time with that one.

We went to bed really really late.... but all 3 of us slept really well.

Tuesday was beach day!  And I'll have to write about that later.