ROCK REVELATIONS.... part 1

Okay so let me preface this by saying that this last weekend (May 8th - May 11th)

was anything but a "BREEZE". I know I have several other things

I want and need to post about.. but I want to get this weekend

down before I forget EVERYTHING that happened. This is the first installment of at least

two episodes.

1. Our scheduled time for the trip Friday May 8, 2009 - Monday May 11, 2009
2. Destination --- Concord (East Bay) area, and Manteca all in California.

3. Reason -- My Grandpa Hill passed away on May 5th, 2009 and the memorial service was scheduled for Saturday May 9th, 2009.

4. Mode of Transportation --- Our White Mini Van.

5. Length of Travel Time -- Roughly 12 - 14 hours

6. Number of Miles -- about 850 to my Uncle's house.

7. Number of people in the car -- 7 ....... 2 Adults 5 kids.

8. Days of school and worked missed ... 2 (Friday and Monday)

9. Health condition of passengers ... Sunshine has a hurt wrist, and all the kids are taking meds since the day before because of STREP ! YUCK~!~ And my throat started hurting Wednesday morning as well. (But I don't think it was strep)
10. Oh yeah, make sure one of my children hurts there arm and complains about it the whole weekend. But make sure this happens late Thursday evening and don't go to the doctor until I return.

11. Did the trip go smoothly without incident....

12. Were we extremely blessed because of such incidents.....

READ ON TO FIND OUT:

On Friday we were able to leave Provo, and get on the road.. all the while, as with any trip, hearing the beginnings of "I'm hungry", "When are we going to get there?" "I've got to go Potty" and many other noises of laughter, and screaming, and occasionally complete SILENCE. Aw.

We traveled I-80 and stopped at the Salt Flats Rest Area to do a potty break, which was just before Wendover, on the Utah, Nevada border.

No problem here, as all parties involved were able to go and

thus avoiding any accidents in the near future.

We start driving again, and go through Wendover and about 15 minutes later, T-man hollers that he has to go to the bathroom, of course we're in a barren desert and nothing around for miles. Luckily we found a sign for a "rest area". It was disgusting but better than having a wet boy, right?? He REFUSED TO USE IT!!! All the while, grabbing at himself, because he apparently was telling the truth. So I tried to make him sit on the darn thing, and attempted to pull down his pants so that he could go and avoid the accident, HE SCREAMED!!! I was in there for at least 5 -8 minutes trying to get him to sit, and he wasn't having it. (If he didn't have to go so BAD, I wouldn't have tried so hard) but alas, no such luck. So we load everyone up again, and get into the car. About 10 minutes later he cried because he had peed himself in the car. We said, TOO BAD, you'll have to wait to get changed.

** I know we're MEAN

We come upon Wells, Nevada and found a gas station to use. So I dug out clean clothes and being the "DUMB" mom I am, grabbed another pair of underwear for him. So I attempted to change him, and we made everyone else "TRY" even though it was less than an hour since the last time. I used a plastic grocery bag to put the wet clothes into, and we laid a towel on top of his booster so that he wouldn't get his now dry clothes wet, too.

The details of this part of the trip are fuzzy to me right now, but before we reached Fernley, Nevada where I was able to visit with my cousin and her family for a few minutes, T-man had peed one other time in his clothes. SUCK!!! But, I quickly overlooked that, and enjoyed the visit with my Cousin, whom I haven't seen in about 7 years. So that was refreshing at best. I feel jipped to not have more time, but we had further places to travel.

We stopped again near Sacramento somewhere to use the potty once again, from here we were only about an hour away from my Uncle's house, only problem --- we ran into traffic at like 9pm at night. So it slowed us WAY down. My uncle had to go to work in order to have Saturday off, so he was leaving shortly to put that time in. Of course, I'm using the map to navigate, and finally around 11:30 we arrived at their house to SLEEP!!! Chris was TIRED!! I only drove about an 80 mile stretch, and he was EXHAUSTED.

The baby was asleep when we pulled up so we didn't have to get him to go to sleep, but the other kids were bouncing off the WALLS!! Pent up energy, I guess. They started saying how they were hungry and Melinda got busy helping them, find things to eat. Finally we settled in, but we didn't get to see my uncle that night because he was at work.

And before we had gotten to his house, Chris and I started feeling like we should just head home on Sunday morning and use Monday as a recuperation day, since he had it off. So we let Melinda know about that, and that we wouldn't stay till Monday. (Although, I know my Uncle was secretly sabotaging us to stay till Monday) .

Saturday was the day we would drive to Manteca, about 1 hour away, because all of my family was there, and that is where the Memorial service for Grandpa would be. We woke up, and got to see my Uncle for just a few minutes before he went to sleep. He had just gotten home right before 7 and had been up since 4 am the day before. He was TIRED!! So we helped ourselves around the house and feeding the kids because Melinda had to leave for a test, and my Uncle needed to SLEEP. We ate, and got dressed, and packed up what we needed for the day. We followed the directions that we got through mapquest to get to the hotel where my parents were staying. We were driving on side roads and had lots of turns involved and finally about a little more than an hour later we arrived.

It was great to see my family ALL 8 of the kids were there with their families along my parents. It was crazy to say the least. But fun TOO!! We still had about two hours before the service was going to start, so we took our family over to In N Out for lunch.

I LOVE THAT PLACE.

So we grabbed our food and

headed back to the motel rooms to eat.

After we finished eating we cleaned up the trash and threw it away,

and then told my kids to change into thier church clothes.

All the while, the other sibs were coming and going, and watching the babies,

and others getting food to eat as well.

The room had the aroma of several good smelling things,

but all together they STUNK, but with the door opened it quickly aired out.