12/14-12/17 Layover in Buckeye, Arizona and arriving HOME!!!

AJ with spikey hair

JJ with spikey hair

From Tucson it was only a 2.5 hr drive to Buckeye Arizona. Boy were we excited about spending such a short amount of time in the car!! We made a short stop in the town of Chandler to satisfy our craving for In-n-Out Burger. Soooo yummy! Kris even got one of the pigeons to eat right out of his hand! We arrived at the home of the Trents around 1pm. The big kids were still at school but that didn't keep my two boys from making themselves at home. It was fantastic to see my Moron (it's a long long story, but I promise it's a term of endearment) and her family. Her kiddos came home from school and everyone played and played! Nathan is 9, Chloe is 8, Jillian is 6 and Wyatt is 6 months.

See the snow on the Arizonan Mountains?

@ In-n-Out Burger

Pigeon eats out of Kris' hand

 Moron and I loved just hanging out together- cooking meals, cleaning up, helping each other's kids! Her husband Lowell works nights but took time during the day when he'd normally be catching up on sleep to help Kris with our 'Burb. He said the guy in Mexico had put in the wrong type of transmission fluid and he'd made some other mistakes too (so we're extra thankful that we made it this far!). They drained the transmission and Lowell told Kris to pour in new fluid, well they'd bought both motor oil and transmission fluid so they could do an oil change as well... and Kris grabbed the wrong container and poured in motor oil. Lowell said, "Hey Kris, why are you putting motor oil in to your transmission?" So even though they were nearly done, they had to drain the oil out and wait until the next day to put the correct fluid in. Kris said it was a major lesson in humiliation because he was just criticising the Mexican mechanic for the very same thing! God works in interesting ways sometimes! Thankfully no damage was done and all the repairs were completed by Thursday afternoon.

Silly Aaron

Happy Wyatt!

The kids watched movies, played Lego's, Dora & Diego, Star Wars, and read books together. Nathan surprised my boys by letting them have these two big trucks that they'd been playing with the whole visit. "You mean, I can take it home with me, like for forever??" Jonathan said.

Playtime!!

Moron reading a bedtime story

Nathan & Chloe playing with our air pump

 We left Buckeye at 10am on Friday, knowing we'd have an 11 hr drive ahead of us. We saw many cars on the highways but two license plates caught our eyes- one from the state of Maine, the other from Virginia- boy were they a long way from home! We drove through McDonalds and grabbed chicken nuggets for the boys to eat for lunch (man I can't wait to get back to eating real food)!

Me & all the kiddos- Aaron, Nathan, Jilly, Chloe, Wyatt & Jonathan

Kris & I with the Trent kiddos

Moron, Kris, and I plus all our kiddos!

Me & my Moron!

 Entering CA was easy, but man we got sticker shock when it was time to buy gas! We went from paying $3.09/gal in Arizona to $3.45- 3.85/gal in CA!! We got into the L.A. area around 3pm and traffic was light. The car had been running smoothly and Kris was getting tired. So I offered to drive. I'm not a huge fan of driving in big cities and was pretty stressed out. Then the car started acting up too! So we pulled over and Kris drove again. We had issues with the car off and on the whole way home, guess we'll have to get the transmission looked at. Thankfully if we just pulled over and turned the car off, waiting a few minutes, the car ran fine for a few hours at a time at least. We just wanted so badly to get home! We encountered some fog once we neared Oakdale but it was only small patches and once we hit HWY 4, it was easy-peasy. We arrived at my parents house around 10pm, the boys been asleep for about an hour and Aaron went right into bed. Jonathan woke up as we pulled up and saw that his Papa still had all the Christmas lights turned on. "Wow," He said, "We're here!! Well that didn't take as long as I thought it would!"

Welcome to California!!

Looks like we have a stowaway from Belize!

 It is wonderful to be back on our home turf! Thanks for following us on this adventure! We certainly learned a lot. I plan on keeping the blog going as our life is certainly an adventure in and of itself!

Merry CHRISTmas!!!