and now, back to july . . .

. . . or "summer of dreams continued: california to florida."

my laptop is back up and running so let's get this over with...

if you're ever thinking about driving across the country twice within two months with four kids, call me. i have got. it. down.

first stop was in arizona to spend a couple days with my brother scott, kiana, and their incredibly adorable little guy, donovan. yes, we had just seen them in california, but i'm sure they didn't get their fill of us so we did them the favor of stopping by. we love them, we love their house, we love hanging out with them, and ollie loves bullying donovan.

anyway, here we are visiting scotty's work. he's a graphic designer for fender guitar, so we got to see fender headquarters. pretty awesome. way to be cool, scott.

and then we drove through new mexico and texas. which pretty much just looked like this . . .

seriously, people. i don't know what those texans are so proud about.

we made a little stop in amarillo and visited with pam, a relative of josh's and had fun visiting with her. josh, parker, and i have been to amarillo before (when parker was one), so we revisited some favorites. cadillac ranch and the big texan.

at a hotel in longview, texas, macy slipped while stepping out of the bath and split her chin on the edge of the bathtub. the second it happened i knew we weren't getting anywhere that day. and sure enough, the day was spent spending six hours in the e.r. and getting three stitches. josh took her because i wouldn't have been able to handle that. josh said it was really bad. so i don't like to think about it too much . . .

but overall she was a trooper and didn't seem too traumatized by the whole ordeal. poor baby girl.

after that we drove through new orleans. this was to be the highlight of our trip (well, after our arizona stop). i had always wanted to see new orleans, but after macy's little accident, we were behind schedule, so we literally drove through new orleans. i snapped pictures from the car and took in as much as i could. we drove down st. charles avenue, made an attempt to go to cafe dumonde, and we drove around the french quarter. . . uhaul trailer in tow.

after a lovely little visit with roo (hi roo!) in pensacola we stayed in tallahassee for what was to be our last night on the road. but of course, not enough drama had happened on our trip so destiny had something else planned for us that day. not one minute after getting on the highway after leaving our hotel, a tire blew on our uhaul trailer causing us to sit on the side of the highway for two and a half hours waiting for a tow truck. then we had to go to the uhaul place and have it fixed etc etc . . .

isn't that a lovely situation? yeah. this is where i remind you that we have four kids.

so we stayed in a hotel one last night and drove into boca raton the next day, july 24th.

and this is how oliver slept the whole trip.

i'm glad i finally got all that down for posterity.

the end.