Road Trip!

I can't lie. I'm proud to say that we did a 12 hour road trip and the boys did it successfully enough that it did not ruin the chance of future road trips. Yay! We went to visit my aunt and uncle in Palo Alto, or "heaven on earth" as my dad has referred to it before. The sites and the company were well worth the trip.

On our way out early in the morning:

We tried something new this road trip. Normally Jayce does almost all, if not all of the driving. He just really likes feeling like he has total control of everyone's safety. It eases his worries as a father and husband and I admire that. However, there are a couple of trips when he got sleepy and I had (made) him pull over so we could switch. To avoid waiting for him to get tired, we just decided I'd take the first shift so that Jayce could sleep for a little bit. Worked like a charm! He took the middle chunk and I brought us in to San Francisco at the end, because another thing we have learned is that things go a lot smoother when I'm driving and he's navigating in situations like that. Let's just say I'm not a great navigator, even with a smart phone. :-)

The sun rising behind us. Cameron was kind of confused about how it was morning but still pitch black when we left. It occurred to me that he had never actually watched sunrise from start to finish so it was fun to show the boys that.

What machine uses tires this big?! We saw three trucks like this!

The salt flats. Not to be confused with freshly fallen snow, all the white is SALT people!

My sister, Rachel, served her mission in Nevada and it was fun to pass a couple of the towns she spent her time in.

Picnic lunch. We lucked out with the location we found.

  

 Okay, I highly recommend these coloring books for road trips! Cameron and Jack had the Color Blast kind and Benson had a Water Wow one. These babies bought us a lot of happy time on the way to and from California. Benson's was my favorite and it held his interest the longest because it's re-usable. The pen just has water in it so when the page dries it's ready to be colored again. Coloring normally holds his attention the least out of the three boys, so I knew I had to try something new and I was amazed at how much he liked it.

By the way, we have two lefties and one righty. Go figure!

Coming into San Francisco.

Special delivery for Aunt Tee and Uncle Ken!

And what a splendid sight for tired eyes. Aunt Tee is the hostess of hostesses when it comes to guest treats. Dad, forgive us the Stanford shirts.

On the way home in the Sierra's this cloud was caught in the canyon. It was beautiful. Normally I feel like wispy, fog-like clouds linger there, but this was a big fluffy one. 

Jackson: "Mommy, I want more food."

Me: "We just ate snacks babe." (Because he had just pounded down a bunch of grapes and some fruit snacks) "But we'll stop for lunch in another 30 minutes or so!"

Jackson: