Missouri

On March 25th we left for Pleasant Hope, Missouri. We took a detour, and stopped in Oklahoma to stay with Nate's uncle Ben's family. While we were driving we went through a snow storm, and I got to see Pikes Peak ( I lived in Colorado Springs when I was little and that was my mountain). We stopped at a cool war memorial, that was mainly just a real tank from war where we took some pictures. We got to Oklahoma pretty late but his aunt and cousins where still up waiting for us, his uncle works nights so he was not home. We talking til later and than were woken up early by his uncle to go to his uncles company party (he works for an airline) and they were having a big Easter hunt at the Tulsa Zoo. I stayed at the house with the baby because it was a pretty cold rainy day. Nate, Collin, Trina, Kathryn and Ben all went to the zoo and had a blast. They got to ride on camels and went to Collins favorite place after HotDonalds (his rendition of Mcdonalds since he was little so we still call it that). When they got back we went out shooting with his cousins Regina, Trina and Andy on the backwoods of there huge property. We shot skeets and other random things, Collin also came and got to practice a little shooting too, but he was mainly interested in picking up the shells. We than went back and had a really good dinner his aunt made and visited some more. The next day we left for Missouri and were pretty happy it was such a short drive compared to the one we had been on a couple days before. When we got there Nate's Mom, Luke and sister Jasmine were waiting for us. His Mom had purchased Collin some Aquasand so he was really into playing with that, and we visited for a while. Than his aunt Susanne came over with her daughter Jenny who is Collins age, and they played and we all ate pizza. We than headed over to his Aunts house to have a sleepover and Collin and Jenny got to play some more. His aunt let Jenny miss school the next day so that they could play all day and we had a great time visiting and hanging out. Nates brother Trevor came over in the morning and needed some help with his cars alternator so they started working on it and spent the whole day doing that. Nates cousin Candy came over too and brought her cute little boy Tristin with her. She was there to pick up Jenny to take her to the mall to get her ears pierced, so we decided to tag along, and I ended up getting Azaria's ears pierced as well and they turned out super cute! We than left the mall and headed back to meet up with the boys and go to Nates moms house again. She had bbq some hamburgers and I got the kids asleep and than we all hungout and talked. The next Nates grandpa Bill came over to see the kids and had a fun time teasing Collin. Nate cooked us all a really good breakfast and his aunt came over and thought it was so weird how grown up Nate was. We wanted to go check out the Bass Pro Shop Headquarters that is close to her house and grandma offered to babysit. We had a blast walking around and seeing all of the cool stuff, it was SO HUGE! When we got back Jasmine was at his mom's again, and we all had dinner and hung out. Jasmine got out a box that had a bunch of pictures from when her and Nate were babies that were cool to look at. The next day we wanted to go to Branson Missouri. We left the baby with her grandma again and took Collin to have some fun. We rode on this amazing go kart track, and Nate and Collin had a blast on bumper boats. We went to a Ozark shop and purchased some cool cowboy hats and other fun stuff. And than we headed back and played outside at his mom's for a while and most of the night because it was a beautiful night. The next day we headed over to his Grandpa Bills for lunch, and met up with his brother Trevor again, it was such a hot day! Collin got to ride his grandpas motorized wheelchair and loved that. And loved playing with his video games with Trevor. We than went back to his mom's and watched Avatar and I ruined a perfectly good pizza (apparently I am not the "typical girl who can cook" according to Nate). The next day we went out to breakfast with his aunt Susanne's family at the Waffle house (yummy) and than took Jenny and Collin to "How to train your dragon" which was a great movie and they both loved it! We than headed back to his mom's and Jasmine and Matt (her boyfriend) were there again with about 12 different kinds of cookies that she had baked (they were SO good!) We had yummy shish kaboobs and than went over to his aunts to color some easter eggs with Jenny. They had a great time coloring eggs and Nate had fun talking guns with uncle Steve. We than headed back and got Collin to sleep and than got there Easter baskets going since we were doing Easter on Saturday instead of Sunday since we were traveling all day. We woke up and Collin was so excited about all of the fun Easter stuff! Trevor was over and Jasmine had purchased Collin a cool bubble blowing set that he had a blast with. Jasmine made some really good breakfast! We than headed over to Susanne's to hide Easter eggs. The kids had a blast finding all the eggs. We than had to leave so we could go meet up with his grandpa Bill at Red Lobster for lunch. It was such great food and we had a great time hanging out with Nates whole family. Than we headed back and had to start to pack. Collin had a blast playing frisbee with Trevor for a while. And Nates mom gave him one of his grandpas hierloom guns. We than headed home and spent Easter on the road. I hit a bird that was CRAZY and we had Easter lunch in Aspen. We dropped Collin off at his dads when we got home for a nice week long break. Our trip was AmazinG and we already miss everyone!

California

On March 5th we loaded up our new Durango, and took I-80 to Patterson California. While we were driving we stopped at a gas station and we were trying to decided what to drink when this wierd guy came up into our faces and only said "Coffee" He then proceeded to look like he was going to get some for us than wandered off, we just looked at each other and started laughing, it was so random. We stopped in Reno at about four in the morning, and decided to stay the night since we had made pretty good time, and did not want to show up at Nates dad's house at six in the morning with no sleep, and unable to check into our hotel until noon. We slept there until about eight in the morning, and Nate said it was the most expensive nap he had ever had! LOL. We then drove the rest of the way to Cali, getting there at about noon. We visited with his Aunt Joy and Uncle Ben for a little while, and I took Collin to a park that was next to there house so he could play because it was such a beautiful day, and had been snowing in Utah the day before. At two we went to his great aunts 100th birthday party! She was such a funny and cute lady, we took lots of pictures, and they had an amazing lunch buffet for everyone. She was such an avid Pepsi drinker all her life that Nate's step mom had sent Pepsi a letter telling them about her and they sent her one back with a special pepsi botte and shirt just for her. We had to leave at four to drive to San Francisco so we could go pick up Nates sister Jasmine who we had flown in for the weekend as a graduation present. It was only about an hour drive, and we got to go over some cool bridges, and Collin saw the ocean for the first time. We were so glad his uncle lent us his GPS because we had no clue where we were going. We got lost in all the construction a couple of times, but finally got his sister. We than headed to Fisherman's Wharf which is located right off of Alcatraz. We walked around for a while, and than stopped at a famous sourdough bread company and ate clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls that were amazing! We picked up some cool souvenirs than headed back to our hotel. On the way we drove over the bay bridge and Collin said "oh we need to make a wish, I wish for GOLD!" It was so cute! On the way back Nate's dad called and said that he was warming up his hot tub so we should come back to his house and hang out for a while, it already being midnight, we were pretty tired, but decided to go over there since it was not to far from our hotel room, and we all wanted to sit in the hot tub after driving so much. We laid Collin down right when we got there in BJ's room since he had gone to sleep at a friends house and Azaria was asleep in her car seat so we started hanging out and talking. Not realizing it was so late we didn't even get in the hot tub til about two in the morning, and than sat in it until about four thirty in the morning all just talking and drinking. We headed back to our hotel room at that time and all slept in (well Collin woke me up early, but I had him take a shower for a while and than watch cartoons) until check out time. We than headed back to there dads for breakfast, to eat some of his famous bacon waffles, and to hang out with his great aunt for the day. Collin swam in the hot tub for a while, and Jasmine played Skipbo with there aunt. We took a bunch of pictures, and than at about five we loaded up and headed to Monterey for the night. Me and Jasmine drove in my suv with the kids, and Nate rode with there Uncle Ben who came down to Monterey with us. It was fun to talk to Jasmine for a couple hours, and she helped keep me awake because I was so exhausted by this point. When we got to Monterey we checked into the Otter Inn, and than walked down Canary Row and looked at the ocean. We went to Bubba Gumps Shrimp Co for dinner and had a whole bunch of different shrimps that were so yummy! We than walked around a little bit more and went to bed. The next morning we woke up early and went and had breakfast at this local spot called First Awakenings, they also had amazing food. We headed over to the Monterey Bay Aqaurium and toured through there for a few hours. They had amazing exhibits Collin especially loved the hands on exhibits that they had where you could touch star fish and crabs. We saw the coolest sea horses and they had a lot of areas where you could go outside and see great views of the ocean. It was kind of a rainy day so we did not spend to much time outside by the ocean but Collin was so cute when he was looking for shells, and a wave surprised him, and soaked him! He tried to run away, but the wave was fast, and he thought it was so funny that the waves were always different, he did not want to leave but we needed to be heading home so we could try to beat a storm we had heard of that was heading our way. We stopped by Nates dad's work to say bye and than started driving home when we hit the Donner pass area there were notices that all truckers needed to put chains on there vehicles so we figured we had better buy some chains for our vehicle just in case. No sooner than we had purchased the chains on the side of the highway when I-80 was closed. We stopped to find out for how long and met some people who were forming a caravan to drive on some road a guy had found on his GPS. We passed on driving in the blizzard with crazy people and got a hotel room for the night. It was pretty relaxing and we ate Taco Bell and watched Yes Man. We woke up and the weather was great and the road were open! We were so happy to be heading home when our radiator decided to freak out on us. We went to a repair shop and the guy said luckily it was not our radiator just the cap so we bought a new cap and headed on our way again when it spazed out again. We had to baby the car the whole way home finding out that if it had to kick into any other drive it would heat up. This made for a long long long drive but we finally made it home on Nate's birthday at five in the morning. He had to leave for work a few hours later so he slept and I tried getting some sleep thou Z was not tired and wanted to play. Nate went to work and I went and bought him some stuff to take him to work since I felt bad that he had to work after that awful drive. All in all the trip was GREAT! Our car is fixed (it was the thermostat some repairs still needed of course!) and we had a blast with his family and at the beach!