We Survived!

We survived our first ever family vacation involving long hours of driving with a child! I think by the end of the trip we had put 2500 miles or so on our car. Phew! How did we survive so much driving with an 18 month old you might ask? Simple......Portable DVD player and Blue's Clues DVD collection. :) We had so much stuff crammed into our Passat that we barely had room for the three of us. We had to put the passenger seat so far forward (in order to keep the DVD player out of reach from Kennedy, which hung on the back of the seat), that I ended up sitting in the back with Kennedy. Here's a brief overview of our adventures with picture posts to follow. We drove from Provo to Reno our first day and made it in about 8 hours with just one lovely diaper explosion. :) It was at a Walgreen's in Reno that I discovered possibly one of the best inventions ever.......the MagnaDoodle. Combine endless, worry-free drawing with Blue's Clues and we had a happy camper the majority of the trip. We then drove from Reno to San Jose where we stayed with James' aunt and uncle for the weekend. While in Northern California we toured Stanford, went to Carmel Beach and spent a day in San Fransisco. Then we drove down to San Diego, hitting UCLA on the way. We stayed with family friends and were able to spend a day at Coronado beach together before James flew out to New York for his 10 day orientation with Goldman Sachs. After James left, Kennedy and I drove over to Chandler, Arizona where we stayed with our friends, the Riches, for four days before driving home. I was rather hesitant about my ability to drive long distances with just me and Kennedy in the car. Really my hesitancy was about my ability to stay awake and alert. Prior to James flying out of San Diego, he had driven the WHOLE trip. And when I wasn't entertaining Kennedy in the back, I was half asleep the rest of our travels! :) James jokingly estimated it would take me three days to drive from Chandler to Provo....a drive which the average individual can make in 9 hours. Ha ha! Well, amazingly enough I shocked myself with how much energy I was able to pull together for our drive home and while it took us 12 hours (thanks to 2+ hours worth of food stops and one 20 minute stop for toddler constipation) we did it in one day! Thank you to everyone for their wonderful hospitality. We had such a fabulous time. I wish we could have extended our vacation even longer, but real life calls. It was bittersweet coming home, especially since James was still in New York. He arrived home safe and sound 5 days later after a very successful and energizing first two weeks with Goldman. And now we're back to life as usual.