Smooth Sailin'

We finally made it to the beach! A group of friends in Ridgecrest go every year, and we had to move to Utah so we could go with them. Here's a short synopsis of our trip, starting, mind you, the day after our very fun (and long) day at Lagoon.

Saturday: Packed up the truck and got on the road. Stopped in Salt Lake for lunch, went to pick up Katie Anne and got a handful of, well, sunshine? No, you know what it was. Changed her blowout and thought, well, there's our bad moment of the trip. The rest will be smooth sailin'! Made it to Hurricane where my sister, Betsey, had prepared us a fantastic dinner of barbecued ribs and fresh corn on the cob.

Sunday: Miracle! We all made it to church ON TIME at 9:00. Lovely meetings, not so lovely gray smoke coming from the muffler of the truck. Later in the day we found that there was a blown headgasket. (Let me insert here that on Thursday before the truck was over heating but it was found to just be a disconnected hose. I thought, Well, there's our big problem with the truck. Now it's fixed and things will be smooth sailin'.) (Let me also insert here that when someone says, "I was so mad I blew a gasket" then that means something REALLY REALLY BAD and probably expensive too.)

Sunday evening: A sister in Mark's ward had passed away and her husband was building the casket from a kit (it actually looked really nice from what I understand). One of the things one needs to complete it is a LOT of shredded paper, so that was our activity that night. It was actually a very interesting type of service and the thoughts that come to one involved in that, or in my case, observing others doing it, are worth thinking about more than once.

Monday: John and my nephew, Jay, changed the brakes on one of Mark's 15 passenger vans. THANK HEAVENS for brothers with 15 passenger vans. We can't thank them enough for letting us use it! We took out the back rows and loaded our stuff from the truck into the van. We got the car seats installed, the bags of entertaining toys deposited at each seat, and the snack bag situated within my reach. We set the Garmin Nuvi to Refugio Beach, and away we went! You should know here that it was now 4:00 but we were blessed to still be able to go and I thought, we are doing this! Smooth sailin'!

Tuesday: In the wee hours of the morning, after a long drive, with one or the other of the little girls being VERY LOUD for a good deal of the trip, we pitched a tent and fell, grateful to be alive, dead asleep. Just a few minutes into this luxury, a train that couldn't have been more than 3 feet away, roared by, and then, the rest of the night was spent in blissful slumber. After we awoke and took in the beautiful surroundings of our campsite, we went about the business of creating our home for the next 4 days. Our friends, the Turner's, arrived early and the fun began. We spent a few cold hours at the beach, then returned to camp for showers (25 cents for 2 minutes), dinner, and catching up with the rest of our friends who by now had trickled into camp. We ended up with about 15 families that we knew, and 5 of those within close proximity.

Wednesday: Attempted some time at the beach again, which was about a block from our tent door to the ocean waves. The kids had a blast with their friends, and I had a blast with mine!

Thursday: The blessed day of July 2 greeted me with balloons and streamers hanging from our EZ up. Thanks, girls! I got lots of happy birthday wishes. The kids attended a little Jr. Rangers program where they made a puppet and learned about sea animals. Then the women all took off for Ming Dynasty where we enjoyed Mongolian Barbecue and good conversation. Thanks again :) But the fun doesn't stop there! We went to Kmart where I found my birthday present waiting for me, a blue souvenier sweatshirt. That night we had dough boys (worthy of it's own blog post) and s'mores, and even strawberry cheesecake with one candle in it. Thank heavens they didn't start a forest fire by putting on all #% candles!

Friday: The day I'd been waiting for...a warm day at the beach. Did I mention how cold we were most of the time? But it was o.k. because we were a) at the beach and b) in good company. But, it was nice to have a perfect day at the ocean. I even walked in a ways to prove I could. John got to try kayaking and loved it, and the kids dug holes and found little bugs and Jack boogie boarded a bit. Very nice! That evening John and I went to dinner with the Jensens, Cannons, and Turners to AJ Spurs steak house. One of the teenagers from one of the families was our babysitter. It was fun to get away for a date.

Saturday: Time to go! We packed up camp, said our goodbyes, and drove off. What a way to spend the 4th of July! It was actually kind of neat to see a few little towns and watch the landscape change from lush and green to dry and brown. Our drive home was fairly uneventful. We had a great lunch at In-N-Out, Katie Anne had another blowout, and life was, you know it, smooth sailin'. We made it to Hurricane in time for fireworks so we didn't totally miss the Independence Day festivities.

Sunday: We left after sacrament meeting to go home. We stopped for a wonderful lunch in Enoch at our friends the Bennion's. It was fun to visit and meet their sweet new baby. We pulled in our driveway at 7:30 and made quick work of emptying the van. I've made slow work of cleaning up, washing 8 loads of laundry, but we're getting there. (Are you wondering about the truck? It cost a pretty penny to fix but should not have ANY MORE PROBLEMS! My brother will bring it tomorrow and take his pretty van home with him.)

Monday: What? What's that you say? Vacation is over? No way! My parents had irrigation that day at 1:00 and we couldn't pass up the chance to play in the water. And, like always, we had a hard time leaving and stayed for dinner. Work will wait, fun will not. Well, that's not a very promising way to live, but once in a while I recommend it! So, we're back to 'normal', whatever that is, and from here on out it's Smooth Sailin'!