3 weeks, 5,000 miles, and 80 hours in the car!

Yeah, you'd be pooped, too!! I hope to expand our trip to multiple posts, but for now, here's a condensed travel log.

We started off with our venture to AZ for Eric's Bar exam. The girls had a blasting fun time hangin' out with the aunties while I took Eric for his two day exam (two nights without the kids! Boy it would have been magic if there wasn't stress of the career making exam in the morning!!). Then no time to de-stress- we're off to Orem, Utah where we crash at my mom's parents home, Grandma and Grandpa Cowley.

Seriously! We crashed! And then we took a day to play in their HUGE back yard. The girls had lots of fun checking out Grandpa's vegetable garden and fruit trees. He's always gotten super yummy food to grow!

Then up north through the brown hills of northern UT, ID, and Oregon for the Payne Family reunion (I'm working on that post!) Here are pics of our smaller Payne family before the chaos of my Dad's large family reunion at the Portland, OR Temple. There was a steep slope up to the Temple with this cool bench where we found the greatest chance for a photo shoot!

Me and my sistas! Missed you Marisa!

Debbie, Becca, Me, Stephanie

Our Fish extension of the Payne's.

After the reunion we headed back to the southwest. Here is our dinner stop in Ashland, OR where we picked a pasta/pizza joint for a small celebration of Kallyn's birthday. Once again we are traveling on her Birthday! Poor girl! But check out that Icecream!!!! It's almost as dazzling as the birthday girl.

Along the Oregon drive we found a HUGE patch of yummy wild blackberries and totally pigged out! Some of us even passed out it was so delicious! Right Becca?



Gridley, CA Ben &Heather Payne home

Then we stopped in Gridley, CA for a very much needed rest from the car! My dad's brother (just one younger than him) and his family live amongst some large amount of land where they grow the yummiest fruits and veggies, and HOT! HOT! HOT! Thai peppers! Eric still feels the burn in his gut! Thanks Dad for initiating him to the really cool group of wild guys that eat smokin' hot peppers for the fun of it! He really thought he was finally cool, I mean HOT!

Aunt Heather threw some of her peppers into jelly for us to take home. And she baked up a birthday cake for Kallyn!!! My cousin Brennah (learn about her here in the LDS "The Friend" magazine) made my girls feel at home with all her baby dolls. And then she pampered them with nail polish and hairdos! Eric had fun hangin out the with teenager boy cousins showing off I-pod games and pool table tricks! I had fun just admiring thier huge kitchen and looking forward to having my own kitchen someday!

Yosemite

Next we drove to Yosemite. It was fun to hang out, but man the traffic was like manhattan!!!! There were so many cars and people it really detracted from the whole beauty of it all. But we had fun and I even got my National Parks Passport stamped!

Then it was back to Pheonix for another Birthday celebration for Kallyn!!! I think she's just a little spoiled!

Then we planned to drive home to Farmington, but Eric's mom called with bad news. Our bedrooms (AKA the 5th wheel trailer out front) was unplugged and there was no AC power! So we resorted to the next best thing! Las Vegas!!!

We got to stay at the Excaliber Resort on the strip and we spent nearly all day walking up and back to see the sights, and I am fine if I never see those sights again. However, I would love to see the people we got to visit with!!! Becky and Dillon Coil and their girls, Ellie, and Leah! What fun it was to hang out and play Settlers of Catan again!!! And St. Petersburg, and Ticket to Ride, and stay up till 4:30 am as if we didn't have kids and responsibilities to wake up to!

We also got to visit my Uncle Dale and Aunt Anette. We had a great time feeding their horses and swimming in their pool to cool off! And they let us come to their Ward on Sunday even though we didn't have the right clothes!

Then on our way back to Farmington we stopped in Kingman to say Hi to Eric's Uncle and his family. Our little Hi ended up being 4 days as they refused to let us leave and take the girls home away from them!!! Ha Ha!! And somehow they convinced us (more like they convinced the girls) that we need turtles so when their turtles hatch we already have claim on 2 of them!! Shhhh!! Don't tell Eric!

Did I tell you that the road to Uncle Kelly's house is a "Roller Coaster Road"? Well isn't it obvious???  They even have a picture taker thing that gets a shot of you right as you get that tummy floppin feeling! But you don't have to pay an arm and a leg and an ear for the silly keychain souvenier, but you get the picture free to put on your blog to prove that your kids indeed are enjoying the family vacation!