getting to Oregon

After a harrowing 10 hour trip from Oakland, CA to Bend, Oregon the girls have settled in to the vacation and are having fun playing with Grandpa Brown and Grandpa Gale. It took two days for me to recover from the trip up here.... i'm going to need a vacation from this vacation!

Just to give you an idea... we left our house at 7a.m. and drove to a hotel near the airport where we left our van. Their shuttle service was late, so we hung around there for 20 minutes, waiting for the shuttle, while trying to keep track of our squirrley children and 7 pieces of luggage--including the 2 car seats. I couldn't carry Millie while hauling the rest of the stuff, but we piled her in the van and dragged the rest of the stuff on--and made sure to buy a SmartCart for $2 at the airport so we could manage all the crap. I thought it was silly to get a cart just to go across the street--but it was the best $2 we spent, since the lines for baggage were snaking all around the building. I have never in my life seen it so crowded. So we took a deep breath and got in line. We had an hour and a half, and it took all that time to get through the various lines, check our stuff, get through the security--and the girls were troopers, except for the moment when we were about to go through the metal detector. Then Millie decides she doesn't want to take her shoes off and pitches a total fit and the guard made Penelope put down her Boo toy to go through the belt and she bursts into tears. So I am dragging two wailing flailing children through the metal detector and trying not to make eye contact with anyone when a woman turns to me laughing and says, "are you having fun??" ha!!

We had to race through the entire terminal to get to our gate, which was already half-way through boarding so we had to sit waaay in the back. At least we all sat together. When we took off Millie decided she was afraid to fly and started screaming. I bet the other passengers loooved that. ha!

The flight was actually fairly short and the girls played well enough with their paper dolls and playdoh. While we waiting for our rental van Millie and Penelope raced back and forth like crazy people with too much pent-up energy. Whew! Are you tired of reading this?? Imagine living it!!

Finally we get our van, get loaded, install the carseats and get everyone seated. I had promised them they could watch the DVD players on the way... and then we discovered--no power outlets!! So we unloaded the whole van and got a Toyota Sienna instead. Those are sweet. How am I going to go home and drive my piece o crap van now?

So after all this, we still had to drive 3 hours to get to Bend.... fortunately the girls were happy watching their shows, and they didn't even notice when we got pulled over for speeding and received a $350 ticket. Icing on the cake.

Things are better now, we've had a great time here with the grandparents. We'll try not to speed on the way home!