2nd Half of February Road Trip

I know that everybody has been sick with anticipation to see how the second half of our road trip went.  Sadly to say, I have dropped the ball and left you hanging.  I meant to blog right away but mountains of laundry, grocery shopping (not one speck of food in our house after a months absence), and once again the flu bug gracing us with it's presence has stopped me.  Thankfully we are all recovered now and have settled back into a routine.  I take that back.  Nothing about our life is "routine" right now.

The second half of our trip went A LOT smoother than the first half, which was quite a relief!  We had a wonderful time relaxing with my (Angie's) dad at his place in Arizona.  He lives outside of Phoenix right on the edge of the desert.  It is a very beautiful and peaceful place to be.  Colton was excited when he learned that my dad's neighbor, Harvey, has a garage full of r/c model airplanes!  A group of Harvey's friends often drive out to an old abandoned road in the desert to fly their airplanes.  Colton LOVED watching the airplanes and asked roughly a million questions while they flew.  

Colton and Macie watching r/c airplanes fly in the desert.

Remember our trip to Alaska back in October when our family was freezing in the 12 degree weather and the locals told us that it was just a fall "chill" and not really cold yet?  It was quite opposite in Arizona!  I went to a play group with Colton dressed in flip-flops and  shorts and noticed the local kids "layered" up with long sleeves and jeans.  74 degrees to us felt like summer, definitely not winter.

On our way home to WA we broke the trip up into smaller "chunks" and tried not to stress out about making good time.  We stayed in So Cal for a few days to visit friends that we had missed because of the car trouble we faced on our first pass through LA.  We had our last In-N-Out burger in Redding, CA *sniff* which brings the grand total of In-N-Out burger visits to five (such restraint we have).  We stopped in Medford, OR for the night on the way home and stayed in a hotel with an indoor pool to have some fun, and most importantly, burn off the kids' energy before the last leg of the trip!  

Mmmmm coffee and sugar...good for driving.

If any of you are setting out on a road trip with a 4 year old and a 2 year old, ask Mike and I for some pointers.  We have a bit of experience under our belts now.  About 3,200 miles worth of experience racked up in one month!

Where does our family go from here?  We are staying in the WA area until May and then we plan to go up to Alaska again for a couple of weeks.  After our trip to Alaska we will be home in WA until our training beginning in August out in Nampa, ID at MAF headquarters.