There was a conference held for Tom’s job at the beginning of August in California. We talked about turning it into a family vacation and with the Okay from Tom’s bosses…..We were headed West!!! We all got to go and have some family time, Tom got to work and we can thank his bosses for being awesome and letting us have a family trip tagged on to a work trip.
We got up at 3am on the 4th of August to head out, we figured the girls would sleep all the way to Abilene, the first half of our day was smooth sailing.
We made it to Pecos Texas and decided we should have some lunch. We stopped at the DQ because it had a playground for the girls to play for a little while.
on the road…..
Passing through El Paso and you can see Mexico, here is Tom driving and Mexico right there!! It was kind of crazy to be able to see another country just across the road.
We made it to our first stop, we were going to be staying in Las Cruces, NM. We made great time, it was about 3pm when we got there. Long story short, we noticed the air in the car was acting up the last couple of hours into NM, we ended up driving through the night to California. We had already checked into the hotel so we took advantage of the pool, grab some dinner and then headed back out at about 6pm to get to California. You can read the whole story here… http://www.tomsepper.net/2011/08/25/goodbye-trailblazer/
Here are the girls enjoying the office chair, they would spin round and round.
The girls enjoyed getting a break in the pool, the were able to burn some energy.
We grab a quick bite to eat at Cracker Barrell before it was time to hit the road again.
As the sun started to set and we entered through the rest of New Mexico there were signs warning of strong winds and dust storms. They were not kidding, this large cloud of dust was moving fast and we ended up driving right through it.
After the storm, the sunset was so pretty.
Karyn catching some zzzzz’s. Both girls did pretty good considering our plan was to sleep in a hotel and not the car.
After 26 hour adventure…we had made it safely to San Diego. We arrived at the hotel at about 4:30 am, Tom checked us in and we headed to the McDonalds down the street for some breakfast and an area for the girls to play. During this time, Tom and I made a plan for the day, headed back to the hotel and hung out waiting for our room. Check-in was at 3pm so we had a long time to wait, luckily since Tom signed us in earlier we were 1st on the list. About 7am a bell hop brought us our room key and we could go up. Thank goodness because I think the girls were wearing out their welcome in the lobby. We were on the 8th floor and had a beautiful view of the harbor and downtown.
After we got checked in, Tom headed out to sell the Trail Blazer and I took the girls down to the boardwalk to walk around.
Since we ended up having a whole extra day in town, we decided to take a walk to downtown and see what was around. We had lunch at the Hard Rock and checked out some shops.
Later that afternoon we took the girls to check out the trains and trolley’s. They loved them!
As a fun treat we took the girls to a make your own yogurt place. You pick out the yogurt and add your own toppings. It was fun.
There was a patio outside and a view of the water. It was nice to sit outside and not melt. We enjoyed seeing all the people about and we were almost chilled. We were not missing the 108 degree weather back home.
Just happened to catch this one just right, one of my favorites. Sisterly love.
Girls are clean and ready for bed, enjoying a little Toy Story before bedtime.
Up next….Sea World.
