California here we come (Part 8: There and Back)

The finale...

We had so much fun getting there and back.

You would think that 32 hours in the car (round trip) with three kids and 1 adult would be horrid... 

But we had fun.
Getting close to our old home... Walnut Creek, CA, East Bay.
This Golden Hills get me.

Keeping the kids busy in the car.
Merrick "navigating" with a Portland map. hehe

Berkleigh doing "homework". I love that she thinks it is fun.

We got to stop on the way to grandma's at our Bay Area friends, the Heymans.

We had such a fun time hanging with them. 

They have been such great friends and it was fun cause they had Kate a week after we had the twins.

We spent many a date night, family night, random holiday, park days with them...

Here is Merrick, Berkleigh, and Kate at their first play date ever...

And some other play dates...

 They came down to Disneyland and we got to go get some Yogurtland with them.

Now there is Macy, Quincy, and Jenny is prego with baby number 3.
Oh, how time flies.
Here is our latest play date while we visited them this a couple weeks ago.

Thanks Heymans for letting us play!

We hit the Orange County line right at 9:30 when Disneyland was shooting off fireworks.
It was Orange County welcoming me back home.

Ahh. Love you Orange County.
I will live in your boundaries again some day.
Maybe when we are old and we will work at Disneyland....

On the way back to Oregon, we ran into some traffic...

like 7 miles in 2 hours kind of traffic.

So I took pictures as we sat on the 5.

Tyson got us a hotel right off the 5 around midnight cause I was too tired to continue driving.
It was a $100 room cause it was in the middle of nowhere. Well this nice man ran to Denny's and got me a coupon. He saved me $30.
What a nice guy!

To get out some energy from the car we had a little jump session.

We had a few hiccups on the way home...
like the DVD player quit working, SO we counted RVs.

Looked at the beautiful scenery...

And welcomed the Oregon state line.

 And it was so nice to see Tyson again.
He again had a beard. I see a pattern.
When we leave he gets all Grizzly Adams.
ha.

And that is the end of a VERY long, wonderful, trip.

I already miss my peeps, the weather, the beach, and especially family.
Until next time...