Getting There - Mesa, AZ - Part 1

Towards the end of February, we were able to travel to Mesa, Arizona and spend a week with Lance's sister, Melissa.

On Friday, February 26th, Melissa flew into the Ogden airport. She came to help drive me and the kids to Arizona, since Lance would be staying to work. The next week, Lance would fly to Arizona to help drive us home. When she got here, we finished packing everything, loaded it into the car and went to the grocery store for snacks to last us the car trip. We decided to leave Friday evening and stay in St. George for the night.

Around 6:50pm, we were loaded in the car and on our way. The trip to St. George went super smooth. We had eaten dinner before we left, so we didn't really need to stop for anything besides gas and Austin. We took a short break in Scipio to feed Austin and fill up our tank. We got to the hotel around 11:30pm and tried going straight to sleep. The kids were a little wound up and excited about sleeping in a hotel, and Austin was wide awake and ready to play. She was babbling and cooing and being adorable. It took some time, but eventually we all got to sleep. The kids woke us up around 7:30am, and we enjoyed a great breakfast at the hotel. 

Then we got back in the car and prepared to travel all day. We took a small break in Mesquite to fill up on gas, feed Austin, and let the kids get out to stretch their legs. 

The kids enjoyed getting out of the car and running around for a bit. They found a small pond to throw rocks in.  Already, we were enjoying warmer weather.

We stopped in a town somewhere between Vegas and Phoenix for lunch. I want to say it was Kingman. There was a McDonald's with a nice play area. It was a nice stop. The McDonald's had some little computer screens with games. Will would not budge from those. He sits in a car all day long, gets out at a playground, and wants to sit and play games. Figures. 

Austin was probably the most happy to be out of the car. While the kids played, she enjoyed a meal also and got a chance to take a turn at the wheel.

Then we were back on the road. Not too long after we left, in the middle of nowhere, suddenly Blake threw up all over everything. I hate throw-up more than anything. Baby spit-up doesn't faze me. But throw-up...let's just say I almost lost my lunch more than once while trying to clean it up. We peeled her clothes off and had to put them in a grocery bag. Most of it was just all over the front of her, and we got a good portion of it cleaned by just removing her clothes. Good thing we had plenty of wipes with us. 

I tried to clean it as quickly as possible because Austin had finally fallen asleep and we were wasting precious, quite travel time. So we got going again. Blake was fine and started to fall asleep. Right as she started to fall asleep, I heard her making "that sound" and I turned around, trying to stop it. I got my hand there just in time for her to throw up all over my hand and cover herself once again. Because she wasn't wearing anything, this time the car seat took the brunt of it. It was a mess. A big, disgusting mess. I cringe and get queasy just thinking about it. 500 wipes later, I had the car seat somewhat clean and our only option was to keep going and hope that was the last of it. And thank goodness it was.

We had to make a final stop about an hour outside of Mesa to get gas. Blake's clothes were buried in the back, so Melissa let her borrow one of her shirts. She looked a bit a lot homeless. Don't worry, we definitely took her into the gas station looking like this. Good times. 

Melissa and I were hoping for a nap so we let Will take a turn at the wheel...for about 15 seconds. Then as Melissa was pulling out of the gas station, she suddenly pulled over and said she felt extremely dizzy. She was experiencing some pretty bad vertigo and was not able to drive. I jumped back in the driver seat so that she could lay down and try to feel better. With only 1 hour left, we were all anxious to get to her house and hoped that we didn't have any more problems. 

We left St. George around 8:30am Saturday morning. With all of the unexpected stops, we didn't arrive in Mesa until after 5pm. It was a long day, and I was more grateful than ever that we had gone to St. George the night before. There was no way we would have survived another 5 more hours.

I'm not sure whether the drive made me want to do more road trips because it went better than I expected, or if I'll never travel with young kids again. Honestly, there were moments I swore I was never getting back in the car again (mostly around the time I was cleaning throw-up off Blake). And there were definitely moments with Austin that just made me feel bad. She would scream and scream, just wanting to get out of her car seat. But I felt like it was pointless to stop. If we stopped and got her out, she would be fine, but the second we put her back in she would start screaming again. And it would have just prolonged the trip even more. She did alright, though she did do a fair share of screaming.

Up next: Summer in February - Mesa, AZ - Part 2