The Great Road Trip 2012

Well...it all began on March 26th (I think)...

We had 8.5 crates worth of stuff. We were 758 lbs OVER our allotted weight. I don't want that bill...

It was a little bit weird to see the house empty out. Our first real home away from home. Brought our first two babies home from the hospital to this house. I had quite a love/hate relationship with it. 

After an overnight flight from Honolulu to the LAX airport - this was the view: fences, smog, cars.

We (me &kids) spent a few hours at the USO at the LAX airport while Brian took a cab to the VPC to pick up our truck. My phone pictures (of the USO and anything else) will have to be a separate post...we all crashed at the USO, except Galina, she watched PBS. Which is why as soon as we started driving, she went right to sleep.

This was seriously the view for the next three days as we traveled to the Grand Canyon.

I couldn't even tell you where this was taken...those first two days are a blur.

But...

we made it to Grand Canyon National Park. 

It was an amazing thing to see. Our stop was very short, as we knew we had a LOT more driving to do, and I don't think we got as much out of it as we would have liked, but I guess we'll aim to make another trip one day. For now, we've seen it.

Back on the road again. I spent most of the journey in the back seat between the kiddos. It was hard work to keep them entertained. I won't lie. And I wished, several times, that we had just flown straight to NC.

But we made it to Texas and stopped at Gaga and Papaw's house for, I think, two days. Then we jumped into a 16 passenger van with Brian's family for a four hour drive to Galveston. 

Uncle Aaron and cousin Olivia (who is 2 weeks younger than Galina). 

Johnny meeting his Uncle Chris, who flew into Texas from Montana for Aunt Tarra's wedding. We missed Aunt Robyn, Sophie and Gunner!

Papaw showing off little crabs. The guys would grab a chunk of seaweed and shake it into their hands...it was not something you'd catch me doing!

Galina was incredibly happy to be at the beach! Even though it was very full of seaweed and was pretty cold. It didn't stop her from walking out into the water and sitting down!

Gaga and Makayla

Sand scrub anyone? 

Cousin Christian and Johnny

Madelyn, Papaw, Olivia and Uncle Aaron

Aaron, Chris, Brian and Richard

All the men :)

The "I'm done with the flash" facel

Johnny's first experience with stairs. It was good practice too, since we now have two flights of them!

Gaga and Johnny

She's such a fish. She went swimming too! Which means that Brian (and Papaw too) went swimming. In May. In the pool. In Texas. It was great!

I had to do some pictures in the bluebonnets! Haven't edited any yet though...soon!

I actually had to tell Galina that we were going to put this Tangled dress away, once we got to Massachusetts. We still haven't, yet.

Yay! Airplane!!

Galina and I flew with PaPaw in his Grummon. We both really enjoyed ourselves! Originally we were just going to do laps on the ground around the runway, but once we were in the plane, the weather seemed to smile on us. So we did a few donuts around the airfield. It was fun! Galina really enjoyed talking on the microphone and listening on the headsets :) 

Happiness :)

She did NOT want to get out of the airplane and we hear a lot about airplanes these days...but it's worth it. She has definite tastes - and airplanes are one of the things she loves. When we were at the airport in HI, it had been almost 2 years since she had flown, and while she was excited to fly - she was also pretty nervous. It was about 8 p.m. when our plane finally parked in front of the window were sitting at in the terminal. It was a big plane, of course, but it took her off guard. She got really, really scared. Shaking. Crying. So, we told her that we'd fly on a different plane if she didn't like that one. She said she'd fly on a small plane, a Cessna. The entire time she was flipping out in the terminal, the lady at the check-in counter was calling passengers left and right (actually trying to get us seats together - our initial tickets had Johnny and me sitting separately from each other and from Brian and Galina). The one passenger she kept calling was "Damien Austin". So - oddly enough - and about two days later- Galina started calling the big planes "Damien Austin Planes". She still does too. It's been a month, Brian and I have never said it, but buddy is that what she calls them. She's so funny. Mind like a steel trap. That's going to be dangerous.

What can I say? I like butterflies.

Our little bird discovering Papaws scrambled eggs, and loving it. Who wouldn't love to have two people that absolutely adore you, sitting on either side of you and offering food?!

Okay, so we had a lot of fun in TX. We were there for about 2 weeks. But I was so anxious to get home. It had been over 2 years since I'd seen anyone in my family but my Mom and Molly (however I was extremely grateful to have seen both of them!). I wanted to be home. Home. Home.

Dinner with all the cousins. She wasn't too sure about everyone, but it did not take her long to warm up! I think it helped that there were animals all over the place, which she adores, and she was able to just play outside. There was dirt, swings, toys, dogs, cats, people...busy, even in the middle of nowhere.

Johnny warmed up to everyone much quicker. He's a sociable little guy. It will lead to my ruin :) I'm not social.

We went to Julia's soccer game, where Kerri was the Assistant Coach. We went to Ella's game too, but those pictures are on Emily's camera!

Can I just ask a favor? Next season, put her hair in a ponytail or pigtails for the bangs at least!

It's funny that, even though I did not grow up on "the farm"- it still feels like home. 

Dad tried so hard to get his plants into the garden, but I'm afraid we kept him too busy and his plants are all 3 weeks behind. I'm hoping we can get home during the harvest, to help (okay, probably hinder) but enjoy some of the spoils! Or maybe, once it's all over Mom and Dad can bring some up here :) hint hint wink wink

We spent a lot of time with Anna - and loved it. I think she said "stupid" once, and that's just a word that I've told Galina not to say, so now, randomly, she'll say, "Mother (yes, she still really calls me that!), Anna said a word we don't say. And Anna's Daddy calls her bonehead."

Love it. 

We tried really hard to get everything together to buy this blasted land. We WANT it! We WANT it! To know that one of these days we'll call it home would be fantastic - especially if Granny and Pop are next door. And Aunt Kerri, Uncle John, Auntie Erin, Uncle Jase - please, oh please, let it happen one day.

Gotta love Pop.

Scratch, scratchy, scratchy...

My kids are lucky - since there are five cousins older than Galina and 11 older than Johnny - Granny and Pop are pros. 

So stinkin' cute. And, I think, he knows it.

Anna showing her muscles!

She's so cute.

The trees are going to burst with fruit this year!

Maybe this video works, maybe not...

If Galina was in the house, awake, she was torturing petting a cat or dog.

Okay - so Jason G. was playing with my camera (a few times actually) and these are his pictures (I think they're excellent, and I have snapshots now!):

There is never a dull moment at the farm. Case in point: Birds in the chimney. Silly blue birds.

You can't see it, in the picture above. But I liked how moody the picture was without "fixing" it. Sorry. It's this massive oak in the front yard that predates the Civil War. It's a pretty awesome tree. Too bad you can't get next to it for poison ivy. Boo.

Yeah, she can climb trees :)

Granny's arms weren't long enough :) So Pop had to get it.

Brilliant blue, right?

I said, "Wait! Wait! Wait! Let me get a shot of you letting it go!"

I think it came out rather nice :) I could wish my shutter speed had been a bit slower. 

Always barefoot. I was worried that we'd get to the mainland during early spring and be plagued by cold weather, but it was actually fantastic in TX and NC. Tender mercies.

These two are going to be trouble.

Sugared peanuts a cookin'!

More Jason pictures :)

One day I'll find the picture of me doing this exact same thing at the woodstove.

We made it out to one of Jason's baseball games. It was an exciting game and I lost my voice. I can't believe that on a Friday night they play baseball until after 9 p.m. I'm so old.

He did awesome!

Then it was back to the farm for a camp out, which was rained out at about 2 a.m. BUT not before s'mores (with peeps, Christmas chocolate bars, and graham crackers - we had to improvise) and hot chocolate!

I bought a speed light - but I'm no good at it. I was practicing in the living room. We stayed up way too late every night, but it seemed like the only time we could really "hang out" without having to jump up to stop kids from arguing, getting food/markers/animals locked in rooms when they weren't supposed to...I enjoyed it. I just wish I could have EVERYONE in the same house all the time. I missed Johnny and Jason and Molly. 

Galina's favorite cat, and mine too incidentally, Steven.

These shots Emily took (and I love them) of Mom saving a turtle on our way back from the strawberry fields.

We spent an afternoon at Auntie Erin's and Uncle Jase's house. Their backyard is kid-Heaven. 

Rollie is huge. Huge. Or Skuge as Galina would've said.

Johnny doesn't look too thrilled with that pink castle. Where's the Tonka trucks?!

I need to get him some boyish toys.

Ed.

The rope swing. It's a blessing and a curse. I don't have any pictures of the baby swing that Granny and Pop got :( but Johnny (and Webee) love it!

I have to say, Cavan kills me. Every time he took a step he was falling down, falling off of things, falling face first, falling, falling, falling. And he was fine. Never complained. Jumped up and kept going. Galina would've sat on the couch after the second fall and never walked again. But he keeps going, and while I had heart failure several times, it was also hilarious. He's a trooper and a sweet heart and purely fun (and pure energy). I don't know how Emily keeps up with him! Busy, busy bee! But she does and is an amazing Mom. I had actually never met Cavan before, but we took to each other like butter and peas. Emily, just so you know, I really missed you and I'm glad you came to stay for that two weeks. I know that's hard to leave home and camp, but, thanks.

Brian tried and tried and tried, worked and worked and worked, to get his jeep road-worthy. But it just didn't happen. The night before we left, we had rented a tow dolly, they took it on a test run and it just wouldn't do it. I'm sad (now) because we only have one vehicle and Brian works 30 minutes away, but I suppose we'll make it. At least it's spring and I can walk on base a lot!

She enjoyed some tractor time with her cousins - as long as it wasn't on, Galina was fine. Silly girl.

I told them to make sad faces, in an effort to curb the silly faces, but it didn't work :)

Drizzle and Buddy. We think that Buddy is actually Bing and George's Dad :)

Johnny hanging out with Aunt Emily!

We made it to Mike's Tree Farm to pick strawberries and, I must say, it was a perfect day. Not too hot and sunny, not chilly, the strawberries were amazing and we bought about $60 worth. Needless to say, we had strawberry shortcake quite a few times (I should say I had it, because I'm fairly certain I ate all of the angel food cake), the kids just ate and ate plain old strawberries, Johnny ate and ate AND ate strawberries drowning in sugar, and 12 jars of good old fashioned strawberry jam later - we can all say that we thoroughly enjoyed them.

Emily and I got to corner Juls, Ella and Anna and make them smile for us :) We had fun playing photographer! Thanks girls!

More Jason pictures (I had no idea he had gotten ahold of my camera so many times):

My childhood friend, Melissa, and her Mom, Dena (who was also my older brother's 2nd grade teacher) drove out to see us! It was fun!

Fake-out high fives. Galina is famous for them. I blame it on Brian.

The cousin line-up. Poor kids - but we're doing it for their own sakes. They'll thank us one day when they can line themselves up as adults and compare :)

Our last night in NC. We rented a tow dolly and all the guys sat around telling John how to do things :) 

Bittersweet. We're leaving. No tow dolly. No jeep. It didn't do so hot on its test run. I'm grateful because it meant that we could do the actual speed limit (well, we probably still shouldn't have because we replaced the tow dolly with a 4x8 trailer) up to Mass. I'm going to call Massachusetts "Mass" because that's what all of the locals do :) When in Rome.

Debating on what to do with all of our many, many things...

NY from a distance. It's 3 hours from my house. I'm not sure that I'll ever go, unless I have family here and Brian can stay home with the kids. I have discovered, after many years, that I prefer the country. Namely, NC. Even more specifically, Maple Hill. I don't particularly care for the city, even though I always thought I did. I don't. There, I said it. Don't rub it in.

In our new house. Stairs. Ugh. That's all I'll say about the stairs. But Johnny and Galina love them!

My poor chair. This happened at delivery. The guy shoved it through the doorway and *rip*. I was a little upset.

Starting to fill up. I hate how much organizing I have to do right now. It feels like I'll never get everything cleaned up and ship-shape.

Now, I'll apologize, but these pictures are out of order and I'm not going to go back and plug them in...

Johnny at the LAX USO. He was out. I had also fallen asleep. Sound asleep. For about an hour. It's a good thing we were locked into the family room, because Galina never fell asleep, and Brian was gone to get our truck from the Vehicle Processing Center. But, in my defense, Johnny and I had literally lost an entire night of sleep. Literally. That was tough, and it took me a few days to get over it.

This is a video from Texas. Galina wanted to ride the big girl bike, until it started moving (wobbling). 

Auntie Erin made several pinterest worthy desserts. Ice cream sundae cupcakes! That's frosting on top looking like a scoop of vanilla ice cream. She also made hot chocolate cookies (no, I think Jason G made them!) and they were scrumptious!

Now this is a picture from the iPad and I think Julia took it. Galina followed Steven and Turkey-boy (as she called him, or sometimes she called him Ham and Turkey boy) and Larry EVERYWHERE! They could not escape her. Sorry cats. 

In our new house - covering Georgie up. I think the dogs missed her just as much as she missed them! And she missed them a lot, but if you could see Bing's tail wag when he sees Galina - it's almost the same as his welcome for Brian. They love her!

This was actually back in Hawaii. Our stuff had been taken and we stayed on air mattresses for a few nights while I cleaned from morning to night. Johnny ended up sleeping with us for the most part. I can honestly say that I am glad to be in Massachusetts if for no other reason than the kids are in their own rooms now, with their own beds. He was still in my bed at 4:30 this morning, but it's my regular bed :) Not an air mattress. Camping is hard.

 Before we left HI, Galina and I got pedicures! She also got a manicure, just because she was so cute and the nail techs were amazed at how still she was and willing to get her hands and feet worked on. We passed a nail salon the other day and she was begging me to go in and let her get her nails done, so much so that she made me paint her nails last night - pink with blue polka dots. I've created a monster :)

A sunset somewhere in New Mexico.

At the Burlington Mall in Massachusetts. Our second or third night here. We had to find a mall, and she chose to make a Kermit and Build-A-Bear. Johnny got an adorable puppy. Galina "washed" Kermit for about 20 minutes and yesterday I asked her (as we always do) when she woke up if she had slept well. She said, "I had a bad dream and a good dream." I asked what the good dream was and she said, "I was giving Kermit his bath in the mall." 

We were so tired of fast food, but didn't have any pots or pans except the broiler pan that our stove came with. It was pretty versatile, with the help of some tin foil. I can rough it. I just would rather not. Really rather not.

Brian took all of our laundry to a camp ground with a laundry room on the base the day before our stuff came. Galina fell asleep on the way there (it was all of a 5 minute drive, but she's been napping lately, busy days). He was, incidentally, asked to leave the camp ground with all but one load washed, because it was for patrons only :) Poor Brian. I always send him on the embarrassing tasks.

Galina was thrilled to have her toys back. She still is. And Johnny is too. She will disappear into her room for 30 minutes at a time, and if you happen to walk by and she sees you, you will be commanded to enter and either read her a story or let her "cook" for you!

Saturday we went to the Franklin Park Zoo. I won't lie, I was disappointed. But, there was a carousel, Galina's first, and Johnny's too! I thought Brian was just snapping a picture, but he was doing video :( And Johnny was NOT sure about that horse at all!

 But Galina was quite happy. The only thing that upset her that day was that the petting zoo wasn't open (only open on the weekends - retarded) and she mentions it hourly. "Are we going to the petting zoo yet?"

So, I think that is all of my pictures from the last month. Whew. We're here. Settling. Hanging pictures on the walls. Spending ridiculous amounts of money (a dryer...blast it all...a tv...random things...moving isn't cheap). Figuring out which ward we are in at Church. Figuring out that we can shop-around here, base is not always cheapest like it was in HI (dang it, I love simplicity). We're here. Together. Healthy. Missing all of our family and loved ones. But - we're here. Massachusetts. Good grief.