Washington Adventure

On Wednesday night my mom, sister, sister-n-law Ashley, Abby and I all left in a van to go to Washington state to visit my grandma and brother. We drove through the night and switch drivers often so we could all get a little bit of sleep. Abby did get car sick on the way and threw up everywhere, but it only happened the one time. Other than that we made it there with no problems. We visited with my grandma Thursday day and tired to get a four generation picture, I say try because Abby hates getting her picture taken at a studio and wouldn't give any sort of smile (at least she didn't cry though).

My grandma bought Abby this baby doll while we were sorting out which pictures we wanted and she just loved it.

Then, since my brother lives so close he came down with his fiancee and her daughter to have dinner with us, he even brought us all roses, what a sweetheart! The next day we were still with my grandma then we went up to stay with my brother, Cliff. We got there that night and met Dori's (Cliff's fiancee) family and had dinner.

Hope ( I seriously had a hard time getting a picture of her face)

The next day we all went to a pumpkin patch that had all sorts of fun things to do for kids. Abby had such a blast there, she fed the sheep and rode bikes and got plenty dirty.

Cliff and Ashley (this was the first time they have been able to meet)Ashley and Rachel hoola hooping (or should I say Ashley hoola hooping and Rachel trying)Abby and hope as dwarfsDori, Abby, and Cliff on a giant pumpkinAbby feeding the sheep, she really enjoyed doing this and when there was no more food she picked up the dirt and tried to feed that to the sheep.Going through the corn maze, Abby is not an indecisive person she knew exactly which was she wanted to go...in a circle!

This toy was in the corn maze and Abby just loved it, she went through it a dozen times and I finally had to take her away because she probably would have spent all day playing with that thing.Abby got nice and dirty after playing in that toy, her hands and knees were the worst.Hope golfing

This is Abby attempting to miniature golf.

This is the huge saw dust pile that had a ton of toys to play with, this was also a favorite of Abby

After the playing we went to the pumpkin patch to find some pumpkins, Abby really did not enjoy being in the wheel barrel until I climbed in with her. Cliff gave us a nice, if not uncomfortable, ride.

We had lunch then off we went to travel home (we decided that we really didn't want to drive through the night again)

CousinsHope was making a snow man out of dirt (her favorite TV show Curious George taught her that)

Abby had a blast playing on Hope's slides

It was getting fairly late, we had been driving for about 4 or five hours already when the real adventure began... the car broke down! Out of now where the car just died. We were very blest with the many things that happened after we broke down. As soon as we pulled off of the freeway and semi driver did too. He tried to help us figure out what was wrong with the car and when he couldn't he helped us find a tow truck and hotels to stay at. He even stayed with us until the tow truck came to make sure that 5 girls alone in a car in the middle of the night were okay and not being taken advantage of. It turned out that he was a member of the church and that it is very uncommon for a semi to pull over on the hill that we broke down on because it is very hard to get going again. (Apparently this hill is pretty notorious for breaking cars down) So the tow truck guy comes and he takes us to a motel that he get really great rates on because he gives them lots of business. (Seriously good rates-another blessing)

Good morning Rachel, time to wake up!

Look Mom, no hands!

We were told that we would probably be able to get the car to a mechanic by 8 am, but it turned out to be 2 pm but we had our heroes come to the rescue. Eric and his dad drove the 8 hours to come and get us and to tow the car back home in case it couldn't get fixed. By the time they got there the car had been fixed but we all decided to travel together just in case. (the problem with the car was that a fuse blew for the ignition-or so we thought) So off we took again thinking we would soon be home, we make it back to the same hill as before and the car just shut down, almost in the exact same spot! The place to rent a trailer was closed but the finally decided to make an exception for us and about two hours later we were finally headed home. Eric and Randy (his dad) were truly the heroes of the day, thanks so much!!! We finally did make it home at about 6:30 am and we all just crashed. Even though we had that car trouble it was a great weekend with family and I was so glad Abby could see them again.