She is (so) worth it!

Saturday, we decided to take a road trip. Nowhere too far, just a leisurely drive to San Diego and back. I mean, Leah needed her birth certificate, I didn't want to mail that, so - hey - let's drive to San Diego!

Justin had a football scrimmage Saturday morning and then there was the parent meeting after that. So the boys didn't get back until around 10:30. Emma and I ran up to the store to get snacks while the boys packed the car.

Waters - check
Apples - check
EZ Cheese - check
Chicken in a Biskit ...

... wait, what? ...

... no Chicken in a Biskit? I have to tell you that the entire trip was almost derailed for the lack of the required crackers known as Chicken in a Biskit. In the end, Keith was talked down and we did leave town.

Emma and her toons - I love her headphones!

And Justin started the trip with seriousness, or this is his 'mom is taking a picture' face. If you didn't recognize it that is because he's got a few. You will see his signature face later on.

Lunch was drive through and eat in car.

Emma's response to me taking pictures of the drive through window?

Can you hear her saying 'Seriously'? I get that a lot.

I'll bet you are not surprised.

For a 5 hour car drive, I think that we all entertained ourselves very well. There was no 'he's poking me' (Keith kept his hands to himself). Was it because we've never taken a road trip with just the 4 of us or was it because we were all looking forward to seeing Leah?

We saw lots of farms near Yuma, and we saw a small fire in one of the fields. We also passed a few windmills.

We also passed 3 Border Patrol Checkpoints, one in Arizona and two in California. This was the last one and it was just outside Spring Valley. I just loved that we get the stats of their hard work.

By now, we've been in the car a bit too long and now the entertainment gets a little silly.

Well, not all silly. We also were taking pictures.

And I passed the camera to Emma...

... to get a picture of me (in my grandma shades). Pretty good shot, Emma!

... and a shot of Justin with the signature face.

Thankfully, we were close and soon we were there. We hadn't actually got to talk to Leah to let her know we were coming. The actual communication was on Facebook and she hadn't gone online on Saturday, so when we pulled up, no one was expecting us. So, we did have to wait a bit for the girls to come back to the house.

But we did get to take Leah out to dinner.

We drove up to a shopping mall near the house for dinner. We had about a 15 minute wait so we were outside, enjoying the cool breeze, taking pics...

Dad and his girl

Silly together (again).

Two peas in a pod.

Me and my girl.

Dinner was good and we saved some room for had dessert (yummy!). It was so nice to sit and talk with Leah and enjoy her company. It was nice to see her happy.

But all good things come to an end. We took one last pic, drove Leah back home and then started on our long drive home. Five hours later, we crash into bed.

A very long day, so very worth it.

“Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
~ taken from Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkein