Worst Trip Ever...Seriously

This last weekend we went down to mesa to...

1. visit the wells, and the griffin clan.
   
2. UVU Envision was competing in a competition there.

The first reason for going down was awesome. Audrey had a ton of fun playing with gavin...although she may have been a little too rough with him. Sorry jen and Jason. She also had fun playing with Michaela. Audrey really likes to study her and find out what bigger girls do. It was great.

The second reason for going down was great too. Envision did really well at the competition. They didn't make it to finals. I think they were like 7 points away but at least they found out where they stand and what they need to do for the next month. In Utah they really haven't had a chance to get real score or even real tapes because the judges here are not qualified to judge a world team...but enough about that. They all had a fun time and bonded as a team.

I'm sure your wondering about how this could be the WORST TRIP EVER if the main two objectives for going down were great. Well....i'll tell ya.

The drive down is about 11 hours. According to Google maps. we left at 5:30 in the morning and actually had been making great time considering we needed to stop every 3 hours so that audrey could have a break. we rolled into pheonix at about 5. But we still had about 45 more minutes left to mesa. (phenoix is big...wow!) Anyway we needed to stop for gas because we would not have made it the rest of the way. Audery was in the back asleep and woke up when we stopped moving. She then realized that the trip was not over because we were only at a gas station. How do you explain to a 2 year old that you only have 45 more minutes. She doesn't understand that. When she realized this she got really upset and started crying and crying. at this time i did not realize that she was over heated and dehydrated. (that was katherines job since she was sitting next to her but katherine slept over 7 hours of the drive and i didn't realize that she wasn't getting fluids and that it was hot back there) Because she was so hot and deydrated her little bodu did what if felt it needed to to do....vomit. She only threw up a little. I was able to change her, give her a baby wipe bath and get her calmed down. While katherine cleaned out the seat. Only a small amount got on the seat. Most of it landed on her. i figured that we could put a towel down and then i could throw the seat cover into the wash when we got to jason and jens.

As i was putting her back into the seat she got upset again and starting being hysterical and this time she upchucked the entire contents of her stomach. Poor thing. I pulled her out of the seat and ran across the parking lot to a savers and asked for a restroom to clean her up they were happy to oblidge and i was able to give her a sink bath with soap and warm water. At least she didn't smell bad. After that i took her over to the toy section and run around there for a little while and to calm down.

This time there was no saving the car seat it was everywhere. Katherine did the best that she could but I made an executive decision that we were going to buy a new seat. If we were 10 or 15 mintues from jen and jason that would have been a different story but we still had to go 45 minutes. That's Salt Lake to Orem. And that just isn't fair and rather gross. about 3 blocks away was a super target so we pulled in purchase a new seat (thank you mom) put it in the car and finished the drive. If we had enough room in the car I would have wanted to save the old seat and bought an new cover because the seat was perfectly fine. But alas there was no room in the car. we were filled to the max.

Now i'm sure your asking why could you not buy a new cover why a whole now seat? I can answer that...they didn't sell just a seat cover. I think if we were at babies r us we would have been able to get a new cover but i was not willing to drive around looking for one.

old car seat

New car seat

I didn't get to look at the time but i don't think we got back on the road til after 6:30. But it had been long enough and she had calmed down enough that it wasn't a big deal to put her back in. And we made it to jen and jasons without a hitch.

Then that night....I'm not going to get into it. All you need to know is she didn't sleep well and she wanted her dirty vomit blanket that was in the wash.

Saturday was a good day. Nothing bad to report. Except that the mini van broke down and mom had to use her car to drive people and so katherine and I had to borrow jens. And jen wasn't too excited about that. But she let us use it anyway. She's such a great sister.

Sunday was the drive home. first off Andi woke up at 6 to shower and be ready at 7. Katherine and i got up at 6:30. At 7:15 mom called to tell us she just woke up and the rest of the team was still asleep. We didn't leave til after 9.

Then in flagstaff the mini van broke down again and everyone had to turn around and find them. Which took about and hour and half. and then one car was too far ahead and just went on the the grand canyon. So we stuffed one more into moms car and 2 people into a one person seat in justins car. We finally made it to the grand canyon and it was like 5. the other car had been waiting for us for about 2 and a half hours. I was pissed about being at the grand canyon (i had never been there before) because we had over 8 more hours and I didn't want the same thing to happen that happened on the drive down. If audrey was not in the car i could have cared less and I actually would have enjoyed myself. We're going this summer so that i can have a good time. So we didn't roll into Orem until after 1 in the morning. Awesome right.

I guess this post should be titled worst car ride ever not worst trip ever.

Anyway that was the awesome trip to Mesa

Love,
Elizabeth, Patrick and Audrey