There and back again (A hobbit's tale by bilbo bagins)

Ok not a hobbit's tale, My tale. It just popped into my head. Anyway, while waiting at a red light today, I inched up closer to the beater in front of me to read the homemade bumper sticker in the window. It said, "Sorry for driving too close to your front bumper." I got a good laugh out of that.

The trip went well. I thoroughly enjoyed being in everyone's company.

Thursday night, Geoff left class a couple hours early and we hit the road by 8:00. We were in Boise by 1:30 a.m. and stopped at a hotel for a couple hours of sleep. We were up and away again by 7:30 the next morning, and in Pendleton, OR before noon the next day. We were too early to check in to our hotel, so we drove a little further to Stanfield and visited Grandma Lemmon. She is just the sweetest lady. She was a lot more talkative than the last time I'd seen her, too. She was making a lot of jokes and having a nice time. It was really so great to see her.

Then we had nowhere to go for awhile, so we pulled into a gas station parking lot in Umatilla and put our pillows over our faces and fell asleep for an hour. I'm sure we looked so trashy but we were so wiped out. Upon waking, we went to Geoff's mom's house and visited for awhile. We met Geoff's soon-to-be sister-in-law, Heather, who is our age. She was super super nice. Even Denise's fiance was way more talkative than the first time I'd met him (I think he was post-surgery at that time and a little loopy on painkillers way back then.) There were a bunch more people there too that we've never met - some of his family and friends, who were all so nice. We felt right at home even though we hardly knew anybody.

We left and met Geoff's dad at a restaurant, ordered dessert and exchanged Christmas gifts and chatted for a good three hours almost. It was such a nice talk, and I really can't say how great it was to see him and just talk for forever. He had a recent injury on the job, but he seemed like he's doing very well too, which was good for Geoff and me. I love Geoff's family so much. They are such great people.

After that, we went back to Geoff's mom's for dinner and spent some time talking to the ten-year old girl that was there (the daughter of some of the people.) She was so dang funny. She kept eating all of these raw peppers, and she just kept eating and eating them until her mom made her stop, then she ate ice-cream and tons and tons of carrots and cucumber. She asked us each what our favorite bug is and told us about her friend, who has this friend, who has this friend, who swallowed a lightening bug once and it crawled back out his throat. (So she said). And she only had one of her ears pierced because the other one healed and she just never got around to taking the other earring out. Then she gave everyone a hug goodbye. She was so funny. Anyway, we were back at our hotel in Pendleton and asleep by 10 p.m.

Got up way early the next morning and back to Geoff's mom's for breakfast, then we went to the church to set up chairs and tables for the ceremony. They had four cakes - three from Costco and one that her friend had made her. A lot of people showed up - they have a huge family. The ceremony itself was only about 2 minutes long, then the realization of now Geoff has step-family. Crazy! Anyway, we saw a lot of people there too that we haven't seen in forever! Not since our wedding!

Chris, Angela and Nicholas came just in time for the ceremony - they'd driven straight from the coast. (Chris is Geoff's brother, Nicholas is their kid; he's eight). Geoff and Nicholas and I played basketball after the chairs were cleaned up. The five of us met Geoff's dad for dinner about an hour later at a nice restaurant, and talked about Chris's funny Ambien stories and how Geoff got knocked out by a small kid when they were younger and earned him the nickname "the one-punch kid." Ha ha! We laughed a lot. After dinner, Chris and Angela left to party with some friends and we babysat Nicholas for the rest of the night. We took him bowling and played two games. He showed us his Michael Jackson dance at the bowling alley. He's so funny; he acts like he's shy but he has absolutely no problem showing off. He let me make a video of his dance: (Will try to post on the next post, if I can get it to work).

Geoff and I cancelled our second night in Pendleton and got a hotel room where Chris and Angela were staying so we could be closer to Umatilla. Angela pulled some strings and got us a great deal on a nice room! So after the bowling alley, we went back to our hotel room and I laid down on the bed while Geoff and Nicholas put his telescope together. They took it out to the back of the hotel where it was dark and looked at the moon. I came out to see, it was pretty cool. Geoff asked Nicholas what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he said either a fire fighter or a garbage man. (ha!) When asked why a fire fighter, he said because you get to help people, and when asked why a garbage man, he said because of the money. (Ha ha! Like we're talking to a little grown up. He was so funny).

I fell asleep on the bed again while they came back and took the telescope apart again and put it away. I could hear them watching bully beatdown (an incredibly cheesy show on the "man channel") as I fell asleep. I was told later that I talked in my sleep, telling Geoff it was okay if he ordered room service because I was hungry - Nicholas got a kick out of that. We all kind of dozed off until C & A picked him up at 3 a.m. and then we went back to sleep for a couple more hours.

Sunday morning, we had breakfast with the new Mr. & Mrs. Brown, Chris and Angela, and Don's sister and brother in-law. We fueled up and were on our way again by 9 a.m. PST (10 a.m. our time). That is a long-a$$ drive! We agreed if we ever move any further south, we will be flying up there intead of driving. Poor Geoff drove most of the way because I kept getting tired, but we made it home by 8 p.m., which is pretty good time. We listened to NPR writing shorts for the Utah portion of the drivel; it was interesting. And the roads were kind, the whole way. We hit a minor snowstorm in Idaho, but it didn't stick to the roads.

So even though we are still trying to catch up on sleep, we did have a great time spending time with family. I really, really enjoyed it so much.