day one

Our initial POA (plan of action) was to be out of our house and on the road by 8am. Reagan had other plans *big surprise* so we were on our way by 7am. We were already at Gila Bend by the time we had wanted to leave. The drive went relatively smoothly, or as smoothly as a long drive can be with a four month old and a two year old. We only had to stop three times which we consider to be fairly miraculous.

Luke Ready: check.

Reagan ready: check.

Car packed: check.

Me and Keith ready: let's hope so...

Our first stop was in Dateland, home to the World Famous Date Milkshakes. Sounds completely disgusting if you ask me. Reagan and I spent a half hour of quality nursing time in an abandoned RV parking lot while Keith got the lucky job of chasing Luke and Buzz Lightyear around with the camera.

Our second stop was at the McDonald's in El Centro. Keith and I realized that this was the first time we'd ever gone out for a meal on our own as a family. I don't think we even took Luke out with just the two of us even before Reagan came along. Either way we had a good time eating nuggets and people watching. There are some interesting characters in El Centro. One such character, a man who was rummaging through the garbage cans to save all of the water bottles to recycle, got an eyeful as I was nursing Princess in the parking lot there. I seem to be spending a lot of time today nursing in random places...

Luke is not a public pooper, and I can fully say that I understand his hesitation. We had quite the issue today as he was with us the entire time and wasn't able to sneak away for his usual private poo time. By the time he was ready for his nap in the afternoon, he was pretty miserable. Looking in the rear view mirror, we just saw Luke cover the top half of his body with his blanket and we heard him start to make soft grunting sounds. It took the poor kid almost half an hour to finish getting all the poop out. All that poo made for a foul and disgusting smell in our car. This called for our third stop of our trip. We ended up pulling over to the side of the road and Keith changed Luke in the front seat of the car. Picture a rather tall and lanky two year old trying to cram himself on the front seat of our car to have his booty cleaned. I'd show you a picture, but I didn't take one because I didn't think it was really that appropriate.

We made it here around 2pm, but the hotel wouldn't let us check in until 3. We waited in the parking lot, counting the minutes until we could get to our room and rest. What to do to pass the time with two antsy kids? My go-to solution-take pictures.

After nap time, we headed out to dinner with some fabulous ladies: Andi, Gail, Stef, and Stef's madre, Nancy. Luke took to Nancy right away and had a blast with her. I hope she didn't mind that Luke can tend to be a touchy-feely type of kid. I ended up having to feed Reagan in the parking lot...again. This time, I had an older couple that I'm pretty sure was waiting for a to-go order watch me the entire half hour I was feeding her. Can you say awkward?

We took these same types of pictures of Luke during his first trip to a hotel when he was about the same age. Had to make sure Reagan had the same pictures!

Luke had some sock issues that he had to let us know about.

We had orginally requested a King suite (meaning a king bed), but the crazy girl at the check-in gave us a double room instead. By the time we made it up here, the kids were in dire need of a nap, so instead of going back to check-in to wait in line again to have us changed, we sucked it up and made the best of it. It actually is working out perfectly. We thought Reagan would sleep in the pack-n-play, but Luke wanted in there so bad that he is sleeping in there, Reagan is sleeping on one of the double beds, and Keith and I are sharing the other double. Of course, Princess reigns again.

We're getting ready for bed now and I'm really looking forward to a good night sleep-or really any sleep at this point. Tomorrow should be a lot of fun. We get to cheer on Andi, Gail, and Stef as they run the half Rock 'n' Roll Marathon and then take Luke and Reagan to their first trip to the beach. If there's time, we might even take a quick run over to Sea World too. Can't wait for the fun stuff and SO glad the driving part is over!