Our visit to Blythe

We went to Blythe from the 16th-23th. We had to drive to the airport in Kansas City, MO and the weather was pretty bad. It was snowing the entire way and although it was clear enough to drive it wasn't a very relaxing trip. Then we had to park in the economy parking lot and then drag all of our stuff to the shuttle bus. The snow plows hadn't been in the parking lot yet, so we had to carry the kids to the bus stop and then Roy went back and did about three trips to get all of our bags (we only had four, but when you can't roll them in the snow they are harder to carry!) It was SO cold!

We got to the airport and checked in just fine. Once we were on the plane they told us they had to de-ice it and it would take about 10 minutes. Well, it took more like 25 minutes. Ugh. But the kids were good and the flight went well. Oh, except that Blaise pooped and the airplane didn't have a changing table in the bathroom, so I had to change him on our seat! I felt bad for the people around us but it was stupid Southwest's fault anyway. We were late getting to Phoenix but our flight out of Phoenix was delayed too, so that was fine. Yup, that's right, we had to change plans in Phoenix to get to Ontario. We wanted to fly into Phoenix, but it was cheaper to fly into Ontario, but then we had to change plans in Phoenix anyway! Silly.

Anyway, we got to Ontario and my mom and dad picked us up (they got stuck in LA traffic and it took them longer to drive from LA to Ontario than it did for us to fly from Phx to Ontario!) We headed to my brother Aaron's house for some tasty homemade pizza and then back on the road. It was about 8:30 by now, which is 11:30 MO time, so the kids fell asleep pretty quickly in the car. We stopped in Indio for a "quick" trip to WinC0 (oh I miss that store so much!) and then back on the road. I think we got home around 1am and we woke the kids up so they could see the dog and cat :) They played around for a while and then we all went to bed.

It rained the first day in Blythe but the other days were nice and we just enjoyed hanging out with Granny and Papa and going to the park a few times. It was great to be able to go outside! Rae and Blaise LOVED being in Blythe and LOVE their grandparents! On Sunday night we had a fire in the fireplace and an impromptu visit from my dad dressed up as Santa, which ended with us opening our presents from each other. On Monday night I convinced my parents to have our "Christmas Eve pigout" early. Every year we save all of our Christmas goodies that we get from people and on Christmas Eve we put it all out and eat cookies, candy, beef stick, cheese, crackers, popcorn and whatever else for dinner. It was fantastic. :) Yum, yum, yum.

Tuesday morning my dad drove us to meet my inlaws in Needles (halfway point between Blythe and Las Vegas) I'll post later about our visit to Vegas. Here are some pictures from Blythe:

Making a gingerbread house on the rainy day
As you can see the kids were doing more eating than helping!

The finished product. The frosting was really hard to work with and
I gave up after the first few windows :)

Eating the finished product

Roy's way of eating the gingerbread.

Petting Chica

My parents gave Blaise a stuff Barney for his birthday - he is still in love with it

They traded clothes. Blaise's pants make great capris for Rae!

Hanging out in front of the fire

This was Rae's favorite place to be - perched on grandpa's shoulder!
He tolerated a lot during our visit!

More to come later today - I need to go pay attention to my kids!