Alright, in the last blog I mentioned that I have been back on the east coast for a week. Well that was after spending a couple of weeks away from it. A couple weeks ago we set off from Groton to drive to Arizona. With my niece Hailey and of course Jolene on board it was destined to be an interesting trip. I had hoped that having the extra kid might make things easier because they were able to entertain each other. And for the most part I was right, the two of them didn't start to get sick of each other until we actually reached Arizona and I think that Hailey wanted her nannie and papa to herself. So the trip out west was pretty good, well except the horrific traffic we encountered on that first day. That and for some unknown reason our GPS sent us off the interstate and we ended up on some road called the 30 for what had to have been at least an hour. So that's an hour at least lost just because of that. We should have made it to Illinois on our first night but didn't even make it into Indiana. Instead we stopped in Ohio somewhere. The second day was much better and we made it all the way till just past OKC. Which meant that stopping in Albuquerque to see Rachel was out of the question because we hit Alb. and we just kept driving, making it into Phoenix at around 9 on the third day. Not bad, that many miles in three days. And that was with 1 driver.

The week and a half in Phoenix was pretty uneventful. We went to a baseball game, the Chicago Cubs at the AZ Diamondbacks. It was a good game. Vinnie didn't think so because the Cubs lost. But it was still a good game, we had good seats that were at a TGI Fridays. So those of us who didn't like baseball so much were able to visit. It really was a good night.

We went up to Prescott to see my grandmother and then saw my dad and older brother as well. That's one of the things that stinks about being away from home is figuring out how to break up my time between all of my friends and family. Not such an easy feat when you have a big family. But it was nice, and my dad can always be counted on for a good steak dinner complete with those good green beans cooked in fried bacon. So that was a nice day and night. And then that Saturday just before we had to take poor Sharon (who by the way has just experienced her first trip home after moving away for the first time) to the airport we also had a pretty big cookout.

So a week and a half ago we left Phoenix and began our trip back east. We stopped in Alb. to pick up Rachel who had decided to make the move back to Virginia. It was nice to be able to have another adult along for the ride, especially since I was able to sit and ride with her quite often. I hadn't seen her in over a year so it was nice to be able to catch up in person. Oh and when we picked her up I finally got to meet her mom, who BTW is living my dream life as a hotel owner, so that was cool. It was nice getting to ride with her because she actually talks while she drives. When I ride with Vinnie the only sounds that are heard are the radios and the DVD players that the kid are playing. So we stopped that trip in a small town on the border of NM and TX, then we stopped on the other side of Memphis and then we made the stretch and made it all the way to Va Beach. We stayed up a bit too late and then woke up the next morning gearing up for the last leg of our trip back up the east coast. So that's my trip, pretty boring. I think that the fact that the trip was a couple of weeks long is why this blog has been able to be so long.