Sunday, April 6, 2014

Amarillo Trip 2014

Our trip to Amarillo was...eventful!  It's hard to know what adjective to use, because so many bad things happened but along the way we also had a ton of fun.  At one point Kyle swore we'd never go anywhere ever again, but by the end we were all sad to leave and definitely excited to return.

This gum was a big part of our road trip. All together, we spent about 32 hours in the car this trip. I'd say I was chewing gum for about 25 of those hours.


Everything takes longer with kids. I used to try to make it as quick as possible, with minimal stops. Now we stop more frequently and each stop takes forever.


After spending the night in Cheyenne, we were sad to wake up and see snow. It slowed us down quite a bit in Wyoming and Colorado.

Finally made it to Texas! We were happy to leave nasty New Mexico.


Notice the cop in the mirror. We were pulled over for speeding--going FIVE MILES OVER THE LIMIT. So lame. Luckily, we just got a warning.


The hotel messed up our reservation so we had to find a new place to stay. It was actually tricky because we need a suite and a lot of places were fully booked. We finally got a place and went to bed late. Jane spent a lot of the night screaming for some reason, and Ruby woke up at 1 and threw up everywhere. It is remarkably difficult to handle that in a hotel room.


The next day, Ruby felt fine (maybe it was just all the upheaval? Or 2 days of car food?) so after a kinda gross hotel breakfast we headed to DONUT STOP, one of the places Kyle was very excited to take us to. He dreams of cherry donuts, which we don't have here in Utah.



We met everyone for lunch at Rosa's Tortilla Factory.  BEST PLACE EVER. We consider moving to Amarillo to be closer to Kyle's family, friends, and ROSA'S.  We managed to go every day and it still wasn't enough.



Braxton came over with his new baby!!! We were so excited to meet Lilly. She is adorable and tiny, and Ruby clearly approves.

Braxton also gave us this piece of art that Kyle has been dying to see! He commissioned it from Braxton, hoping for something that would represent all the things he misses about Amarillo. It's perfect!

Ruby loved spending time with her cousins.  She and Naomi are only a year apart and had a great time together!

More Rosa's fun times :)




Kyle drove us around Amarillo and showed us some of the significant places from his youth. Here are the two houses that he grew up in.


Jane and Noah aren't too far apart in age but Noah can do so much more! He's crawling and standing already!


We had to buy some swimsuits because the 2nd hotel we stayed at (yes, 2nd. No one had room for us for the whole time) had an indoor pool and the fam wanted to take advantage! It was a phenomenally warm and nice pool, and I think we'll stay there every time just for that reason. (Note to self, it was the Country Inn and Suites.)


On our last day there we went to Abuelo's, Barbara's favorite Mexican place. Ruby loved it and this statue out front.

After lunch we all took family pictures at a studio!  Let me tell you, that is NOT easy with 8 adults and 6 kids. We somehow managed. We didn't leave the studio for 2 hours though!



One last Rosa's trip.


  Oh, so, the whole time we were there, Kyle was suuuuper sick. Feverish and weak and unable to speak. The drive home was pretty miserable.  We didn't sleep much the night before--Jane was up screaming all night. To make things worse, Kyle's sickness got even worse. By the time we made it to Colorado, he was just moaning as he drove. His ears hurt him so much. I drove the rest of the way to Cheyenne, and as soon as we got there we dropped off the kids with Barbara and Ken and went to an Urgent Care. He was seen quickly, and it turned out he had a pretty bad ear infection. They gave him all kinds of cool drugs, thankfully, so that helped.


What DIDN'T help was Jane that night. She DID NOT SLEEP.  She woke up at 1 screaming bloody murder.  By 4 we decided to just leave because none of us were sleeping anyways. I felt bad leaving without the girls saying goodbye to their grandma! That made Ruby sad :(

Of course it was snowy again. And this time, like, REALLY snowy. We drove in near whiteout conditions for a couple hours. I was terrified! At one point, we were driving on the exit and had no idea. It was scary.



Somehow we made it home in one piece.  Everyone has been sick for weeks and weeks now. I can't wait for it to be over! I think I'm the only one sick currently--make it stop!

1 comment:

Christy said...

Oh my gosh. A ton of horrible things really came together just to make your trip less fun. I can;t imagine our adorable Jane screaming all night?! So glad you survived:)