July 2015 – Page 3 – Andelin Adventures

Four Corners

We continued our drive heading northwest through New Mexico. The land was mostly flat, then there was this huge rock sticking out of the ground. We thought it looked pretty cool so we pulled over and took a picture. I had to put on my big lens to be able to get a close-up.

We got all the way to the Four Corners monument, and found out that they charge $5 a person (over a certain age, I think it was 5 years old) and they ONLY TAKE CASH! We don’t carry cash, so the lady told us to drive 5 miles back up the road from where we came from to use an ATM to get some cash. So after going back and getting cash we went back to the monument.

The clouds looked ominous, but it didn’t start raining until after we got pictures at the monument.

Jeremy was upset when we let Ethan take a picture of us in front of the Lubbock, Texas temple and that we didn’t let him take a picture of us too, so we decided to let him take a picture of us at Four Corners.

The wind picked up while Jeremy was trying to take a picture of us and it started to sprinkle as we went back to the van. We got the kids loaded up and were changing diapers when the lady from the entrance drove in to tell us they were now closed. We told her we would leave as soon as all the kids were buckled, and that’s what we did. We drove back towards where we got the cash and saw this cute little LDS church building. It was so TINY!

We had just driven away when some of the kids announced that they needed to go potty again. So we found a gas station and while Kyle was taking kids in shifts, to the bathroom, I made sandwiches for everyone for dinner. Then we hit the road again. We drove pretty much for the rest of the night.

We filled up again in Monticello, Utah, and we drove by the temple to see it in the dark, but we didn’t get out or take any pictures. Most of the kids were asleep anyway. So we just continued on our way home. We finally made it home about 3am.

Albuquerque New Mexico Temple

Last night we stopped in Santa Rosa, New Mexico for the night. We got there very late, so we decided to just get one room, skip going to a pool and I really didn’t even want to unload anything from the van so that we could get to sleep more quickly and so that we could get out of there more quickly this morning. However, not unloading anything wasn’t very realistic. We realized that we NEEDED to unload the bottles and formula. Then we remembered that we needed diapers and wipes. Then we realized that we needed to unload some sleeping bags for the kids that weren’t going to fit on the two beds and the hide-a-bed in the hotel room. We eventually finished getting stuff from the van and got some sleep.

This morning, I did NOT want to send the kids to pick their own breakfasts. We had decided yesterday that we were going to go to the Waffle House in Albuquerque for breakfast. So Kyle went to the room in the hotel where they were serving breakfast, and got some donuts, hard boiled eggs and apples and bananas so the kids would have a snack for the road to hold them over till we got to Albuquerque.

The Waffle House was an interesting restaurant. We had to split our family into two tables, and our waitress totally forgot to add our totals together when it was time for us to pay. I think most of the kids got a waffle, and some of them got hashed browns too. When everyone had eaten their fill, we packed up the rest of the food and went to see the temple.

Then we were back on the road.

Lubbock Texas Temple

Our stop for stretching our legs today was at the Lubbock, Texas temple. The kids always love seeing the different temples whenever we go somewhere.

Seth was super happy to be out of his car seat. 🙂

Kyle and I tried to get Ethan to take a picture of us. We ended up with all kinds of crazy shots. Lots of street at the bottom and no Moroni, lots of sky at the top with Kyle and I cut off at the bottom…Apparently he needs practice. The was the best one he got.

Teeth

I got some great shots that perfectly show off Seth’s two teeth!

He is such a happy little dude! I just love it. 🙂

Hotel

In Fort Worth, we got two adjoining hotel rooms, then got some takeout at Rosa’s Cafe to eat in the hotel room. I REALLY didn’t want to eat at a sit down restaurant and then have to put Seth back in the car to get back to the hotel. So we got the food before unloading everyone at the hotel. We got a family meal deal where we got a platter of taco toppings, and a bunch of tortillas.

The food was really good, but Kyle had to actually go back to the restaurant to get more tortillas so we could eat up the rest of the food (good thing the restaurant was right next to the hotel!). After dinner, we took the kids to play in the hotel pool for a bit before bed.

Each of our hotel rooms had two large beds, and a small couch that pulled out into a bed as well. And we asked for a crib for Seth so there were plenty of sleeping spots. Good thing too, Jeremy got to sleep all by himself and ended up sideways at some point during the night!

It looks like he was never even under the covers.

Adam was one of the first kids awake and decided to sit at a desk and draw on the pad of paper with the pen that were sitting there on the desk.

Seth woke up nice and happy too. 🙂

We got everyone dressed and Kyle took the kids a few at a time to get breakfast from the hotel. He let them get away with picking WAY too many things each. Cereal, yogurt, banana/apple/orange, all for one kid??? Most of the kids didn’t eat all of what they picked and it turned into a really big mess. It also took way too long to get packed up and out of there.