Our 4th of July Weekend in Arizona

My boss gave me five days off of work around the 4th of July weekend, so Nicole and I decided to go to AZ to visit her mom and sister. We planned on leaving Thursday (July 3rd) after I got off work and driving through the night. We thought that if we put Andrew down to bed that he would be tired enough that we could transfer him to his carseat without waking up--yeah right! I touched him and he woke up and he did not want to go back to sleep. We got on the road and he was happy for awhile, but when he got really tired he just wanted out of the carseat. He was screaming and trying to get out of his carseat. Nicole was getting frustrated and upset and Andrew was not calming down. I decided to give him a blessing as we were driving down the road. He calmed down during the blessing, but would not let me take my hand away without starting to fuss again. So I left my hand back there for him to lay on for about 30 minutes. When he finally went to sleep, I couldn't feel any of my fingers. But it was worth it to get him to calm down and go to sleep. The rest of the drive wasn't too bad, except for when we had to pee behind a dumpster at a 7-11 in Las Vegas--there were cockroaches all over (luckily Nicole didn't see them, and I didn't tell her until a couple hours later). We got to Nicole's mom's house around 7am. We had so much fun while we were down there. It was just a fun, relaxing vacation. We really had no agenda. Nicole was able to take a break, and I was able to spend some quality time with Andrew--of course I had to share him with his Grandma and Aunt Trish. We found out that AJ really likes chocolate chip cookies, as you can see.

We went to a local pool one afternoon. Andrew loves to go swimming, and we had a blast with him playing in the pool.

Monday afternoon he was playing with his toys in the living room, and we decided to put him in the metal bucket that his toys were in. He was so cute! And he just thought he was hilarious.

The ride home was much better for Andrew. We put him to bed in his carseat and we waited until it was dark before we left. He slept pretty well through the night. So aside from me getting us lost and wasting about an hour and going 40 miles the wrong way, getting too tired and having to stop for a while to sleep, and Andrew throwing up all over himself and his carseat, the trip home wasn't too bad. :)

All things considered, we had a good vacation that was much needed. I think it will be a while though before we take another long road trip. HAPPY 4TH!