Heaven loves families/Road trip!

Sooner or later the relaxing has to end, but the fun doesn't.  It was almost time to start the wedding gathering again.  Joseph and Eliza stopped by Portland on the way from Idaho.

  We deluged Brandon and Mallory's church meeting with Stokers/Ericksons, luckily everyone else was visiting their families someplace else so there was room for us. It was fun to have little kids on our pew again.  Also, we discovered that there are some delicious children's snacks available.  Little cupcake flavored fish come to mind.  Paul used them to lure the baby from the row in front of us to join our party.  Not gonna lie, they made my Sunday experience better.

After church we made up for our lack of Paul's dinner rolls on Christmas Eve and enjoyed a traditional Sunday mashed potatoes, roast, gravy and rolls dinner.  The rolls were also an asset to our traveling conditions the next day.  We just supplemented them with mandarin oranges, Wheat thins, trail mix and sour patch kids that Andrew had salvaged from his apartment after his roommates moved out.  Thanks roomies.

We played and rested and packed and got psyched for the last leg of our super holiday.

On Monday morning at 6:02 am Eliza and Joseph joined our car of Andrew, Rebecca, Gabe, Paul and I. Brandon, Mallory and crew brought up the rear an hour or two later.  They were probably still reeling from all the company and towels, and food, and laundry and noise and clogged toilets and sleeping bodies that we introduced to their week.  Thank you, sweet children, for having us.

As with many of you, the best way to survive er enhance a road trip is with a book on tape.  The year we drove from UT to IL we went to 4 stores before we were able to find Harry Potter 7 available.  When we arrived at our destination our story had not been resolved.  We visited with our friends for a bit and then the kids asked me desperately, "Can we listen to the end of the book?"  There they all were sequestered in the back bedroom until Neville came out victorious and all was well in Hogwarts.

Sadly, there is no more Harry Potter, and so I chose "Peter and the Star Catcher."  The other choice was "A Wrinkle in Time," but Peter prevailed.  It turned out to be a delightful way to spend 9 hours in the car.  That and the fact that I-5 travelling south from Portland to Sacramento is beautiful.  Okay, the olive orchards in the valley weren't as popular a vista as Mt. Shasta, but it was at least different from what we're used to in GA.

A pretty little rest stop with some pretty little children
"Okay, let's back up, close to the trees."  "This is a dog walk."
"Okay, let's move forward, away from the trees."

We pulled into our hotel in Elk Grove and soon were met by the newlyweds, Aaron and Clarissa, and the groom, Jacob, and the new party began.