Caitlin's BIG trip-- San Diego, Utah, Idaho, Colorado!

The next day after hanging out with Kara and kids I headed out on my big adventure!  It was super sad leaving Billy for 3 weeks, but he needed some time to focus on job searching and I needed one last grand adventure for awhile.  I headed to San Diego first.  My mom, Mariah and I started out the adventure with a shopping trip!  Always a necessity for my mom and I.  Wednesday was a day of errands and hanging out.  My mom and Dad got all packed and headed out for their three day getaway for their anniversary.  We went to dinner with Derek and Mariah at Rubio's and Jayce was super cute and thanked me for buying his dinner even though my mom left me money.  Sometimes he can be really sweet.

Thursday I took Jayce to his baseball practice and then went to see the new Tarzan movie.  It wasn't really a movie for kids, I felt bad we chose that one.  Jayce was a good sport though and said he liked it.

Penny was ever alert for Mom to get home

Jayce's baseball coach had the most beautiful dog!  I wanted to steal her!

This popcorn cost like $9...insane

Penny was super sad Mom wasn't coming home...waiting by the door

Friday Jayce and I hit up the beach!  He had been afraid of the beach since he's been learning more about the ocean so it took a long time to get him into the water but I eventually got him in!  He had a blast and we had so much fun together!  I love seeing Jayce at the beach because he has such a fun time.  Once we got home my parents were back and my mom took us to get pedicures.  After dinner and everything I headed to Golden Spoon for some treats and saw a RAT running on the machines!  Needless to say we are no longer GS visitors!  So sad.

Saturday morning Jayce, my mom and I were on our way to Utah in the suburban!  We had a fun road trip but it was super long, as it always is.  We went to Hayley's ward on Sunday since it started at 11 rather than 9.  We had a fun day with all the John and Barbara kids over for dinner and hanging out!  I love my cousins!

On the road!

Rolling into Provo

Monday we went to float the Provo river just me, mom and Jayce!  It was fun in theory but the water was 40 degrees and it was really difficult to stay in control of our tubes!  It was pretty stressful actually haha.  I got no pictures from floating...wow.  We went to get J dawgs afterwards!  Then showered and went to BYU to bowl and visit the bookstore and all the BYU sights.

Yes please!

Oh BYU, I love you!

Peanut butter cup ice cream...a necessity.

Tuesday we got up early to go do a session in the Provo City Center temple!  Lisa joined us which was super fun.  It was a beautiful temple.  Afterwards we did a little shopping and then mom took Jayce to Nickel City.  We went to dinner that night at Brick Oven with some of the Barrow cousins!

Wednesday was my mom's 50TH BIRTHDAY!!  Woop woop!  Mom and I started the day with a 10 mile run up Provo Canyon!  We came home and showered and then headed to the mall to do some shopping because we couldn't think of anything else Mom wanted to do :)  J&B made a delicious salmon dinner for my mom's birthday when we got home.  It was really great.  We ended the night playing some games as a big group.

Love her!

The next day we started with packing everything up and heading to Sierra West to discuss trading in my mom's diamond for a bigger, 50th birthday worthy diamond!  She decided against it at the moment, but it was fun to look at all the rings.  I got my ring cleaned there!  Yay!  We then headed up to Idaho to drop off all of Derek and Mariah's stuff and pick up all of Cody's, as well as pick up Cody since the semester was over and he was coming home with us.  We barely made it in time to get everything done!  But we did it!  We went to Cafe Rio with Kellie and Alowei and Peretun for dinner.  Love those people!  We stayed at Uncle Martin and Aunt Carla's for the night which was fun reconnecting with extended family.

Look how beautiful!!

BYU Idaho campus

The next morning we went for a little run, had some breakfast and were on our way back to San Diego!  On our way on the road after getting gas in Pocatello the CRAZIEST thing ever happened.  We saw a little black blob on the freeway, at first we thought it was a piece of tire or a trash bag but it was a little weiner dog running across the freeway!  My mom freaked and stopped the car.  We all hopped out and tried luring it off the road.  There were a couple other cars stopped as well.  Of course weiner dogs are super jumpy so it kept running away from us into the middle of the road.  Eventually it just started sprinting up the freeway in the middle lane.  Cody started sprinting after it in just his socks!  I started running after him (we were in the shoulder) to try and help.  Cars were slowing down and some were trying to force the dog off the road.  I saw Cody slowing down and was yelling why are you stopping?  Then I heard the craziest noise so I turned around and I swear it looked like slow motion, there was a cement truck screeching, turning, flipping into the air and then landing and sliding on the ground.  I yelled at Cody to look and Jayce to watch out.  Jayce jumped the side barricade to avoid the truck.  Gosh it was INSANE!  Cody told me the dog ran off the road, and he and Jayce ran after it to try and prevent it from running back into the road.  I had given Cody my shoes so I started walking barefoot back toward the wreckage.  My mom ran up and told me what happened, she thought Jayce got hit by the truck.  Dang it was the craziest thing.  I still feel really sad about it.  The truck driver was taken away on a stretcher and three other cars were completely demolished by the truck.  I'm not sure if anyone was seriously injured but I feel like it was kind of all our fault.  Lesson learned: never get out of the car on the freeway.  Ever.  Even for a cute little doggie.  It would have been heart breaking to hit that dog though...man what a nightmare.  Jayce and Cody found the dog in a little doghouse safely in a backyard.  They were confused how it got out/back in, but they checked the whole thing and it seemed secure.  They told a few of the neighbors what happened so they could tell the owners.  So that whole thing set us back about an hour and a half on our super long road trip.

Learn a lesson from us and never stop on the freeway!  Ever!  Afterwards we were all talking about it for like 2 hours.  It really got us all wound up.  We had a really long trip on the road after that.  We chatted a bit, slept a bit, listened to a bit of music, mostly the boys were just watching movies on their screens in the back seat.  We stopped for dinner at like 9:30 when we were still like 4 hours from home.  Mom and I were super tired and we were talking about stopping for the night.  Cody took over driving and totally freaked us out (he drives way fast and it was a suburban!), but he got us home all in one piece!  We got in around 2:30 am because we hit some massive traffic and were delayed about an hour.

The next morning was super hot!  I suggested going to the beach and my family were good sports and we packed up and headed to Torrey Pines.  It was super crowded and there were tons of rocks in the water but we still went in and had a good time.  We hung out and relaxed the rest of the day at home.  Sunday we did a celebration for my mom's birthday!  I made an imitation Magleby's cake that turned out just alright.

Cody getting sunscreened by Dad hehehe.  Cody was a good sport.  He doesn't like the beach but he came to be with the fam/we forced him to.

Mom got me this super cute Padres shirt!

Penny being the cutest girlie ever

Happy Birthday, Mom!  Don't know why there is only 4 candles on the cake...haha

Monday Cody and Jayce and I went to see Finding Dory which was fun.  Then we got all prepped and headed to Mission Bay for a BBQ on the beach!  It was AWESOME!  Such a fun family evening.  I was kind of a 7th wheel and totally missed Billy, but I survived :)

I made my mom pull over so I could get these pics <3

Tuesday we went for a walk to the waterfall in the morning with the boys!  It was super fun.

There's a rattlesnake somewhere in this pic...maybe not because I can't find it but we did see one!

Of course Cody was giving us heart attacks climbing up all the highest rocks

Check out this adorbs little lizard I spotted!  We were obsessed!

Cody being his normal self

We got froyo as a fam that evening.  Wednesday was another errand running day, getting ready for me and my mom's trip to Colorado.  Dad took us to the airport at 2:30!  I think I'll do a separate blog post about Colorado.  Fun adventures all around!