Road trip to California

Our family took an unexpected trip to California a few weeks ago. Aaron's grandfather, Grandpa Jim, has been battling cancer and after a long stay in the hospital he was finally going home. We tought this would be a chance to visit and have the girls meet him and as well as having him meet them. He's the only great grand parent left on Aaron's family's side, so I saw it as important to give the girls a chance to meet him, even though I'm sure they will not remember when they get older, there will be a picture and they will know that they met him once.

I met one of my great grand mothers when I was little, and I remember her, but I do not have a picture to show that I met her and show my children who she was, but my kids will have a picture of his great grandpa, I have made sure of that.

They also have both of my grandpa and grandma on my mothers side. They live in Saltillo Coahuila, Mexico, where I was also born. How would I love to take the girls there some day and show them were mami grew up. Anyway, that is another meeting I have to arrange, to have my girls meet buelita Coco y buelito Chuy.


We had a nice visit. Aaron had the chance to sit down and talk to grandpa Jim for 2 days in a row. I was chasing after the girls the whole time being there, making sure they wouldn't get into trouble, but even I was able to learn somethings about Grandpa Jim and his life, from his childhood during the great depression, going to war, how he met Grandma Jimison, and how he became a successful salesman after becoming a husband and father. I have to have Aaron write down all the things he talked to Grandpa Jimison about now that I think about it. He also told us some things about Grandma Jimison that I was very impressed about. How she graduated from Standford, how talented and smart she was, and how she was a great piano player who even gave concerts, if I'm not mistaking.

Like I said we had a nice visit.

Here's a picture with Grandpa Jim.

On our way to his house we saw cactus like this all over the place and were really excited to see "tunas" on them (cactus pears) This are very common in Saltillo, instead of ice cream vans we had "El Señor de las tunas" The tuna man, who came around the neighborhood with his tuna cart, chanting "tunas, tunas!" and all the kids would ran out to buy some, seriously. Aaron tried some a few years back when we went to Saltillo and he loved them too, so we knew we had to get some somehow before we left.So on our way back we tried knocking on a couple doors to ask for permission before taking some. We finally saw some people outside their house and ask them if we could take some, even though I think we would have been ok without asking because I don't think anyone eats them, there were a lot of them that had already fallen off on the floor, but we asked anyway, we didn't want anyone chasing us down, and they were nice and said we could take them. We brought some home for my family. They were all excited. It's been 13 yrs since any of them has had one of these. We didn't know how in the world we were going to pick them so we had to get creative. We had this hard plastic thing in our glove compartment, I think it was the package to a binky or something, it was perfect. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention they are prickly, so you have to be really careful."El Señor de las tunas"Tunas to go.

After that we found this little fruit stand on the side of the road. We got some of these. Honey sticks. None of us had ever heard or had any, and the lady said they kids love them, so we had to try them. They came in all different kinds of flavors, peach, cherry, rootbeer, and orange. They kids did love them! It kept them occupied for a while, it was really hard and slow to get the honey out, but we were in no rush, our 12 hour trip back home was just getting started!
And we also got some of these. Nectarines. They were really, really good, very sweet and earthly. I have never tasted one like this. My mouth waters just thinking about it. So good, they were worth taking a picture of! We took a small country road that we were on for half of our way through California. The scenery was beautiful, it gave us something to look at, good thing or we would have gone crazy! Did I mention our radio went out just as we were getting ready to head back home. Aaron left the keys on while we were inside the house saying our good-byes and that drained our battery. We had to jump start the car and that left our radio dead, we needed a code to restart it , I guess it's an anti-theft feature it comes with, and we did not have the code. We still don't have it 'til this day. We need to take it in to the dealer so they can fix it.

Anyway, there a cow in this picture, is that little black dot in the distance.

Another picture we had to stop for. This white fence went on forever and I thought it would make a good picture. There was a tree orchard on the other side of it, I think they were apples or something. Anyway, this is me trying to get artsy with my camera (is that even a word? artsy) Isn't the sky beautiful?
We came to this view point while we were driving through a canyon. The guy who took the picture didn't do a good job, but that's what we got.
I was really nervous taking this picture. In case you can't tell, there's a big cliff behind that little wall the girls are sitting on. The wind was blowing strong, so I had Aaron on standby. I think this is the quickest picture I have ever taken.

The girls did awesome! We sang, we sang a lot. We played "I spy!" or as Naomi says "Io veio!" (Yo veo) She can't help having an accent. We read books. We stopped for lots of potty breaks, including one on the side of the road in broad day light (for Naomi of course). We draw pictures. Played with toys. They napped!

They are the cutest little girls ever! They did so good, not much crying or complaining. Jocie took like three naps each way, and they were both out by night time. Aaron did not let me help him drive, he drove 12 hrs straight coming home. We left California at about 1 pm and got home at 2 am. He did awesome too!

We had a nice trip.