California Adventures, Broken Mirror’s, and Bad Luck!

Adam and I have really been wanting to take a trip out to California to see my Papa and some of our extended family for a few years now. So when we discovered some $50 dollar flights out to the land of the sun, we had to jump on it! However, like all of our trips, it didn’t come without it’s share of challenges and adventures.

On Adam and I’s first date almost 6 years ago, Adam helped me move home, and that night as we were moving my stuff we broke our first of many mirrors together. We aren’t usually very superstitious people, but after so many years of trips with forest fires, flash floods, accidents, near death experiences, sicknesses, etc. we really are starting to wonder if we did encounter the 7 years of bad luck they say comes with breaking mirrors! Plus it doesn’t help either that we were married on Friday the 13th! (But alas, that is another story)

Our California trip was no exception. Here is just a few of the things that went array that caused us some unexpected adventures!! Mind you we are totally laughing at them now!

1. Sarah left her cell phone in the car with all our families phone numbers in it.

2. Upon reaching the city of Ontario, CA our Airplane pilot was instructed we couldn’t land because of 65 mile per hour winds.

3. After circling in the air for 30 minutes, we were cleared to land in less deadly winds, but still went through moments of sheer terror as the plane was thrown around and thoughts of death rang through everyone’s minds.

4. Upon arriving at the Airport car rental place, we discovered our car was too small to easily fit our luggage and we end up re-arranging our luggage 10 + times trying to get it all to fit. In the meantime Harrison is screaming and luggage is being thrown around by the same crazy winds we’d had on the plane.

5. Adam forgets his AC Adapter which would have allowed him to work remotely on his laptop, and caused almost a full day of calling around and driving from place to place to find something compatible with his computer.

6. Upon visiting the beach in Oceanside Branson accidentally falls into a puddle and soaks his clothes. We ended up having to strip him down to a diaper, throw him in one of those beach showers, wrap him in Harrison’s blanket and put him in Harrison’s car seat stroller, and walk back to our Condo about 1 mile away.

7. When we got back to our Condo, our room isn’t ready and then once we get in, they can’t seem to find our luggage (from our old room – we had upgraded to a larger one) so Branson in the meantime is still running around in a diaper until they find our luggage almost 2 hours later. Which consequently had all our food in an ice chest which also meant we didn’t get lunch until 3:30.

8. The Ferkin side of my family all gets sick and has to cancel us coming over to visit.

9. We booked a Condo at Big Bear in the San Bernardino mountains (through some friends of ours who has the same timeshare we do) only to be told the next day that we needed chains or a 4×4 in order to get up to it.

10. When we call to cancel and hopefully get our money back, they tell us to call reservations. We call reservations who tell us we can’t cancel because our friends booked it for us.

11. We call our friends who call to cancel and are told the road restrictions are lifted, and we can still go up! Yeah some good news! BUT because of the delay in getting everything figured out, we end up leaving during rush hour and hit horrible traffic adding another 1.5 hours onto our already 2 hour trip.

12. Upon driving for 2 hours and reaching the San Bernardino mountains we see a sign saying chains were required on all cars. We stop for dinner to decide what to do, nurse Harrison, and call the resort who tell us the signs must be wrong as the restrictions have been lifted.

13. Ten minutes after heading up the mountain Harrison begins crying and screaming at the top of his lungs to get out of his car seat. 15 minutes after heading up the mountain we hit the kind of fog where you can’t see 5 feet in front of your car. 20 minutes after heading up the canyon it starts snowing and the roads quickly become ice and we are sliding all over the place (meanwhile Harrison is still crying). 1 hour after heading up the canyon we realize we aren’t even half way to big bear yet (since we have only been driving 10-15 miles per hour the entire way) and pull over to try to calm down Harrison.

14. Just as we pull over we look back only to see Branson throwing up what looks like gallons of pink chunky Gatorade down his shirt, onto his car seat, across the car, and all over his blanket and clothes. At this point I just started laughing hysterically. I figured it was laugh or cry uncontrollably and I didn’t dare cry as I was already having a hard enough time seeing where I was going with the fog! 🙂 Adam didn’t quite see the humor in it all, but then again he was the one trying to figure out a way to scoop up the throw up chunks pooled together in Branson’s lap! 🙂 YUCK! I had the easy job of calming down Harrison!

15. Upon reaching our condo we have to carry Branson (in car seat) to our room, as throw up chunks are dripping off his seat as we carry him in, and then put them both in the bathtub for a good squirt down before we can run a bath, throw everything into the washer, and clean up the car seat, and car.

So how did our little 6 day getaway to California go you ask? Well, despite our challenges and unexpected adventures we ABSOLUTELY Loved it!!! In fact, we had a wonderful time despite everything.

We were able to take Papa with us to Oceanside, CA where we spent two fun filled days at the beach and were able to have my cousin Forest and his family up for a night. We were able to take a trip down to San Diego to visit our good friends the Kirby’s (from the good old 9th ward married student ward). They took us to this awesome park called Balboa Park and then to one of their favorite mexican restaurants called, “El Indio,” or something like that.

We were able to go to church with my Uncle Joe and his family and then spend the afternoon at their home where they treated us to a wonderful dinner and our choice of 3 heavenly desserts.

We were also able to visit Uncle Clint and Aunt Carol on Adam’s side of the family, and then spend a lovely evening (after the crazy drive, throw up baths, and screaming) up at Big Bear where we relaxed in the hot tub and took things easy. All in all though, the trip was great and will definitely be one we won’t easily forget!

Eating funky colored popcycles on the funky colored bedspread in our room

At the beach with Papa

Branson and Harrison’s first time at the beach

Harrison not quite sure about the feel of cold wet sand under his feet

Hanging out with Forest, Paige, Emily & Noah

Balboa Park with the Kirby’s

Our little Family

Sunday Dinner with the Fodor Family

Branson playing with Aunt Nellie’s Toy Trains