Californ-I-A

I'm just sitting her pondering how to even begin capturing all the fun we had this last week on our road trip. So I'm just going to break it down by the minute. Ready?

Saturday July 25th

6am: my alarm clock goes off and I wonder why it was that we said we'd be leaving this early?

6:00 and 5 seconds: OH because Google Maps said it would take us 10 hours and 28 minutes to get to Curtis and Jane's house, and because we have 2 children (specifically one named Ty) we were anticipating more like 28 hours and 10 minutes.

6:00 and 10 seconds: let's get this show on the road

7:04 am: we pull out of our driveway, Jake eating a granola bar and Ty eating Dramamine

7:05 am: Jake asks us how much farther we have to go

7:06 am: Ty repeats the same question

7:06 and 1 second: I turn on the Cars DVD for them to watch in the back seat

Are you getting the idea? Actually the kids were really really great for being 4 1/2 and 3. They did watch more than one (but less than 28) DVD's on the way to and from, but we actually made better time than I'd prepared myself for.

After a little over 11 hours we pulled into our hotel and called Jane and Curtis, asking them if they wouldn't mind bringing us some In&Out for dinner. Mmmmmmmmmmm. And how much fun it was to squeeze our niece Bekah in all her cuteness. I'm not kidding, I couldn't think she was cuter if she were my own. Am I wrong?

And now....drum roll please...what you've all been waiting for: THE story. Here it is, in it's rightful chronological order. After Jane and Curtis and Bek left our hotel room that first night, we got ready for bed and hit the hay. It had been quite a long day so I was praying for the kids to sleep well...and sleep IN. Well, Jake wakes up at 7:30, not too bad, but Ty and Dan were still asleep. Jake's whisper is more like an ear piercing battle cry, so I decided to put some clothes on and take him down to the lobby for a while so Dan and Ty could get more sleep. We were down there for a half hour or so, and then came back up but Dan and Ty were still asleep. I set Jake in front of the TV, and turned on some PBS and got ready to take a shower, thinking Ty would wake up and Dan would soon follow.

As I'm getting into the shower, Dan opens the door and says..."Where's Ty?" Uhhhhhhh, excuse me? "He's in his bed sleeping." "NO he's not, Ang. There's just a pile of blankets where he was." "WHAT??" "What is going on, where is he, what should we do?" And so the freak out began. I can probably thank my job for this, because although inside my heart was pounding and my body was shaking, I told myself not to worry until we had done everything possible. It had been probably 40 minutes since Jake and I left, and I know for a fact that he'd been there at that time. We had been back in the room for 10 minutes or so and I knew he hadn't walked out during that time. So Ty had been gone between 10 and 40 minutes. I knew exactly what had happened. Ty woke up, saw that Jake and I weren't there, and went to go look for us. Who cares that I know why he left, though, where the heck is he now?! I tried calling the front desk and somehow it wasn't working, so I grabbed Jake's hand and left the room a few moments after Dan. Jake, always one for honesty however brutal, looks up at me and says, "Mom, I think he probably went out into the street and got hit by a car." Thanks, Jake, that helps a lot. My exact words were "Jacob, DO NOT TALK. Hold my hand, and do not talk."

I asked some housekeepers coming out of the elevator if they had seen a three year old wandering around by himself. They didn't speak English, so then I played a rousing game of charades with them before realizing it was hopeless. We took the stairs to the lobby and I looked around that floor, including the restaurant that smelled of bacon (that's where he would have been if he could have found the lobby) waited as the man at the desk got off the phone. I told him our three year old wandered off, and he told me that he'd told Dan already that Ty was on the 4th floor. "The 4th floor?" "Yes, ma'am, he's in room 414." Ooooookay. Dan called me seconds later and said he had him. I went back to our room to hear this story: Dan told me he ran up to the 4th floor and sure enough the door to room 414 was open, and a guy asked Dan if he was looking for Ty. Dan rushes in and Ty is watching a cartoon show with another kid, looks up at him and says, "Hey Dad." Dan didn't get any story from that family because he was too busy wanting to simultaneously hug and punch Ty in the face, but the front desk had just told Dan they'd called down and said there was a kid named Ty walking around with no shirt, shoes, or PARENTS.

Good golly that kid is going to give me a stroke someday. We've tried to get more of the story from him, but he's not terribly reliable. Is THAT the understatement of the year. He told us he was looking for Jake and Mom and he pushed the button to the elevator but it wasn't working (probably didn't open after 0.05 seconds of waiting) so he took the stairs. We had taken the stairs up from the lobby, but never down to the lobby so he just started going up. Then he told us he knocked on the door to room 414 and told him he was looking for his mom and brother. Perfectly rational. Never scared. Dan told him, "Honey, you can never walk around by yourself like that, somebody could take you." And his reply was, "Oh no, Dad. Nobody taked me." And I'll thank Jesus a few more thousand times for that. Whoa nelly, thank you Jesus.
I'll wrap things up quickly. HA! That was only day 1 and morning of day 2. I'm realizing I'm gonna need to blog a part 2, or possibly 3 or 4 to this vacation. Otherwise I'm going to lose my reader with all this verbose-ness (verbosity?). Maybe not, but my hands are cramping up, so that's all for now. I promise I'll finish the Stump Family Road Trip Adventures very soon!