Reno

We had been looking forward to our trip to Reno.  I had never been before, and Marcus hadn't been for a long time.  Logan is from Fallon, which is pretty close, and Marcus has a lot of family in the Reno area.  We decided to stay with Marcus' grandparents for the weekend in Reno, and then on Saturday, we attended the wedding events around Reno and Fallon.  

Our plans were changed when we found out the Marcus' cousin was killed in a car accident.  Alisa was driving to the airport late, and they are saying a drunk driver hit her.  Everyone died, including her unborn baby who was due a month later.  It was so tragic.  The only good thing was that we were already planning to be in Reno so we were able to attend some of the funeral events.  

It was definitely a weekend of a lot of highs and lows emotionally, but we were grateful to be part of the wedding and funeral events.  

We also had a few car issues on the way there.  We had to jump the car before we left, and the battery completely died as we arrived at Marcus' grandparents' home.  It could have been worse for sure, but we were able to get everywhere we needed to (after the new battery in Reno).

Using Sally to jump the Camry, which I now call Myrtle.

Chase is always ready for a roadtrip

Especially if there are snacks

Marcus' uncle Rich bribed Chase to go to the store with him by getting Play-Doh.  They both had a lot of fun making cakes with the Play-Doh cake bakery.

I don't have other pictures, besides from the wedding.  Guess that means that we have to go back sometime and visit with the Reno Hardys again soon!

Hardy Thanksgiving Ride 2014 - AKA The Hell Ride

Some stories go down in family history; and some go down in family infamy.

The ride out to Morgantown, West Virginia in November of 2014 falls into the latter camp.

Everything was plotted out and made ready the day before. We borrowed a car seat. I (Marcus) confirmed the rental car registration. I stayed late to make sure I could leave at 1:00 p.m. sharp the next day to go pick up the card and get us going.

And everything went well - at first.

Our phone GPS got us down to Brooklyn and then over into Manhattan. Despite considerably increased blood pressure due to the stress of driving in the city, we made it through and to the tunnel into New Jersey without incident.

When we got about three-quarters of the way through the tunnel, we realize that in our rush to leave (which involved much four-letter-wording of the borrowed car seat from me as I tried to install it in slushy / icy conditions), we had forgotten Chase's Pack-and-Play bed.

So no bed for our baby. How Christmasy.

We breathed a sigh of relieve and moved on with the trip: next stop, dinner.

A satisfying option just wouldn't present itself. I was determined to not eat a a McDonald's. But exit after exit, that was all that would present itself. Mickey-D's. The Golden Arches. Over and over again.

Finally, at Erica's urging and Chase's need, we stopped off and got some dinner. And it was alright...we gassed up the Focus and moved on.

For about 10 minutes. I heard Chase making strange noises in the back seat and turned around to help him. And then it came.

The vomit. The hot, steaming french-fry-and-nugget infused spew. Everywhere. On my hands. In the hamburger holder I grabbed and held in front of him. Then to the brim of it. Then everywhere else. My hands. The car seat. The car.

Oh...expletive.

The poor kid. I was shocked and maybe a bit scared at this happening on our first car trip. He starts to whimper. I try to be nice...it's hard. I'm covered in puke. Just to be perfectly clear, I love him completely.

Enough to get out of the car on the side of the freeway, in the snow, to help him out of his seat. And when we determined that the only spare clothes are in the trunk in the suitcase, I move to get that. 

Watch for semi trucks!

Crap...it's zipped at the bottom...will have to pull it out. Which means pulling other stuff out. Oh look. Another semi! This is kind of scary.

Better take the suitcase up to the front of the car to avoid being hit.

Man, this is really scary. Where are the PJs...there they are.

Okay - cleaned up the puke as best we could (you're a champ Erica), boy in clean clothing and new diaper. Puke filled burger holder littered on side of the road...

Dang it I stepped in it. Thank you for being there for my shoes and hands, on snow.

Okay. Kid clean. Carseat at car...sort of clean. Off we go.

And things were pretty uneventful from that point on. Until we followed Google's lead onto a little road called "Route 9" and wound up in the boondocks of West Virginia with no signal and no way to find our destination.

But thanks to a nice woman at a gas station, and occasional contact with Erica's friend Amy, who we were going to visit, we made it by about 1:00 a.m. - 12 hours after the adventure kicked off.

And after washing the car seat by hand once and in a machine twice. And spending a few days cleaning the car and detailing the car seat a few more times - we wound up having a pretty great time!

Albany

Saturday was a Multi-Stake Priest & Laurel Conference up in Albany.  I was really stressed trying to get our youth involved with it because I couldn't get any leaders to volunteer to go.  Obviously we have no car and a baby so a full day up state as well with a total of about 5 1/2 hours in a car seemed impossible.  Long story short, a family in the ward lent us their van for the day, and Marcus, Chase, and I drove four youth up state for the conference.

We left at 6:15 AM, can't you tell?  :)

Chase did pretty well in the car.  Only one minor mishap.

Marcus was a good sport and drove both there and back.
The drive was really neat watch the amazing city sites turn into huge homes with tons of grass.

The Albany Stake Center (just a little different from ours haha)

Most of the day we hung around the stake center.  The kids attended workshops, had mixers, and of course ate lots of food.  I helped with the dessert trays-- the amount of food there was ridiculous!  So much!  But what do you do when you have (550) 16 and 17 year olds?!

The youth were from all over the east, obviously all over New York, but also places like Connecticut and New Hampshire.  It was fun to see so many LDS kids in one place.  And one of the girls from our ward and I were laughing because we had never seen so many white kids in the same place in NY either :)  Queens is definitely full of a lot more ethnicities.

Well, Chase was one of the only little guys there.  One of the ladies from the Albany Stake invited us to go to a small egg hunt her ward was hosting.  It was a nice break for Chase of just hanging around the stake center.

He really liked the plastic eggs.

And he quickly discovered how to open them to find candy.

He would share. :)

We also met the biggest basset hound ever.  He was really sweet, and Chase loved him.  It was hard to get a picture of Chase smiling, but it was an instant friendship.

Chase and his buddy

Dog kisses

Laughing with the dog -- 

You'll wish this video was longer, I promise.

Like I said before, there was a lot of walking around the church and around the building.  It was a beautiful day, so we took full advantage of sitting in the grass.  We could all use some good vitamin D :)

And Chase got to meet another dog at the church.  This one was a tiny, 6 week old puppy.  He was too quick to get a cute picture of both the dog and Chase.

Trying to get to the puppy

Petting the puppy

It was definitely a long day, but it went by a lot faster than I thought it would.  It was fun to meet youth and leaders from so many different states and hear about things they've done in their YW programs.

The dinner and dance were themed "Under the Sea."  The hosting stake did a fantastic job planning and decorating.  It was inspiring.  I wish I had taken more pictures throughout the day, but I was cutting trays and trays of desserts.

The dinner tent

The dance

The best picture I could get of the decorations in the evening.
Looked so much better in person!

So many kids!  And they'd actually all dance!
It was incredible :)

It was so worth the craziness of trying to figure out the transportation and eventually just recruiting Marcus and Chase to come along.  The kids had a great time.  They chatted non stop about it on the way home until they all crashed.  I'd say it was a quiet ride home, but Chase decided not to sleep and to talk the entire drive.  "Mama?  Mama?  Mama?  Stop.  Mama?"  Yep, over and over for almost three hours.  But it was a beautiful drive into NYC with all the lights.  Too bad it meant we had to drive through the city-- that was a bit scary :)