The final few days of vacation....

...also known as isn't it time to be done with this travel log already?  Phew...life is so crazy right now I am just trying to keep my head above water.  Thats why at 12:30PM when I SHOULD be sleeping I am up with energy and needing to finish this post.

So...

From Mesa back to Sierra Vista.

While you wouldn't think there was much to say, our 3 hour trip turned into a 5.5 hour trip when we spent 2.5 hours on 1-10 in a lineup of stopped traffic that must have been miles long.  Bella napped through part of it then woke up.  She and I ended up taking a walk up 1-10...(Now how many people can say that?) and she was the hit of the day.  We were offered so many cookie/candy/drink treats from people who just oohed and aahed over her.  We turned around after about 3/4 mile when Bella found a "puppy..."  (Actually a dead coyote on the side of the road that she nearly petted before I caught her...aiya!)

Don't you love her nap hair?

The never ending traffic lineup...

We feasted on a chinese buffet that night...not the Number 1 Chinese Buffet (in honor of grandpa Butler who loved that restaurant and lauded it as the best in Ontario Oregon...well, I think it was a tie between that and Kentucky Fried Chicken for him...)  Regardless...Bella was a total camera HAM.

And she had her first soft-serve icecream.

And thats about all I'll say about that...

Now, from Tucson back to Oregon.

(I'll bypass the story of the nightmare plane trip that was delayed a total of 9 hours getting us into Salt Lake at 2AM and back to the airport at 6AM.)

And last, but not least...to keep this short and sweet I created a slideshow of all the pictures from those last few days...featuring almost everyone from the Larson side of this family.  We sure do love and miss them...

But first - a short video of Bella on the slide...

And now...the photo slideshow...



And finally - our trip home...and this is the part where I said it "ended with barf..."

We are in the Portland airport and Bella was running ahead of the stroller when she suddenly stopped and turned and we just didn't catch her in time. BASH...she cracked her eyebrow into the stroller causing a little split and immediate swelling and bruising.  She was such a sad little thing.  That was the beginning...

When we got on the plane I was carrying on two bags and walking Bella in front of me.  A very large man saw us trying to get past and leaned from the center aisle into the seats, but didn't actually get out of our way...as we stepped past him, he stepped backward and landed his big foot right on Bella's barefoot toes.  She hollered and I had to actually push his leg off of her foot before he knew he was standing on her.

With those two major ouchies...poor Bella was in bad shape...  I got her set up in her seat with some warm milk and she calmed down...until an hour into the flight when she proceeded to vomit all over everything.

That was when I also noticed she had a fever.

I got her all calmed down and went to the restroom.  When I returned I sat down in my seat and heard a RIIIIIIIIIIP.  The earphones that someone before me had used while sitting in the seat had broken off and they had left the metal prong sticking out.  I hadn't noticed it before, but when sitting down this time it managed to snag my pants and ripped a huge hole which essentially showed the world my bum cheek...

We finally land the plane in Amsterdam and as we are getting ready to deboard, Bella gets knocked in the eyebrow again and she let out a howl that I immediately knew was going to end in vomit.  Sure enough...she cried herself sick and this time it was EVERYWHERE.  All the people in the plane were moving out of the way...it was in the aisle, on the seats, on our bags, on her, on me, on the seat in front of us...  It was amazing that her little belly had so much in it to regurgitate into this last and final farewell...

And the grand finale of this nightmare trip home was when we finally got off the plane and I buckled her into her stroller and promptly pinched her little leg in the buckle and caused a blood blister. 

That was it for me.  It was all I could do to not just break down and lay on the floor and cry my eyes out. 

Lets just say that 4 hours later when we walked into our house there was never in the history of the universe someone so glad to be home as I was that day.

I'M DONE!!!!!!!

PS...I'm making a mid-year resolution to blog more frequently instead of these massive travel logs.  Phew!