The Russell Family: Southern California, October 2008

In this insanely long post, we'll uncover may mysteries, including:

What's up with this bench?

Why are the boys at the San Diego Zoo in their PJ's?

Who is this strange woman in our doorway?

The last week of October, Jonathan attended a CME Family Practice Conference in San Diego. Not ones to miss a good time, we gathered ourselves, along with Aunt Meredith and headed for SoCal on a Tuesday after work.

We headed west on I-8 towards California. Aunt Mer brought some new movies and all was well in the back o' the van. We arrived in Yuma for dinner and a stretch around 7p. Ian woke up just as we were pulling into the BK (who boasts a 3 story play ground... although as a Mom, I wonder if 3 stories is really that great of a thing.) Anyway, As we headed in, Ian, who was still waking up, missed the sidewalk step, tumbled and cut his upper lip. Awesome! Poor guy finally settled down, his lip swelled up and we made it through dinner. (I guess a paper crown really can make the difference. LOL) Before we got back on the road, we changed diapers and put the boys in their pajamas so we could just put them right to bed when we got to SD. A perfect plan, indeed. We pulled in to the hotel around 10:00pm a great place in Mission Beach that Meredith found called The Bahia. We unloaded the van got settled and called it a night.

The next morning, I got Jon off to his conference, about 8 miles away on the way back I stopped and picked up some groceries at Ralph's. A Fry's/Kroger affiliate. I mention this stop only so I can say this. This was the WORST grocery store I've ever been to. Not because of cleanliness, selection or price, but because the employees from top to bottom were rude, crass and completely inept. Staff was rude to each other, a elderly woman asked an emp for help finding something and he said, "I'm really busy right now". (WHAT???) You couldn't get anyone to make eye contact or say excuse me when they barrelled by you through small isle and at checkout, there were serious pricing discrepancies. (my 2.5lb of apples @ 10lb doe $10 somehow rang up for nearly $7. Even after they sorted out the pricing, the girl could figure out how to fix the register and said it still rang up right. (WHAT??) It was almost surreal. LOL but I digress.

Got back to the room, the boys were up and we all had some breakfast before getting ready for the zoo. Which is when we discovered the boys duffel bag was missing ... Yes, to make this very long story short (code for longer and less interesting...) It was gone - we'd unloaded it and knew it was in the lobby one the bench (pictured above) while we were unloading everything from the van. So, with the exception of the PJ's they were wearing, the boys had absolutely no clothes. Arg! We made phone calls to lost and found, scoured the hotel property for clothes strewn to 'n fro but turned up nothing. Wouldn't the folks who walked off with it be surprised when they found it stuffed full of toddler clothes. So, with nothing left to do, we packed up and headed to the zoo. We bought the boys zoo shirts, but the rotten Mom that I am, I figured they could stick it out in their thermals (Picture #2) until we could get to target. Yep, we got lots of interesting looks that day. LOL... that afternoon, we hit the Old Navy and Target and found some things to carry them through the week. To wrap up this long story, (assuming you're still with me) The next morning, while I was taking Jon to his meetings, the hotel called and they had found the bag near the front lobby of the hotel (A different bldg on the other side of the property.) I got back to the room and we all celebrated with the news. A short time later, the ever so popular "Strange Woman in the Doorway" knocked on the door with the red duffel back in tow. And boy, were we blessed. It appeared that everything was still in the bag. Whew! So, off to return the new treasure. ha!

The rest of the week was full of fun with visits to Sea World, la Jolla, the San Diego Temple, Carlsbad to visit Aunt Ashley, Uncle Dan & Cousin Cal and a trip to see Great Grandma Joyce before returning to Phoenix. If you've made it this far into the story, you're reward is the following collection of photos organized by event.