Woke up to see Jack curled up on Amelia's mattress with here. Jonathan couldn't get Jack to go in his crate last night, so he had free roam of the room. He chose the coziest spot. x what a monkey.
Beautiful gingerbread village. That's some serious Red Dye No. 6 happening there.
Once again our family was up at the crack of dawn, so we decided to have a swim and make use of the hot tub now that it was all warmed up! Kids had a blast snorkelling, swimming and jumping into the pool. I stuck to the hot tub.
Once the Cali Tentas were up and about, Mike make some awesome waffles. I washed all the bedding we used. Amelia and Gillian did more lego, and we said our farewells to Stella as she was off to the barn to prep for tonight's Christmas barn lighting party.
We left around 2:15pm along Hwy 80 and by 3pm we were driving over the Bay Bridge - and could see Alcatraz in the distance. We'll have to take the kiddos there another time as we didn't manage to fit it in this weekend. Amelia said, "Is this the fancy bridge?" was we drove over.
By 3:30pm we were at the toll booths, and we also saw a beautiful rainbow! Within half an hour we were in Fairfield and stopped at the Valero for diesel (126847km on the dash). Turned onto Hwy 505 and then onto the I-5 North.
Around 6pm we arrived at dusk to our Harvest Host for the evening - Moonbeam Loofa and Lavender Farm in Corning, California. This was a cool property down a little farm road. We messaged ahead of time to let Caz know we were arriving in the evening. There were no other campers on the site, so we got to pick where ever we wanted to park.
We walked up to the red barn and when she opened the door a very large grey and white staffie/dane cross wagged his way out the door to greet us! Nash was the sweetest boy, very friendly and affectionate and the kids were instantly enamoured.
We had a nice chat with Caz, the owner about her farm and learned about the different types of lavender they grow, and about loofahs and how they are farmed! super cool! I bought some lavender essential oils, a vapour breather, and some lovely organic loofahs. I had high hopes for the relaxing night in the lavender fields with our new essential oils. Ahahahahahahaha.... yeah, no.
We had greek salad for dinner and played a game of Sleeping Queens. The kiddos were so tired and quite fighty with each other. Like, QUITE fighty. I had been preparing for an absolute emotional meltdown from them anytime now as we got closer to home. The underlying anxiety of getting back home to routines, friends, school, and the end of our epic journey was a lot. The relaxing lavender fields were just enough to bring that out, haha.
Our kids were scrapping and yelling and kicking each other in the bunk. Jonathan was also upset with them as Amelia was freaking out and behaving wildly when he tried to ask them to settle down and have Amelia get out of the bunk. He wanted her to get down so he could make the dinette bed for her to separate them and she was NOT having it. Strangely, I was feeling super calm as all this unfolded as I had been anticipating this for quite a few days now, and here it was! and I knew that everyone needed to get those big feelings out. We tried our best to calm Amelia down and get her bed ready but she tried to sleep on the dinette bench and wouldn't let us set up the bed. She then threw herself on the floor as if we were making her sleep on the floor (we were not) and refused to get up, threatening to "sleep outside". Oh boy. We ended up throwing blankets on the floor for her and letting her stay there as there was no reasoning with her at this point, she was so angry.
I got up in the night to put more blankets and jackets over here to keep her warm, but she "froze all night" apparently. Oh boy. Fun times!
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