Pretty sure these ones would make a sound...

...regardless of whether or not there was anyone around to hear them when they fell.

The surprises kept coming with a stay at a resort. Seriously, Mark & Kaylinn are so good to us - they even gave us the bedroom. It was a beautiful resort with fun swimming pools, great food nearby and it was really close to a national forest boasting H-U-G-E trees.

We spent the better part of the day wandering through the coolest forest I've ever seen. My neck got stiff from looking up at the trees so much. Had I not seen them for myself, I never could have appreciated the size if someone had just described them to me. One of the first fallen trees we encountered had been turned into a dance floor. A legitimate dance floor. Mind boggling. I hope that the photos convey the massiveness = particularly the one with all of us standing in the middle of the tree that cars used to drive through. Carazy. I confess to stealing Kaylinn's collage and photos (you'll be able to tell which they are - they look much better than mine. She is a creative genius.)

 

Teagan may have been overwhelmed by all the green - we don't see much of that hue in our neck 'o' the desert. It must not have been enough, though, because she went in search of more multiple times...

We let Teagan do her own walking, which was cute to watch for a while but her dawdling necessitated us carrying her for a good chunk of the trek. You may have noticed that she's - how do I put this nicely? - not small. Carrying her got difficult, so Mark initiated an ingenious Plan B. Tell her to look for Dora and her friends. I panicked a little, having calculated the possibility that The Explorer Herself was hanging out in this particular forest hovered around ZERO. Well, Mark's a smarty pants and kept up the act for an impressive amount of time. And she was perfectly content calling out to Dora & her pals over and over for the last 1/2 mile, give or take. Of course, she was sure to put her hands on her cheeks to make sure her voice carried further ;) All it took to reconcile the promise of a Dora sighting was clicking a button on the ol' personal DVD player at the end of our trek while we ate a packed lunch (seriously, aren't the Morrells the best?) with a swarm of angry bees.

We enjoyed some pooltime later, soaking up sun AND quality time with The Morrells. It was refreshing for Teagan to have two someones capable of throwing her impossibly high and catching her without partially drowning her...and can touch the bottom comfortably. 

Once again, Teagan decided not to sleep or even nap while we were on the road. I threw my parenting rules out the window at 2:00 AM and threw on a movie to coax her to sit still for a few minutes. We were noisy, ill-rested, bad tempered and obnoxious for the rest of the trip, but our friends rose above and miraculously decided against dropping us off at the airport a day early. Instead, we watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympics (SO glad the Spice Girls made an appearance), reminisced about simpler times when we visited them without a tiny blonde non-somniac with an impressive set of lungs. She did have a few sweet moments, though. Like colouring at their antique school desk - it reminded me that time is flying entirely too quickly.

And while she and Cameron may have gotten off on the wrong foot (I sense jealousy was at play) she adored him (and by 'adored' I mean 'tickled and oogled constantly') by the end of our visit. Her baby backseat buddy. Did I mention that M & K managed to track down two different vans for us to borrow over the weekend so we didn't have to rent a car...or drive in California? An Odyssey and an Astro. Both were awesome for different reasons.

When I became too exasperated to deal with Teagan in a civil manner, I offered to "take care of" Cameron. So Mark was brave enough to hand me his baby in exchange for my monster for a few minutes. A few head-smelling, warm and cuddly, peaceful minutes.

Although we joked about our next holiday being a childless one, they definitely added a fun dynamic to our trip. Our wonderful (albeit sleepless) trip full of super surprises, fine food and fantastic friends.