Spring Break

For spring break this year, we wanted to have some fun and hopefully visit our future home town. Well we got to do just that.

My parents we're going to Mesquite, Nevada over spring break to ride 4-wheelers and do some other stuff around those parts. Mesquite is en route to the top two places we had picked to moved to, so we figured we would tag along with them, and hopefully find out where we were moving to and travel on from there. Well on Friday the 18th, the day before our departure, Shay got tired of waiting and called the placement coordinator for the Public Health Service. As I've mentioned before, she said we'd likely be sent to Lompoc. Well that likelihood was enough for us, and we scheduled a visit to Lompoc into our spring break.

So on Saturday, March 19th, after packing, trying to clean my house SPOTLESS, and signing papers to put our house for sell, we loaded up everything into our small car and headed to Mesquite, Nevada. We got there super late (or early, depending on how you look at it) and spent that evening in my parents' motor home.

On Sunday we went to church and then headed into St. George to visit some church historical sights.

Monday was suppose to be our day for Las Vegas. None of us were very stoked about the Vegas strip, casinos, or any of that noise, so we just went shopping at an outlet mall. I had fun. Our original plan was for us to stay in Vegas or just beyond Vegas that night, but Shay and I were both too excited to see Lompoc, so we just drove there instead.

As we were getting closer to Lompoc, I started prepping myself for the worst. I imagined pulling into a trashy dump of a city. I began the positive self-talk to help me endure the couple of years I would be living in Lompoc. I took comfort in the one great fact I knew about Lompoc- it's on the coast.

My worries quickly turned into pure joy as I realized that we had to drive through a beautiful, freeway-less, mountain pass in order to drop into Lompoc. As we pulled into the city, I saw nice buildings, cleanliness, well lit streets, and palm trees! I was stoked. Still am.

Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day. We spent the morning driving around to check out the area. After lunch we headed to Jalama Beach. It was fantastic! Cayben and Embrie enjoyed playing in the sand. Cayben liked jumping the waves. Embrie declared, "Ocean scary," and didn't want to get near it. We didn't want to ever leave, but the phone didn't have service and we were waiting for a call from the prison.

 

On Wednesday, Shay toured the prison and got to learn a little bit about his future job. The kids and I hung out in the hotel most of the morning and then walked to the local MacDo for lunch. That afternoon we drove around some more to look for housing. In the evening we headed to two other beaches to check out our future hang out locales. They were nice but closed. One of the beaches is closed seven months out of the year for an endangered species bird nesting refuge and the other beach was just closed for the night.

On Thursday we headed back to Mesquite. We stayed that night with my parents.

Friday morning we ate breakfast at the casino with my parents. Afterward we headed for good ol' P-Town. We had over 100 miles of heavy snow and white-out conditions. That sucked, but we made it home!