I know this is over a month old, but I still wanted to journal about my time down in SoCal to visit a good friend from Zimbabwe. This was my first long trip where it was just Eli and me. I have to admit, now that he is a little older, I was slightly nervous about being in the car with him for so many hours. He sleeps pretty good in the car, but I knew he wouldn't sleep for longer than 1 1/2 - 2 hours at a time and the trip would be at least 6 hours of driving time, maybe longer.
I loaded up the car with plenty of toys and snacks to keep him busy and pulled over 3 times for breaks where we could both get some fresh air and stretch our legs. Each time we stopped, I would stay for at least 45 minutes to an hour so Elijah could run out all his energy. We stopped at a rest-stop and I had so much fun watching Eli chase after all the birds and run to greet any dog that came close to him. We also stopped at McDonalds and since there weren't very many people in the restaurant, I let him roam around and played peekaboo with him. The trip took 8 1/2 - 9 hours, but he was such a trooper.
We had a delightful weekend visiting with Shannon who had moved from Zim to Santa Clarita to attend University at The Masters College. I have missed Zim so much since we moved back to the States, so it was so delightful to see Shanz and talk about everything. She is an amazing woman and I'm so excited about her opportunity to be here in California for her tertiary education.
It was hard not having Jerod with us on the trip, but I'm so glad we went anyway. One of the difficulties was sleeping at night. Even though Eli slept pretty good, I found it very difficult to stay asleep and kept waking up constantly because of all the moving around Eli would do in his pack-in-play. For the first 8 months or so of his life, Elijah slept in our bedroom, but in June we moved him to his own room so we all could get some better sleep. I didn't realize how active he had become in the several months since I had last slept in the same room with him. Not only was I glad to get back home to see Jerod, but sleeping in my own room was also a relief.
Here are some pictures from our time with Shanz.
Even though you can't see it very well in this picture, Elijah has a mouth full of dirt which he thought was pretty fun to taste.
Shannon and Elijah at Taco Bell (this was Shannon's first time to Taco Bell)
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