Back in the Bounder!!! San Diego, CA

We were really bummed that the Bounder was  busted again, but I was excited to be spending some more time with Kathleen.  Mark thought that the problem this time was unrelated to the problem that had just been fixed, and he was convinced that he could fix it himself.  He changed some cap and roter and low and behold, he fixed it!  He pulled right into the RV park and we were ready to move back in!

The place was trashed.  The refrigerator was full of moldy food, the bathtub full of wet musty laundry that we had been soaking, the diaper bag full of wet poopy cloth diapers.  It was trashed.  Right away we got to work scrubbing, vacuuming, laundering, and airing out.  It was quite a process.

Judah was a big help, but he needed to stop for a play dough break after awhile.

By Saturday afternoon, the place was spotless and ready for our first official visitors!  Kathleen and Trevor came over to hang out and experience RV living.  We played, and chatted, took a tour of the place, and browsed through coupons and weeklys.  It was wonderful. 

Eventually they had to leave, and Judah went back to work cleaning the black yuckies off of his long abandoned bath toys.

Then it was time to re-try them out.  Nice and clean!

That night, Mark stayed home with the kids while I went out for Kate's birthday.  We went to Jayne's Gastropub and ate a lot of deliciousness.  It was fun to finally meet so many of Kathleen's friends that I had, up to this point, only heard about.  And it was fun to be there in person to give Kate a birthday kiss.

On Sunday, the boys played and we got ready to go to the farmer's market to re-stock the fridge while Mark spent some alone time working on changing the spark plugs and wires.

We met Kathleen and Trevor there and they hung out with Judah while he danced and I bought fresh produce.

After the market, I dropped the kids off at home, where they made friends with a little French boy who was also touring the US with his family, and I took off to do some St. Nick/Christmas shopping.

It was pretty successful, and the next day, Judah was thrilled to find St. Nick had packed the rainboot liner that was filling in as a Christmas stocking full of treats and surprises!

Curious George band-aids...it doesn't take much.

He waited anxiously for Sawyer to wake up, and the helped him unload his booty.

It was our last day in San Diego, so Kathleen came over for one last visit.  She helped us get locked and loaded, and even took a little ride with us.  But first, she explained to Judah all about how specific tractors worked while Sawyer screamed at her feet. She is becoming quite a natural.

It was really sad to say goodbye, but not as sad as it could have been because I didn't really believe we would get anywhere.  But un/fortunately, we did.  About an hour into our journey, Kathleen called to let me know that she had locked her keys in her car and we were the closest people with a spare, but she got it figured out with free roadside assistance and we continued on.  We had power again, which was awesome, but there was a loud whining coming from the power steering pump.  Luckily, though, we made it to the next stop, late, but in tact.  More on that to come...