That’s how many miles we traveled during the past three weeks…3,800. 

I never mentioned that we were going on this big, long trip until after we got home because I always feel a little bit funny announcing to all the internet that our house is home alone. But now that we’re back…I get to fill you in on the details! We drove all the way to California and back and lived to tell about it. We were able to visit many in Matt’s family and see so many great friends along the way. It was just wonderful!

Here is our family with Matt’s grandma!

We loved everything about our trip, but wow is it great to be back home! That’s a very long time to be gone and 64 hours is a very long time to be in a van. 

And did I mention that one of our boys’ shoes got wet somewhere along the way, making for some strong foot funk all the way home? It is very much time to work the newspaper treatment on those shoes. If it wasn’t the only pair of shoes he had with him on the trip, and if they weren’t his new Christmas shoes, and if I weren’t very opposed to littering, and if I wasn’t afraid of them smacking the car behind us…I might have tossed the offending shoes out the window as we drove down the interstate. 

Foot funk aside, and even though we were in the van for what felt like forever and a half…it truly was a fabulous trip. (Oh, but I might advise that you not stop for bean loaded burritos when you have a van full of boys and a 12 hour trip ahead of you.)  The boys traveled wonderfully, meaning that there were only a few times I had to holler something toward the back of the van like, “If that sword touches the back of my neck one more time I will grab it and snap it in half.”

Yes, because of course, we do travel with swords. They are a Coppinger traveling necessity.

I didn’t really threaten to snap his sword in half (out loud). That would have just been mean, and no matter how many times the sword gouged me in the face while I breathed in the foot funk, I would never be that grumpy. {cough}

Matt and I listened to a couple of books on tape, which was a great way to pass the miles. I highly recommend Quiet Strength, by Tony Dungy. Even though he was an NFL coach and talks a lot about football in his book, and even though the only thing I know about football is that some big men in helmets make big piles of themselves all over football fields in an effort to get a funny shaped ball across a line…I loved this book! Tony Dungy is a Christian who lives his faith while leading a team. The book was inspiring and encouraging. 

I have to give kudos to Matt, the great van packer. When driving to California from Nebraska with six people at Christmas time, one must do some strategic van loading. There were backpacks and gifts and suitcases and food…and on the way home…there was an elephant.

It weren’t no small elephant neither.  Nor was it stuffed so that it could be squished.

Matt’s Grandpa Coppinger had traveled to Ghana, West Africa doing mission work many times during his life. Often, he brought back a beautiful, hand crafted wooden elephant. They were all different sizes and they were all beautiful. Matt was even able to travel to Ghana with his grandpa back in 1994. (Matt and I went to Ghana together in 1995…Ghana is a very special place to us.)

The last time we got to see Grandpa was Christmas of 2008. He died just a few months later. Each grandchild has been privileged to receive one of these special elephants. We were thrilled when Grandma showed us the elephant she’d picked for us to take home – one of the biggest of the bunch. We were a little bit uncertain about how we could make it fit in the van, but we figured that if Grandpa could bring a huge elephant back on an airplane from Africa, surely we could get it from California to Nebraska.

Matt packed well…and now that elephant is sitting right in our entry way.

I have more to tell you about our trip…but right now I’ve got to go finish airing out our mini van and stuffing newspapers into sneakers. Stay tuned for more tales from our California trip. 

Don’t worry…the other parts smell much better.

Did you do any traveling over the holidays?