Life on the Road

I feel sick. You know the feeling, when a road trip comes to a conclusion and you realize that you have eaten crap for as many days as you have been on the road. I seriously feel like a week in the gym couldn't reverse the artery-clogging/diabetes-inducing damage that I did to myself as we drove down to soCal and back. Anyways- yeah, we went down to attend a friends wedding, visit some friends and ended up in Merced on the way home for Father's Day dinner.
The trip was fantastic, and to celebrate the fantasticness of the weekend we need to hand out some awards. Here goes:

Winner for BEST TRAVELER: Ryder "THE CHAMP" Fairbanks. The king of the backseat lounged like this from San Francisco to Carlsbad and back as we stuffed him full of fruit snacks, goldfish, teddy grahams, and his favorite-- cheese strings. The only time we heard a whimper was when the DVD player ran out of juice and Baby Einstein stopped for a brief moment before we could get the car adapter plugged in. The only downside to his DVD-dependent demeanor is that I can't seem to get any of the Wiggles songs out of my head (Anthony is definitely my favorite, I can't stand Murray or Jeff).

Winner for BEST WEDDING of the weekend: Nate and Kayla Granillo: This event was the catalyst for getting us down south. The wedding was fantastic- horse-drawn carriages, white swans, beautiful weather, and a very happy couple. The wedding was outside and it was HOT, but as usual, Ryder was well behaved and didn't try to crawl into the pond to get the swans until after the ceremony.


Winner for MOST SAND CONSUMED: Tie- Ryder Fairbanks and Lee Akin. After the wedding we met old friends from SF, Lee and Ginger Akin at the beach. Ryder was all over the place at the beach... everywhere except the water. For someone so passionate about his baths, he HATED the ocean... but he loved the Akin girls. Anni and Maggie were nonstop terrorized by their new biggest fan.
Ryder found sand very delicious by choice, which made him an obvious choice for the award. Lee came by the award in a more unfortunate way, eating some serious sand when he got turfed bodysurfing.

Winner for THE BEST HOSTS: The Akin Family. We had a great time imposing on the Akins. They were very gracious hosts- choosing to use some of Lee's precious little time off to show us a good time. If it weren't for the fantastic meals we ate there I might have succumbed to the effects of my road trip diet.

Winner for BEST LOBSTER IMPERSONATION: Jenny Fairbanks. Much to Jenny's surprise, SPF 4 sunscreen has little to NO effectiveness against California's harsh summer rays. After Saturday at the beach and Monday at the pool in her parents backyard, poor Jenny's formerly pasty white skin is now somewhere between neon pink and firetruck red. Needless to say, Jenny is a hurting unit at the moment.