Cousin Road trip

Most of my family lives within an hour's drive of me. I'm lucky that way. It's easy for us to spend holidays and birthdays together. My uncle Ron, Aunt Wendy, and baby (she's 19) cousin Ivy live in California. We get to see them about once a year. They've been trying to get some of us to come visit for a while and finally my cousin Samantha took some initiative and planned a weekend for us to go. It was quick since neither myself or my brother could take more than a day off. Samantha, Andy, myself, and Samantha's sister Randi drove down on a Thursday night, arriving at about 4am. (This is not the first time we've made this drive. When I was still in high school, Samantha, Andy and I drove down to Sacramento for a couple days during spring break. To this day, I can't hear Remix to Ignition without thinking of that trip. Samantha honked her horn all the way through the passes to keep the deer away.)
Before our drive, we stopped at WalMart to pick up some essentials like massive amounts of junk food for the drive. I decided to get a subway sandwich at the in-walmart subway. There was one lady in front of me and the woman working was sweating and ranting about how busy she was because the kid who usually works with her is on drugs so she had to send him home. Fair enough, but since there were just two of us standing there, I didn't really see how she was so overwhelmed. The woman in front of me ordered a pizza because the rotten kid she was with was refusing to eat vegetables. So the subway lady puts the pizza in the oven and just stands there, staring at the oven, waiting for it to cook....she waits the full 3-5 minutes for it to cook which happens to be roughly the time it takes to make me a tuna with spinach, olives, lettuce, and cucumbers on wheat. She doesn't address me until the pizza is cooked, packaged, and paid for. She makes my sandwich and then when I give her my card makes fun of my last name, asking me if high school was awful. My last name isn't dickmouth, okay? It's Ridderbusch. I don't think it warranted the reaction. When I walked away, she was discussing my horrible last name with the line that had formed while she waited for that pizza to cook. I digress.
My brother managed to lose his wallet at about 1am at a rest stop. So I called the highway patrol and the security at the rest stop which happened to be run by Seven Feathers Casino and the nicest rest stop I've ever been to. Everyone was very helpful but nobody found the wallet. Bummer, Dude.
When we got to Sacramento, we took a nap and got up 3 hours later to get on the double decker boat that my uncle had rented for us to hang out on for the day. We got to lounge on the lake and eat all the great food my Aunt Wendy packed for us and just hang out together all day. It was really relaxing-just a great way to spend the day with my cousins and uncle. I did manage to fall asleep on the top deck, completely frying my back, ass, and legs. And I also lost one of my favorite clip-on earrings because I forgot to take it off before I jumped in the water. Gotta take the good with the bad right? Wendy had delicious enchiladas waiting for us when we returned.
The next day they got us bagels and then us girls went vintage-shop roaming while my uncle and brother had man time or something. We spent some time in old town where my aunt insisted on continuing what was turning out to be quite a fat-kid weekend by buying us tons of candy and taking us to lunch.  When we got home, we laid out at the pool and played Kinect. Which I kick ass at, by the way. If someone has one they don't want, send that puppy my way. Dinner outside, a nice family walk, and smores in the backyard ended our day. Oh, and I dropped my phone in the pool that day. I put it in a bag of rice hoping it would heal itself but while I did get it to turn on, it wouldn't stop vibrating and was just generally ruined. Which is why I now have an iphone, as mentioned several posts ago because I do things out of order. Sue me.
Another thing that happened is that my brother bought a turtle. He does shit like that. I think it's name is burt, having to do with a conversation earlier in the weekend about hazelnuts/filberts and how only an Oregonian would EVER call a hazelnut a filbert.
We got up Sunday morning and began our long drive home, which included stopping at the Seven Feathers rest stop to try once more to recover Andy's wallet. And, YAHTZEE! They had it. Pretty awesome.
 I really enjoyed spending time with my cousins. Samantha and I always have fun together and Randi just moved back to Oregon so it was nice to have her there. And I even enjoyed my brother who is so old these days (he's only a year and a half younger than me but still) and is always hilarious. Ivy is so grown up, too. There are pictures of me holding her as a baby so it's weird and awesome that she's now a beautiful, smart, and sweet as can be college sophomore.