California 2014

I was born in California.  My dad was raised there.  When I was 8 years old, we left Grandma & Grandpa, aunts and uncles and cousins, palm trees, and traffic jams and moved to snow and potatoes in a small town in Idaho. It is that small town that I affectionately call my "home."  But I love my natural "California Girl" blond highlights.

My grandpa recently turned 80 so we all got our ducks in a row and made preparations to visit the golden state in honor of this momentous mile stone.  This is an adventure we only do every several years.  So we filled every single day not wanting to waste a minute of it.  But we've got 20+ relatives currently living there and another 16 of us traveled down.  That's a lot of people to juggle and coordinate.  But we all did the best we could and I think overall, it was a successful adventure. 

Remember those 16 people, add 2 more (Grandma & Grandpa) and shove them all in 1 elevator.  :)  Sounds like fun to me.

I know I am TOTALLY biased, but it's not the lit up jelly fish that make this picture pretty, it's the heads of the 3 little people that mean the world to me. 

Don't get me wrong, it was a really nice aquarium.  BUT, I felt like it didn't take us all that long to see what there was to see.  And I felt that the price we paid for admission should have equated to at least a 1/2 a day of entertainment.  (translation: I'm not sure it was worth the money.)

Since the aquarium didn't take us as long as we thought it would, we hung out and killed a little time.  It really was just great to have us all in one place.  A rare blessing.

 

Yes, these stairs actually played music.  

 

Lost count of how many billboards we saw for this movie.  (They're a little excited.)

A "must see" stop for my family usually.  The most amazing restaurant bar none.  But . . . not gonna lie.  Not a cheap endeavor.  We'll see how I feel about it a couple years from now. 

Love my sisters!  So grateful to have them as my friends.  It was just the 3 of us during this little adventure.  They were such good sports.  I felt so bad waking them up before the sun.  But it ended up being so much fun.  Great memory.  (We look so clean in this picture.)

 

(Had to protect my watch.)

 

Not so dirty right?

Our tatoos!  

 But there was this after party . . . .

 

And this is why I saran wrapped my watch.

 

Time to clean up.  (This is how they were doing it at the race.)  (Yes that's a leaf blower.)

You can't have a gathering of 40+ family members and pass up the opportunity for pictures. 

My grandparents with 10 out of 15 grandkids.

My grandparents with grandkids and great-grandkids.

My dad and his siblings.

The WHOLE party!  (Grandpa appears to be kind of a popular fellow.)

Finally, pictures are done and it's time for cake!  Isn't that just a great picture of my Grandpa?

Playing at the beach was one of our favorite parts of visiting California.  BUT, I threw up the night before and again that morning before we left.  So needless to say, my picture taking efforts were at a minimum.  I did manage a couple though.

Normally I love a good wave jumping session!  But all I was up for, was some quality time with a princess beach towel.  But thanks to my brothers wife, my kiddos were still able to have a blast.

The zoo ended up being a great attraction for all ages.  (We had ages 0-80 you know.)

Worth every penny of the $10 rental fee.  Helped keep the kids from getting worn out and over tired.

The play ground alone was reason enough to come back to this zoo again some day!
 

 

















A few of us dragged our weary bodies out of bed in the wee morning hours and made an early morning temple trip.  It was so so nice.

 

One of my cousins has 3 little girls too.  (And yes, my grandparents have a little palm tree in their front yard.)  

Shortcake playing with Great-Grandma. (Grandma would pretend to be asleep and the little train would come "wake her up.")

My girls had really wanted to go swimming.  But all the spray parks were closed due to a drought and none of the swimming pools were open till the last day of school, (some time later in June.)  So we found this interesting little place to spend the day.
"Fairyland"  (As in fairytale.)  It opened back in 1950, and you could tell.  But overall, it wasn't so bad.  The kids enjoyed it.  

My nephew didn't appreciate the kiddie ferris wheel. 

Jack & Jill's hill.

(We're riding in a train.)

 (The train went through a western town.)

 

Alice In Wonderland's card maze.

The Emerald City

Captain Hooks pirate ship.

And a puppet show.

On the way home from Fairyland, we stopped at the temple again so the kids could see the temple.
My dad proposed to my mom here over 30 years ago.

 

 

The temple is almost 50 years old.  So they were in the middle of some construction.  That large dark gray place in the middle is going to be a waterfall.

One of the cool things about this temple is that you can actually walk up on top of it.  This picture was taken up on top.

We visited one of my favorite parks from my childhood.  The kids loved it.

(Yep she's "driving" the plane.  Complete with sound effects and imaginary steering wheel steering.)

My little nephew's face: "These people are kind of odd."

Eventually it was time to say goodbye.

Our trip there took us 17 hours!!  So on the way home we decided to take our time a little bit more and did it in 2 days.  On the way we stopped to get one last look at the beautiful ocean.

A bed never felt so comfy!

I'm grateful I get to see my family as much as I do.  Every minute is a gift.