Livin' the life in California

California to us is all about family, friends and swimming! Since our arrival here on Tuesday I think the kids may have been swimming 20 times! At least 4 times a day. Today was an exception of only one time-but they were in for about 2 hours. We are on pool count #2 in CA. We did hit one in CT before we left so I guess the total vacation count is 3. The kids like to see how many pools that they can swim in. So far no ear infections!

The other night at my Grandma's we had 16 of the 28 great grand kids and 8 of the 18 grand kids, 1 aunt, and one 95 year old Grandmother and matriarch of our family. Whom I must add picked us up from the airport! Yes she still drives!

It is so nice to be able to catch up with family among the chaos- of preparing the food, watching the kids swim, Xander learning to skateboard and Alyssa attempting it a bit,

all of the kids in the rented bouncy, and getting well trying... to get everyone to cOOpEraTe for a partial family picture!

It is so nice to be able to catch up with my cousins. We are in so many different places now- Costa Rica, Hawaii, Massachusetts, & San Diego. And that is only the ones who were here. We are so spread out across the universe. I fear that the only time we will all be together again is a time I don't want to really think about. So I will move on to happier subjects.
We hit Six Flags Magic Mountain with our great friends the other day. It was not only unexpected, but FREE! You gotta love free! The kids had a great time riding the coasters! I had them wear their crocs since we learned our flip flop lesson in Florida. Well I forgot about the fact that the kids really haven't been wearing them since Spring and Xander ended up with HUGE blisters on both of his feet. We bought band aids, went to First aid and still the super sticky band aids wouldn't stick! SO at the end of the day I was wearing his crocs and he was wearing my size 9 1/2 leather flip flops. I should have taken a picture! It was quite amusing!
We met up with one of my dear girlfriends and got to meet her precious little girl! We had a wonderful day at her home with you guessed it the kids swimming, playing and me oohing and aahing at sweet little Kaitlyn!

Today we went to Paul and my favorite place for frozen yogurt. It is kinda like Coldstone meets frozen yogurt! Mmmm. It is fun to be able to take the kids to all of the places we loved to go back in the day! We have hit In-N-Out only once much to Alexanders dismay! He wanted to go 15 times in 14 days! I told him not to worry that Dad will be here in a few days and I know we will be there many times once he arrives! As we speak it is 10:15 pm and one of my cousins is making an In-N-Out run! I am so bummed that I am stuffed! Monday is another day....
Tomorrow we will go to church with those who are still here and haven't traveled back to their homes. It will be nice to be at church because that is where the Bishop married us 17 years ago to the day! What a great day it was and how happy I am to be able to say I am so grateful for the wonderful man I married that day and the even more wonderful man and Father I am still deeply in love with today! I can't wait for him to join us on the rest of our vacation on Tuesday!