And finally we came to the last day in California. It was tough.

Thanks so much for a wonderful visit, Auntie, Grand Puba, and Super G! Love you muchos!

To pick up from where I left off in the previous post, we all climbed into the truck and Grandpa drove us to Aunt Peggy’s and Uncle Jim’s house. And this year, I wasn’t sick! We spent the rest of the evening eating dinner and chatting. Aunt Peggy has several photo albums of family with pictures that date back to the late 1800s! And then Auntie discovered a small orange envelope with old, old, old pictures in it. And that unleashed over an hour’s worth of discussing who was who and what was happening and what those people in that photograph were eating. (Nuts, maybe?) It was pretty cool, though! Uncle Jim is a photographer and Auntie ordered copies of almost all the pictures. She and Grandpa are really into family history.

The next morning, Aunt Peggy gave Naomi and I a craft to do: Making pretty fly-swatters out of a flip-flop, a rod, and buttons, ribbons, flowers, etc.

At about 12:45 we left to meet our cousins at a nearby beach. We kids hadn’t seem them for over five years. We had a TON of fun playing volleyball! No one was very good at it so there was a lot of giggles. We played 3 games of grown-ups vs. kids. We kids won 2 out of 3 times. WHOOHOO! And that last time we let them win.

After that we all congregated at Aunt Peggy’s and Uncle Jim’s house for popcorn and games. We played Hand and Foot, which none of us kids had ever heard of before. We’re hooked now!

And so ended a super fun time in Southern California.

Though we’re back in Oregon now, this post is about our visit to Southern California to visit our uncle, aunt, and cousins.

We left Grandma’s house early morning on the 9th. Before getting on the road, though, we had to drive to Grandpa’s trailer place to load up a couple trailers. Nearly every trip we take, we tow trailers to Grandpa’s (many) dealerships! We were supposed to arrive at our cousins’ house at about 10 o’clock so we could swim with them before their nap. But we ran a bit late. Instead of swimming with Cole (3 years old) and Braydon (2 years old) directly, we ate lunch, got sunburned, and lounged around the pool for a while. Then we got to meet them for the first time in a year. We first saw Cole in his dad’s, Jeremy’s, flip-flops. He could hardly walk, they were so big! Then we saw Sara, our aunt, and Braydon. Braydon had just woken up and he started crying as we all piled in through their front door. Enough said?

We had a photo shoot scheduled in about an hour and a half, so we said goodbye within 20 minutes and left to check into our hotel. The photographer was going to meet us at a park about an hour south of their house. Well, we barely made it! Showering, brushing teeth, brushing hair, gingerly slipping into your clothes because your shoulders got burned, and other necessary things took most of our spare time. But we made it to the park on time.

And so the photo shoot commenced. An hour of trying to encourage still-cranky Braydon to smile at the camera and quit running away. The photographer was really nice, though.

We were just a little away from LA at that point, so after the pictures, we went out to eat. Braydon was cheering up and everyone was happy!

After dinner, we went out separate ways: Jeremy and his family to their house and Grandpa, Grandma, Auntie, and us kids to the hotel room. Everyone had a good sleep…

The next day we bundled all our belongings into the truck so we could leave for the coast after spending half a day with Jeremy, Sara, Cole, and Braydon. We went swimming again, but this time with an enlarged party! We kids tried to pull Jeremy underwater, but…UGH. He won.

Then we all went back to their house to have lunch. After Braydon woke up from his nap, we got ice cream, went to a nearby park, laughed our heads off at Braydon laughing his head off (to be explained) and had a ton of fun.

Now, combine a boy willing to roll down grassy slopes with a little boy who’s never seen that before. What do you get? Braydon laughing his head off. Mikah would roll down the hill, all stretched out, and even in mid-whine, Braydon would start laughing! It was the funniest thing. Ever.

Then we exchanged hugs and left the park in our separate vehicles. Jeremy, Sara, Cole, and Braydon went back to their house and Grandpa drove all of us to…the coast. But that’s the next post.