California

The Trip

We left Thursday afternoon and stopped in Blackfoot to pick up Mark's brother, Jakob, and his wife, Melissa. We were officially on the road by 5:00 pm and had a LONG night ahead of us.

This picture cracks me up because Jakob looks so huge squished back there with the little ones. Don't worry - he didn't have to sit there the whole time!

I finally dozed off around 12:30 and woke up less than an hour later to...

Vegas baby! I wish I could've captured it better on camera. I LOVE driving through Vegas at night. It was awesome. The kids did really well on the trip but Saydi would randomly wake up and realize she was STILL in her car seat and start to cry. It was sad. Luckily Mark had just come off a night shift rotation so he drove the whole way through and we got to our friend's house at about 5:00 am on Friday. We caught a couple hours of sleep and headed right out to go pick up Jakob and Melissa at their hotel and go to the San Diego Zoo.

The Zoo

When we lived in California the zoo was the only place we never went. So we were very excited to get to go and to take the kids. Saydi crashed towards the end but other then that the kids pretty much forfeited their naps in order to see all that the zoo had to offer. We had one mishap when Weston was goofing around on his bench at lunch time and, despite being right between Mark and I, fell straight back off his bench and cracked his head on the cement. He ended up with a goose-egg the size of a grape on the back of his head but once he stopped crying he went right back to eating and being happy. Although I STILL feel terrible that I wasn't able to catch him somehow. The zoo is where I took the most pictures so enjoy!

Weston actually posed for a picture! It was a miracle. Just love this guy.

We LOVED the elephants and I couldn't get enough pictures.

Mark and Weston - not sure what the purpose of these cut outs were. But check out Weston up close. Hysterical!

The giraffes were pretty awesome too. You can see the neck of one behind us.

Here are the hippos. Love the bums!

The pandas were really cool to see too. This is right before we went in to look at them. It was so stinking hot so please disregard my plastered down pony tail and general disgustingness.

Weston and Saydi took a little break to play on this ride. I learned that the humidity does nothing good for Saydi's hair. Just like her mama.

Wes thought the zebras were pretty cool since he recently learned how to say their name.

We also saw gorillas, lots of monkeys and birds, huge turtles, snakes, lizards, frogs, jaguars, flamingos, and tons more! After the zoo we went to Escondido to have dinner with Mark's aunt and lots of his family. It was nice seeing them again since they were the only family we had while we lived there. The kids were totally spent by the end of the day and we all crashed hard when we got back to Oceanside and finally crawled into bed.

The Sealing and the Beach

Saturday morning we left our kids with our friends. They have a little girl who is three months older then Weston and another girl who is just a few days younger then Saydi. We went to the San Diego temple for Sean, Crystal, and Audrey's sealing. It was so special and very emotional. We're so happy for them! Neither Mark nor I felt like walking all the way back to the car to get the camera so I have no pictures! =( It was great going back to the San Diego temple but I wished we had time to do a session so I could sit in the celestial room one more time. That temple is my favorite not just because of how beautiful it is but also because that temple is the one where I gained a testimony of the importance of temple attendance and received lots of inspiration for my own life.

After the temple we headed back to Oceanside to get the kids and Mark ended up spending my shopping money on a ticket instead. =) Actually, we didn't have time to shop very much so I wouldn't have been able to anyway, but I really think our budget could have done without a ticket - and that was with the cop cutting us a huge break and not citing us for both things Mark did wrong. After our little detour we headed over to Pat and Oscars for a luncheon for Sean and Crystal. We kind of rushed through there so that we could get some good beach time in and it was well worth it.

I couldn't keep Weston from running straight into the Ocean. It was like he instinctively knew he was born there and had spent time at the beach before because he was like a kid in a candy shop. He was squealing in delight with every wave and literally skipping up and down the beach. Once the waves got old he discovered the joy of digging in the sand and had just as much fun with that.

Saydi just slept on Grandpa Jerry the whole time. Poor girl was so tuckered out!

The Last Day

We woke up early on Sunday to go to our old ward at 9:00. It was great to see some of our old friends but the ward is almost totally different so it was bittersweet too. We had planned on staying for the whole thing but Weston and Saydi were so completely exhausted that I knew nursery would be a bust. So we just decided we'd hit the road early. We got on the 15 by about 12:00 after we changed and had lunch. The kids did really great considering they were in the car literally all day. Once it got dark and the kids were getting fed up I got out their glowsticks and they had lots of fun with those!

They finally crashed WAY past their bed time and slept off and on until we pulled into our driveway at 3:30 am Monday morning. Exactly 3 days and 12 hours after we started our little journey. That drive is still just as long and monotonous and we remembered it to be!

You can stop reading here as far as the details of the trip go. But I just can't stop myself from indulging in my nostalgia a little bit. California is a special place to me. I don't miss the traffic or the humidity - but I miss just about everything else about it. My memories there are sacred to me, almost reverent. I remember so well the first time I saw palm trees and the ocean; the first time I felt sand between my toes and salt water on my face. It's the place where Mark and I built a foundation for our marriage to stand on; where I truly fell 100% completely head over heels in love with my husband. I gained my independence there and found out I was capable of so much more then I ever thought. It's where I spent years waiting for a child and finally got to bring my firstborn son home to. I will forever love California and all that it symbolizes for me. But as I was driving home in the middle of the night thinking of all these things I also realized that the things that make it so special for me are the people. And the most important people who make the memories so special to me were right there in the car with me. I'm so grateful for my experiences in California. I'll never forget them. But I'm also grateful for the experiences I'm having now and I know they will be just as sacred and special to me in a few years when my kids are bigger. And I hope they will get to have their own "California" in their adult lives.