June 2010: California Knows How to Party

After seeing Aniva and her parents off in Salt Lake, we picked up my sister Sonna and my niece Ruthie from Orem and packed them into the car (still 6 people, luggage and a chicken, but we left the camping stuff in Park City and Jonah's parents' house). We picked up Cam from Saint George where he had been playing with BFF Heath and Loosli cousins since getting a ride up there a few days prior from my dad's in Las Vegas. He became #7 in the car and we headed off through the desert to Orange County to my mom's house. Ponyo immediately LOVED Orange County. If chickens have emotions, she emoted pure joy at the blissful 85 degree weather and perfect humidity and loving sunshine. Wow. No wonder 630 million people live in Southern California. By the way, Ponyo was a delight to travel with in the car. She pooped in the car only three times for that whole month she travelled with us. Whenever we had to make a pit stop, we'd let her out, she'd do her business and have a few drinks of water and bits of food and then hop back into her basket in the back of the car. She even went camping with us. I highly suggest travelling with a hen or two.





My mom and her husband Ken managed to get MOST of their kids together for a family photo. The photoshopped version has my brother Tyler and Ken's son Jesse in it. I'll post it when I get the final copy.

We even got a family photo where almost everyone is smiling and looking at the camera! Miracle! First one ever!

Elsie and my niece Ruthie are only two months apart and they got along wonderfully for the whole trip. They are just darling, don't you think?





This is almost exactly the same of one of our engagement shots from 10.5 years ago. Except that my eyes weren't so cross-eyed back then.

Ponyo loves the playgrounds.

Ana can go from this....

To this... in about .01 seconds.

We had such a fun five days in Southern California. Our favorite thing was to go to the county club pool and love the weather. Also, got to mention this here... I got to see one of my BFFs from Elementary School--Michele Drouse, who was in OC from London and invited us to her sister's grad party so we could catch up. See Facebook for more details. :)




We also TOTALLY lucked out because my aunt JoRita was having her family's reunion down in San Diego at a house on Mission Bay so we crashed their party for a day and a night. Eric, Jeff and Aaron weren't there yet, but all JoRita's grandkids were and it was so fun to get all the kids together... especially Ana and Eric's daughter Olivia, who are still peas in a pod after all these years.


Their rented beach house was RIGHT on the water, so my kids basically lived in the sand, even though it never got warmer than about 68 degrees.

My brother-in-law Sloan really brought some style and excitement to the party with his World Cup/Pink Snuggy/Granola and Coke addictions.

We took all the kids to a nearby beach carnival thing.








This is Ana and Olivia with Jerilyn's boys Matthew and William.


I was SO lucky and got to ride the round-and-round submarine ride with most of JoRita's (my aunt) and Teresa's (my mom, a.k.a. Tess) grandkids.


Yep. That's how I felt too.


Elsie and Ruthie in the boring boats.
After the day in San Diego, we drove back up to my mom's in Orange County and warmed up (San Diego and Seattle have the same June weather... Junuary is more like it) and spent some more time at the pool before loading all seven (Sloan flew in and out so he didn't have to drive with us) of us back into the station wagon and driving back to Utah.On the way, we spent the night in Las Vegas at my dad's house and Sonna and I went crazy and saw the new Twilight movie on opening night at 12 midnight. Loved it, mostly because of all the screaming fans.
We made it back to Northern Utah all in one piece and dropped Sonna and Ruthie off at their condo in Orem and drove back up to Park City for a couple days. While in Park City, we picked up some GLASSES for Ana. We knew the day would come, mostly because she's been squinting for about a year. Plus, she has me for a mom... I'm the most nearsighted person in all of Jonah's and my family, except for my grandma who is exactly the same prescription. That's pretty bad eyesight considering there are about 24 people with corrective lenses in our two families.... so if you are one of my kids, you better just expect to be a four-eyes. And to need braces... but that's mostly from Jonah.