California Dreamin'

On Sunday July 13th, the girls and I flew down to San Diego to spend the week with my parents and my niece, Alexis, at their timeshare in Carlsbad. We had a BLAST! We spent a week going from the beach, to the pool, to the hot tub, only to repeat it all again the next day. Tuesday we drove down to La Jolla and visited the tide pools. Ryan and Alexis had fun looking for tiny crabs and Peyton just had fun hanging out. Dad wasn't paying very close attention and a wave totally got him! Wednesday afternoon we hit the farmers market for the best kettle corn, too bad they weren't there again on Saturday! Friday morning we all went to see Mamma Mia. This was the BEST movie. Peyton slept for the first half and then I stood in the back with her for the second half. This ended up being more fun because Ryan and I were having fun dancing and singing together. The girls liked it so much that they kept asking for the music after we'd left, unfortunately we didn't have any. On Saturday, our friends Greg and Audrey came over to spend the day with us. They have a little girl, Gia, who is 8 months old and a total cutie! We had fun day hanging out together. I was really good all week about putting sunblock on, but then on Monday, the 21st, our last day at the beach, I got FRIED! The back of my legs were the reddest they've ever been. They've even started peeling today. Tuesday morning, Dad and Alexis had to fly back to Arizona. Mom and the girls and I spent some time in San Diego and then made our way up to Irvine. We spent the afternoon shopping at South Coast Plaza and scored some great deals at Bloomingdales of all places! On Wednesday we drove up to downtown LA to get some fabric for Kristen and some other random things in the ghetto!
We then drove up to Sacramento to spend the rest of the week with my brother Dave and his family. Wednesday was my nephew Cameron's 8th birthday. Cinda made a great dinner and we enjoyed catching up. My nephew Cordon has a bunch of creepy crawly pets, some type of boa snake, a leopard gecko, some poison-dart frogs, hermit crabs and fish. I was told I'd be sleeping in the animal room. I refused to sleep with the snake so they very generously moved that into their master bedroom. Wednesday night when I tried to put Ryan to bed, she was insistent that the boys would be sleeping in this room. I told her no, her and I were sleeping there, she then started crying that she didn't want to sleep with all the animals. Needless to say, she spent four nights sleeping on the floor in the room my parents were in. Thursday morning, two of my nephews, Hayden and Carter, flew up from Arizona. This brought the count in the house to eight kids. (Poor Cinda!) Cinda threw a joint birthday party for Cameron and Katelynne that afternoon at Bounce U. The kids had such a great time playing. I got adventurous and took Peyton on one of the slides. She LOVED it! She kept laughing any time we'd get close to the slide or start climbing up the was to go.
On Saturday, I took my girls and drove over to the San Francisco area to meet up with an old friend of mine. Growing up I was best friend with a girl named Ryan, yes my Ryan is named after her. Her parents split up in 6th grade and I hadn't seen her mom, Kandi, since. After reconnecting this summer I was able to go see her and spend the afternoon with her. It was so nice to spend time together and have her get to know my girls. It's funny because Ryan is now the age I was when my friend Ryan and I became friends. We had a great time at the park and Kandi spoiled my girls with presents. I won't let another 18 years go by like that!Sunday was my nephew Cameron's baptism. It was so fun to be a part of and have Ryan there to see what it was all about. She hears about being baptized at church, but she hadn't been to a baptism before.All good things must come to an end and the girls and I flew home from Sacramento yesterday. Oh and what a surprise, it's RAINING today! It's nice to be back home with Troy.
Thanks Troy for letting us go and thanks mom and dad for a great two weeks!