A few weeks before school started, I wanted to spend some time in California. We stayed at my parent's house for two weeks. Jason drove me down, and flew back up for work (I offered to drive alone like I did last time, but he wanted to make sure I was safe). On the way down (we left at like 3am), we stopped by Calico. Wesley LOVES it there, and I had never been. We all needed a break, so we decided to spend a little time there. As soon as we got to Calico, it started sprinkling. No big deal. However, about 10 minutes later we received an emergency text warning us about possible flash flooding in the area. Again - ehhh - we weren't too worried. However, soon after we started walking around, it started to rain - HARD. I've never been scared of a storm before, but we were on a hill, surrounded by old metal and wood buildings, and we were one of the tallest objects around. I felt like we were in real danger. Wesley teases me to this day about how I was panicking, and trying to stay low, and hide under the old buildings. While we were panning for gold, the lightning was getting intense, and the employees warned us that putting our hands in water while holding metal pans in a lightning storm was probably not a good idea. The employees pretty much took our pans, hurriedly panned for us, and got us out of there. We then ran over to the mine tour (we bought tickets to do these events, so we were trying to use them all in a hurry). Jason stayed with Blake under the covering of the building, and I took the older boys in the mine. It was POURING outside, but at least we were protected from the lighting while inside the mine (or so I thought). After walking through the mine, we knew we had to leave. A river was starting to rush down the center of town, and the rain was coming hard. The employees said it was one of the biggest rain storms they had even seen in that area. We didn't get to see or do very much, but luckily they gave us a rain check, so we can go back next time we drive to Cali.
I want the boys to be able to feel like California is still their home as much as Utah is. When visiting, I try to take them to as many familiar places as I can. One thing we just HAD to go to was Vinces - a restaurant I have been going to since I was a little girl.
We also went to a few concert's in the park - another thing I have done since I was very small.
We went to John's Incredible Pizza with the cousins- another favorite of ours.
Wesley had fun playing with his little cousin - baby Oliver
We got to go to a birthday party for Owen at a place called LOL kids club. It was fun, but holy moly, it was CROWDED!
Blake loves sitting in Grandma's little doll chair.
Olive Garden with Grandma and Great Grandma
Visiting our old ward makes me so happy. We have a good ward now, but I miss my old ward a lot. Chase and Wesley made themselves right at home, like we never left!
What is a Cali trip without going to the beach?! The beach is Wesley's favorite place in the whole world! :-) Blake really enjoyed himself as well. He loves the water. He seemed to be fearless as he marched right out into the waves. He kept getting knocked down, but would get right back up and head for more waves. That is a good life lesson - when big waves knock us down, we need to dust ourselves off and get back up again! Chase usually just plays in the sand, but this time he was in the water as much as the other two! His little cousin Lily is four as well, and they really had fun together. Their sweet little cousin bond really bloomed on this trip.
My mom and I went to a thrift store, and found this adorable fire truck for an amazing price. Chase and Blake loved it. We didn't have room in our car to take it back home, but hopefully my parents can bring it up when they come to visit in a month.
They were couch potatoes for a large portion of the trip
They also played with all my old Fisher Price toys I had growing up
One of the boy's favorite things to do in Cali was to walk around our mall, along with the usual stop at the Rain Forest Cafe to see the animals, and a treat at the frozen yogurt store.
I like to keep busy, and I thought it would be fun to go to the LA arboretum. I think everyone else in my family was too tired to go, but my Dad happily joined us. It was too hot for my liking, but there were a lot of pretty things to see, and enough shade to keep us cool-ish. The boys got a kick out of the peacocks that just walked around. Wesley even found a peacock feather!
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| Some girls were doing a photoshoot for a school project, so we asked if we could take a picture too :-) |
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