We went to California this week! The kids had no school on Thursday or Friday because of fall break! Kevin, Savannah, Sarah, McKay, and Ammon took the days off work, and Megan brought her computer and tried her best to keep up with her university classes while partying with us! Mariah knew the souls of the people of Long Island needed her for a few more months so she will party with us next time. We can't wait! In the meantime, it was good for this momma's heart to have so many of us together for a few days!

Also good for this momma's heart was to see her own momma and papa!! We left Wednesday afterschool. (I'll have you know that we were only 15 minutes behind schedule this time which is our best record ever! We were picking Ben up from school so we could really not be much later than that!) We drove down to Vegas and stayed the night at my parents' house. It was so fun to see them, get hugs, visit, and eat all my dad's fresh baked cookies and bread! He says I am still eating him out of house and home but he loves to see me anyway. Ha ha!

The next day we drove to our vacation rental AirBnB in Oceanside. We were right on the beach!! We walked in to the view of sun sparkling on the ocean right outside our big windows. We had three bedrooms, four bathrooms, and enough beds for 12! Plus a giant kitchen. Also, two patios that looked out over the ocean. We went down the steps to the ocean and we got right to work boogie boarding and rock hounding. It was a lovely afternoon.

The next day we had tickets to Disneyland!! We hadn't been there for over ten years and felt like we needed to bring Ben and Beth at an age they would remember it. We wanted to go last year, but ... it was closed because of COVID! So, we got reservations and tickets months ago! Even then, I think everyone on the planet was at DL with us! It was sooo crowded. But still, we got to go on all the rides we wanted to go on (except Rise of the Resistance) and we had the experience and took the pictures and we were together! It was fun! But we were sure tired at the end of the day! Megan made a super-cute video of our day, too! It will be fun to always have that, since ... we're not going back ever! Ha ha! Just kidding!

On Saturday we enjoyed our vacation home on the beach all day! The kids played games in the morning and I read my book by the window. Then we all went down to the beach again and the kids made things with the rocks and we boogie boarded. We even tried the paddle boards. We haven't quite figured out how to have fun with them yet, but Ammon used one as a surf board and even got up once! That night we grilled hamburgers on the patio and ate outside while the setting sun made beautiful colors over the ocean. It was a beautiful, beautiful day!

On Sunday we drove all the way, all the way home. We were in the car for 12 and a half hours! It would have been at least an hour less if it hadn't been for road construction on the I-15 in Arizona. For a funny story, ask us about peeing at the side of the road during standstill traffic. It was an EMERGENCY!! It was a hard day but we made it home and we were all so glad we got to go to California!