Meet me in Cali...

Our family has traditionally gotten together every other Christmas - but flights have proven to be expensive, delayed often, and it's just a plain terrible time of the year for travel.  So this year, we opted for a family summer destination - San Diego, California.  

Our first stop en-route...   visiting Laura-ba-dora and her adorable family.  (PS, Laura is 9 mo's prego here and I seriously thought my crazy family would send her into labor but no, little Eva held out for a couple more weeks!)

That's some serious thinkin'

Maynrad and my sis Lara - it was a PAAAARTY!

DESTINATION: SAN DIEGO

We had ALL of us (that's 22 bodies) in 1 house.  It worked.  Some suffered with the smaller beds and smaller rooms while my family had the luxury of a huge spacious floor for our big boys and Skye got a closet (bigger than some of the rooms) all to himself.  Yeah, we were spoiled.  Sorry Dev and Alisa.  Here's a pic of the hammock that kept the kids entertained for hours

  

AT THE BEACH

we visited a couple of different beaches and technically I could do this post by day and place, but it just isn't happening.

The "whities" hanging out in the shade

 The "blisters" (and I'm already laughing when I think about looking back at these pics in 15 years and saying "We wore those sunglasses?"  Maybe the future will have sunglasses that cover our faces?)

Skye... gotta love those cheeks

Skyler LOVED eating sand...

He didn't mind watching the water from a distance...

But, put him in the water and it was not such a great day after all.

If I didn't want to stop him from eating the sand - then he was hanging out in our awesome shade tent.  Here's a pic of Julia and Skye hanging out.  Skyler kept stealing Julia's toys, sorry Julia.

Danny and Maiya are about 6 months apart in age and they had a GREAT time together!!

We had family Olympic challenge - kids, women, and men competed in running, long jumps, and I think we also threw something... 

yeah, my brother is one lean, mean, muscle machine.

Cole flying in his long jump

Danny, our future olympian...

we all giggled as she "jumped"

Hunter took this seriously as the oldest cousin

Wait, hold it for just one more sec while I take a pic...

SEAWORLD

We (EVERYONE) spent a day at Sea World.  There's a lack of pics for that day since I decided to not carry around my camera for a day (I know, a rare day in my life.)

Danny dancing with one of the mascots of Seaworld (yup, there's more than 1)

Lara's shoes gave her blisters, and luckily we had Shayne's flip-flops with us cause they were a life-saver even though they are a wee-bit big.

Maybe they're eating the lice out of their hair?  (JK, I'm sure it was just bed bugs)

Danny and Maiya

MIDWAY CARRIER

This is literally a floating city and immense!  Once again, I didn't take many pics.  I was carrying Skyler and trying to keep up with Danny and Maiya the whole time.  And Shayne was with the big boys at Knott's Berry Farm that day - which proved to be another "memory maker" of losing a child (Cole).  Thank goodness he knew my phone number by heart and that kind, wonderful people noticed the wandering child.  

MORMON BATTALION VISITOR CENTER 

(in Old Town San Diego)

They have a new visitor center (well, new to us) and it was a GREAT place for kids.  The whole presentation has very cool technology, plus the kids got to pan for gold at the end! 

(look at that big kid in the hat)

love the way he "points" with his eyes

the kids learning about a water pump...

FAMILY PICS

 My amazing parents - who take all the blame for creating this wild bunch! 

trying to get grandkids with the grandparents - never an easy task to have more than 1 child in a picture!

 

I LOVE MY FAMILY!