Going Back to Cali

Believe it or not, we hadn't been back to Cali since we moved, which was 16 months ago. Cory's parents have come to visit a couple times since then, but we hadn't seen any of his siblings since we left. That was the primary purpose of our trip, but we also tacked on a 3-day trip to SoCal at the end. Since I have so much to say about our trip (imagine that!), I'm going to break it up into a few posts.

We left the house at 10:20am for the Denver airport. Once we had parked and ridden the shuttle to the airport, Cory got an email from Southwest about a flight delay. The original flight was to LAX, scheduled to arrive at 2:30. Because of the crazy weather in the east, our flight was delayed more than 2 hours. By the time we got our rental car it was 5:30, putting us in rush hour traffic on Friday night. We were headed north from the airport, so that put us on the 405, which is the slowest freeway in LA. We sat in traffic for 2 hours thinking about how depressing it must be for these people to do this on a regular basis. People were talking on their blue tooths, eating their dinner, pretty much getting ready for bed because that's what time it would be when they got home. At 8pm we were finally out of the mess and stopped in Valencia for dinner. Then I drove through the Grapevine (a high-altitude stretch of canyon that leads to Bakersfield), where it was foggy and snowy, and we continued on in pouring rain to Fresno. We arrived safely at 11:30 (Pacific time, so 12:30 for us) and got the kids, who'd been sleeping for hours, straight to bed. I'll admit, it took a couple days for the memories of that long, 14-hour trip to fade.

The next day we watched BYU beat San Diego State in San Diego, so that helped restore our spirits. Then Cory's mom had a birthday party for our nephew Ethan.

That was the only time all 10 kids were together, so we had to take a picture of the occasion.

We met two of our nephews, and everyone but Cory's parents got to meet Brooke for the first time.

On Sunday we got to see the Ortegas' house where we ate dinner, played games, and the kids got acquainted/reacquainted.

On Monday we enjoyed some nice weather outside. Then we stopped in to see our long-time friends Jared and Audrey Medaris. Jared was Cory's roommate in the dorms freshman year, and also a close friend of mine.

Then we went to see the Cosentinos' house where we ate dinner and played games. Jennifer even managed to get Jerry to play, which is not an easy task.

Tuesday morning we went to the Fresno Temple while Sherry watched the kids. Brooke napped most of the time, so Brady got Grandma all to himself, which is such a privilege. She is the kind of grandma who gives her undivided attention. She gets down on the floor to play, she comes up with great activities, and she is just so sweet with children. She absolutely LOVES children. I truly wish our kids had more one-on-one time with Grandma. She's seriously the best and here's a picture to prove it:

Play-Doh and cookie cutters! You can't beat that, except she also folded all our laundry while we were gone, so I guess she did beat that. I hope Cory's sisters realize how lucky they are to have such a wonderful grandma living so close to them.

Brooke wanted to sit in a big kid seat for lunch, and she did really well. I can't believe how fast she's growing up!

That night we went out for dinner at a teppan-style Japanese restaurant.

Yummy!

Thanks Family for making our 4 days in Fresno so memorable. You actually rivaled the Christensens in number of games played, which is quite impressive!