California: Part One - Loomis

This is the 3rd post in the past couple days, so if you missed one, scroll down.

Saturday, July 10th we drove to California. It was by far the best road trip we've taken with Eli. He was so good! I'm not sure why exactly, but it was great. We only stopped once and we made it there in 9 hours. Hallelujah! So we got there around 5:00 pm and were the last ones to get there (besides my brother Steve; he didn't come until Tuesday). Everyone had been in the pool since about 10:30 that morning, but they were still in, so we jumped on in ourselves! It felt so great after driving in the car all day, and it was 100+ degrees, so that helped too. Then after we got the kids to bed that night, we all practiced for the song we would sing in church the next day. I love having a musical family! Usually we tend to do things with just the girls, but we decided to sing all together and it was really great. 5 girls, 4 guys (3 son-in-laws and my dad). Luckily Amy and I married tenors, Wendy married a baritone, and my dad is a bass so it all works out. :) No pressure Heidi! Haha.

So then Sunday we went to my parent's 8:30 am church. Yeah. It was fun to see people and the song went really well. My mom made a delicious turkey dinner that night, homemade rolls and all, and somehow I got roped into playing a game of Risk that lasted forEVer. Rob, Amy, Heidi, and Jeremy started, but then Amy had to do something, so her 8-year-old Seth took over, but then somehow I ended up taking over. It was fun but it reminded me why I never play. Waaaayyyyy toooooo loooonnggggg.

Cute babies ready for Sunday dinner: (There are 8 grandkids on my side, ages 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, and three one-year-olds. These three were all born within 6 months of each other. Eli's the youngest by 4 months).Grandpa with Vanessa and Eli:
Anyway...then Monday was a very fun-filled day. Amy, Heidi and I went jogging that morning. I only lasted one lap around the neighborhood (with a walking break in the middle), Amy lasted 2, and Heidi went for 3. She's a stud. We got back in time for a delicious pancake, eggs, and bacon breakfast cooked by my dad outside on his big camping stove. We had fresh blackberries from their garden to top the pancakes and it was mmm mmm good! Then we swam for awhile in the morning and then played water kickball in the afternoon. It was so fun! You have little kiddie pools as the bases and then there's a slip and slide into home plate. Most of the kids were either sleeping or in the pool, so it was pretty much all of us adults and it was a blast. We'll definitely have to do that again.

The set-up:Seth demonstrating the slip and slide for the picture:Playin' the game:
Cooling off on third base :)
Monday was also Heidi's birthday! She turned 20! No longer a teenager. :) So that night after dinner, she gave the family night lesson and then we had yummy cake and ice cream and watched her open some presents.

This is the only picture I took that night:
Later that night, after we'd all been chatting for awhile, for some reason we decided to get out the measuring tape and measure ourselves. As you probably know, I have a very tall family. I'm the tallest daughter but what I didn't know until that night is that I'm the tallest girl! We were all shocked to find out that I was taller than my mom. She always seems taller - her hair has a little more body than mine and she pretty much always wears heels, so I think that's probably why. But, I measured in at 5'10.5" and she was 5'10.25". I know, big difference. But when we stood back to back you could totally tell. Weird. Anyway, we were all pretty close. It was fun.

Tuesday morning I woke up feeling yucky. I'd started getting a sore throat the day before and hoped it would go away, but it didn't. Eli had been starting to get sick too, so I guess it was inevitable. Anyway, so that morning Jeremy and I went over to his parent's house for a couple hours to visit and pick up some things they wanted us to take back to Utah. It was fun to see his sister's kids who live there and to visit with his parents and grandma. We looked at their garden and Eli ate 7 cherry tomatoes before we told him we had to go (he wasn't very happy about that). That kid loves fruits and veggies. :) Then we came back to my parent's house and my aunt and grandma (mom's sister and mom) had driven up from Modesto to spend the afternoon with us. My grandma is 91 so she doesn't get out all that often anymore, so it was really nice to see her. She is such a great lady. We all appreciated my aunt Marilyn driving her up so we didn't have to pack all the kids in the car and drive an hour and a half each way. We had lunch and then listened to my mom, aunt, and grandma tell funny stories about their childhoods. My mom grew up on 40 acres out in the country and my grandpa was quite the character so they had a lot of fun stories to tell.

This cute kiddo was so pooped. He fell asleep eating lunch.
Aunt Marilyn, Amy and Mom in the kitchen.
Grandma Stephens with some of her great-grandchildren.Later that afternoon Amy, Heidi, and I went grocery shopping to get all the food we would need to go to Tahoe for the next few days. We came home and Steve had arrived (my older brother) and we all ate dinner and then got ready quickly for our family pictures! We took them out in the backyard and they went pretty well! I haven't seen them yet, but the fact that none of the 8 kids were crying was quite an achievement. I hope they look cute!

My parent's beautiful backyard. We took the pictures under the big tree.
Wednesday, my dad made another great breakfast - french toast and sausage - and then we swam a bit, played pool basketball again, ate lunch, and packed up to go to Tahoe. And that, my friends, is where I will leave you for now. Whew! Next up is Lake Tahoe: Wednesday - Saturday....