Trip to California!

Mid-July we took a trip out to California! Once we got over the initial shock of spending over 2 grand on plane tickets we were really looking forward to the trip! We had a four night reunion with Jeremy's family on the beach near Santa Cruz and it was lots of fun! The trip was a bit exhausting, but now that we've been home for a week I think we've recovered. :)

We decided to fly out of Columbus because it was significantly cheaper and we wanted to fly Southwest so we could have free checked bags. Our flight left at 7pm, so we left the house about 3:45, arrived there at 5:30, parked and checked in, grabbed some dinner and got on our first flight to Denver. It arrived in Denver at 8pm (10pm our body time) and then we had an almost 2 hour layover before we flew on to Sacramento. We ended up getting into Sacramento a little before midnight (almost 3am our body time) and then my parents picked us up and we drove the 45 minutes or so back to their house. None of the kids slept at all until we were about to board our second flight, when Connor fell asleep seconds after sitting on a chair while we waited to board.

The boys fell asleep right after we took off that second flight, but Anna didn't fall asleep until about 45 minutes into it. We were exhausted to say the least! The kids "slept in" until 7am then next morning, so they got about 5 hours less sleep than usual, but managed to be quite pleasant the next day. Luckily we were able to get them to bed at a decent hour the next night and they didn't wake up too terribly early considering the time adjustment.

(The boys when we arrived at my parents' house)

My parents were so generous and let us borrow their car, trailer, and all their camping gear. I was having some major anxiety about having to bring all our gear on the plane across the country, so it worked out really nicely that we could borrow their stuff. It was a HUGE blessing. Thanks Mom and Dad! We had a nice breakfast with them, loaded up the trailer and then headed over to Jeremy's parents' to visit and continue getting ready for the trip. We stayed there that night and then headed out about 9 the next morning! It was a three hour drive down to the beach, but the kids were so tired, they were content to watch a movie in the car and get a little snooze.

We stopped in San Jose for lunch and met up with our dear friends the Arnetts! I miss their family so much. I haven't had a good friend like Mary since we left Pittsburgh, and it was so nice to catch up and see our kids having a great time together. We didn't have a ton of time, but we enjoyed some In n Out (Jeremy's request) and had a little time to chat and play. We were so happy they took the time to meet us!

Naomi, Anna, Connor, Joey, Eli & Moses

 

Then we headed down the rest of the way to the campground! We were there from Friday afternoon until Tuesday morning and then we drove back up to Sacramento to catch our flight home. It was a bit of a whirlwind trip, but it was great to have a few days at the beach in between a lot of traveling. We ended up getting home about 3am Wednesday morning, and then Jeremy had to leave for work at 6:30, but somehow we survived! And it was well worth it. I'm not sure when we'll make it back to California again, which is kind of sad, so it was nice to enjoy some time there.