First family trip!

Josh and Olivia "learning" to share with the stroller. It took them a few days! :)
Olivia helping "husking" the corn

Olivia, Derick and Katelyn helping Dave husk TONS of corn! YUMMY!

Josh being, Josh. He had so much fun with all of the "new" toys they had! He wasn't ever bored! That truly what made it a vacation for me! :)

Josh hangin out in the casino/hotel lobby! Yes, he was reaching for the camera!

We finally decided to go on a family trip to California. This was our first family trip with Josh. We decided to go visit Dave's brother and sister-in-law in Discovery Bay, CA. We decided to go on this vacation back in January or February. We were really looking forward to going and I made sure to save as much paid vacation as I could collect. Thank goodness I was able to take two full weeks off and get paid the whole time I'm not there! I love not working and still getting paid for it. ANYWAY! So we decided to get a head start on our vacation and left a day early(last tuesday). We ended up staying in Reno, NV to kind of break up the LONG drive. It was really nice, well the hotel was, Reno is just another Vegas, just smaller! Not my kind of scene. We stayed in this huge casino because it was the cheapest rate I could find. We had a lot of fun. We went swimming and then went to dinner to this "hole in the wall" pizza joint. It was delicious! After dinner we went back to the hotel and went to bed at about 8:30pm. We were exhausted after the long day of driving, and having to wake up at 5am. Anyway, we woke up the next morning, ate breakfast and then headed to California. I have never driven to California via I-80 (I've always gone to southern cali), this was my first time driving through the Sierra's. It was BEAUTIFUL! I loved going through those mountains!

We finally made it to James and Trisha's house at around 12:30pm, ate lunch and put Josh to sleep for his afternoon nap. The first night we just had dinner and hung out, swam in there pool, and watched some movies. Pretty much this was our entire trip...it was awesome because we just hung out and relaxed. We swam A LOT, played with all of there kids, ate yummy food (thanks to Trisha!), watched movies and just enjoyed time OUTSIDE of Utah! :)

Saturday we went to Santa Cruz beach. It was beautiful! It was so fun and relaxing! It was the most fun day for sure!Dave and tons of fun hanging out with his brother James and their oldest son Derick. They enjoyed "riding" the waves in the freezing water! They had a blast doing this for hours! Trisha and I enjoyed soaking up all of the son and watching the little ones play in the sand. We saw a seal come right up onto the beach, about 20 feet away from us, it came up and then went back into the ocean. It was really neat. Then later in the day we saw a school of dolphins swimming close to the beach. They were jumping completely out of the water and stayed around for quite a while. It was really neat! The kids have fun just playing the sand and looking for crabs, eating snacks and playing in the freezing cold water! Did I mention the water was FREEZING? :) I got in a few times, but it was just too cold for me. I had to put Josh in the water to rinse his chest off after he ate his peanut butter and honey sandwich for lunch, which he insisted on holding his own sandwich, therefore squeezing it so hard all of the honey fell onto his chest. He DIDN'T enjoy being the ocean's cold water!

After the beach we drove home, stopped at In-and-Out Burger (a tradition of being in Cali). Went home and crashed! Josh had hardly slept all day so needless to say, he was tired, along with the rest of us!

Sunday we got to go to church with them. It was such a nice and very hot day. We all got to take really nice long naps! My favorite thing on a sunday afternoon! :)

Monday was more just hanging out and then we got to have family home evening with the Gray's. It was so fun. James and Trisha's youngest, Olivia (she's 2 1/2) gave our lesson. Honestly I didn't know quite what she was saying, but half way through her "lesson" Josh decided that he needed to go stand by her and be apart of what was going on. It was one of those things that you just had to be there, but it was so cute! After Olivia was done, Josh started clapping. It was really funny! Again, had to be there!

We left California Tuesday right after we ate lunch, and drove the entire way home. We were very anxious to be home. The drive went really well...actually extremely well. Josh had fallen asleep right when we got into the car, slept for about 2 1/2 hours, then was up until about 9:30pm and then slept until we got home at 12:30am (cali time, 1:30am utah time, exactly 12 hours of driving, with 3 stops total! Not too shabby!) I'll be honest, I did give Josh some Benedryl and Motrin about an hour before he fell asleep, but he did wonderfully! I was so proud of him. BUT thank goodness for Baby Einstein videos and my best friend Melisa letting us borrow her DVD player so Josh could watch movies in the car. It was a LIFE saver! Thanks again Melisa!

Anyway, I just wanted to thank Trisha and James again for letting us come and stay with them for almost an entire week. It was such a relaxing time and we enjoyed spending time with them and their awesome kids! Derick, Katelyn, Taylor (I'm glad you still trust me sweety! :) ) and of course little Olivia! MY little sidekick for the week! Thanks for letting us get to know you a lot better! We love you all and will miss you! Now it's time for you all to come visit us! :)

Sorry all the pics are at the top! Oh well!