Trip to Cali!

I'm way overdo for a post of a personal nature. Happily swamped with work though... A couple weeks ago we went to California with the boys to visit some family and stayed with Stephen's brother and his family. Stephen has two brothers that live there and between the three brothers' families we have a total of 12 grandchildren under the age of 8! It pretty crazy but surprisingly enough they all get along really well and it really didn't seem like there were 12 of them, most of the time anyway~



We were also able to go check out the Amgen Tour of California bike race and Lance Armstrong was in it and my sister in law Tricia who is a whiz with a camera got a great picture of him, which is hard to do when they are riding so fast...we were pretty excited. He is the one with his head turned talking to the other rider.

We have been fortunate to have our children in "batches"...not planned that way but it has turned out to be such a big blessing for the kids to have playmates on their levels. We have the 8 year old group, the 5 year old group, the 3 year old group and the 1 year old group and a couple of baby boys at the end. It's a lively bunch but so much fun.

Slip and Slide!

Efforts to make Christmas Vacation amazing edition number 3...sliding at our cousins house in the country!

I am the only one of my family in the US, I miss my family SO MUCH it hurts...particularly at Christmas and New Years...which is why I take every opportunity I can to spend time with my aunt Jennie (my only relative living in the US) her amazing husband Dave and their phenomenal children. Sounds too good to be true right? No, honestly this family is top notch, I can only hope that mine will turn out a fraction as well, I keep asking her secret ingredient but so far she is with holding it from me. Her oldest daughter Amber and I have children the same age and Amber and they live in this picturesque area to the south of me equipped with great sliding hills and a Nintendo Wii (which we don't have!). It is my boys idea of heaven (except for the dogs which they are terrified of). Blessed am I to have such amazing family if only 45 minutes away!