Adventures in Drought Land

Tacy has been very excited to fly on an airplane so she was pretty ecstatic about our trip to California to see my family.  Our flights were all red-eyes so I was really worried about her getting sleep.  Tacy was fascinated by the airport(s), seeing the airplanes and she loved being on the plane(s).  The first flight she was awake for and it was only an hour.  As soon as we sat down she was jumping around talking about how we were flying.  She was really excited about take-off and when we landed she looked and me and said "Mom, can we do it again?!"  Flying to California was the hardest because the seats had monitors and the row in front of us did not turn any of their screens off while they slept, so the glaring light from the screens bothered all of us.  Tacy struggled with falling asleep and only managed to sleep maybe 2 hours.  But we made it.

Time zone changes are hard, and it's even worse when you fly all night so you are already behind on sleep and your body tells you shortly after landing and finally getting into bed, that it's time to wake up.  But we managed to all get clean and take family pictures.  All my siblings were in town and together for the first time in 2 years.  I was so glad that family pictures only took maybe 30 minutes.  The photographer just focused on what my mom wanted and got the pictures with the little kids done fast (Tacy was itching to go play on the playground).  I'm also glad that Tacy and Kayleigh (my niece) could meet a few hours before pictures.  They bonded pretty fast and Kayleigh loved to watch and follow Tacy.

Friday we all drove up to Lake Tahoe were we stayed in a cabin/house.  Lake Tahoe had great weather for July!  The highs were never above 74.  This was wonderful, but not great for swimming.  So we waded into Tahoe, we went on a hike in a meadow, and we played mini golf.  Every night the adults played games while the young ones slept.  I lost Settlers of Catan every game, but I still managed to have fun even if Mark did a great job and ruining whatever I tried to do.

We went back to Rocklin on Sunday and went to church which is always fun to see my old ward and talk with people I have not seen in years.  It was nice because Brad's dad happened to be in Northern California for work, so he came by to see us and go to Sacrament Meeting with us.  Tacy was a little shy and did not want to hug him but we were glad we could see him.  My aunt and her 3 boys came to Rocklin that day to spend time with my parents for a few weeks, so Tacy was pretty funny coming to get Brad and I and saying that she was shy around her friends and needed me there until she was comfortable enough to play with them.  My aunt's twins are only 6 weeks older than Tacy, and after warming up to them, Tacy had fun bossing the twins around and playing with them.

We did go to Fairytale Town on Monday to give the kids all something to do.  While it was a little boring for us adults, Tacy loved it!  There were lots of slides and things to climb on, animals, and a pirate ship.  Tacy loved spent a lot of time on one slide (I think because she was the only kid for the majority of the time) and a lot of time at the pirate ship.  She loved steering, looking for treasure, and locking Robyn, Brad, and I up in turn.  I just love her imagination.

Brad and I had a couple of food places we had to visit: Jamba Juice, In-n-out, Don Quixotes, and BJs Brewery.  We went to Jamba Juice 3 times, In-n-out twice and the others once.  We also took advantage of having a Shane Co close to my parents to get my ring cleaned and re-plated (there is no Shane Co within 6 hours of where we live).

These two are just so cute together!

It was nice to see family, swim in my parents pool, and get to finally meet our cute niece Kayleigh.  We had a little birthday celebration in Tahoe for all the August birthdays in my family: Steven (8/3), Kayleigh (8/7), Tacy (8/8) and my Mom (8/11).