We got up the next morning and prepared to leave. Mom, Dad, and Steven were already gone, but Sarah and I had plans to visit other family while we were in California so we took it a bit more leasurely. Sarah dropped her two oldest off at our room so she could finish packing the two youngest and all their stuff. Here are the 4 cousins "playing" together. They sure loved having a giant screen tv in their very room!
Then we were on our way to see Nathan's brother Jared and his family. They only lived an hour away (supposedly, according to Google maps, which had nothing to do with traffic or reality) but we knew they were busy with work and school until late afternoon so we took our time. We stopped at a park for a while and played around. Our last day at Disneyland had been the start of warm temperatures and Thursday continued the trend. Finally, California weather! We had lunch in a parking lot and ran around playing tag with each other. We stopped at a scary, ghetto Jack in the Box where the air outside was too toxic to breath. Ah, California smog.
Finally, we met Jared and Samantha at their house. I didn't get many pictures of things. Vander enjoyed playing with Jocelyn's pink toys. Annalee kept begging to play the video games her cousins, Dominic and Vincent, were playing. She also loved their Furbies.
It wasn't an ideal visit because--guess what?--life happens, especially in the middle of the week. Jared was frantically trying to finish a car for Dom's first-ever Pinewood Derby and they were getting ready for Jared to leave on a business trip the next day. But Sam and I got to have a nice chat.
Later, we went to Olive Garden and the kids really had a ball. Turns out, Dominic is a regular class clown, and he was performing for his brother and cousins, who thought he was hilarious. It was so funny to watch them cracking up together. We're glad we got to spend time with their family, even if it was short. Especially since they moved to Texas a few weeks later! (Not sure when we'll be passing through there!)
We left a lot later than we'd planned to drive to Nathan's sister's house, three hours away. It was so sad that our whole drive was in the dark because it was along the south coast and must have been gorgeous during the day. By the time we got to Vandenburg Air Force Base it was past 10:00 (11:00 for us) and I was suffering an exhausted emotional breakdown. We got to Tiffany's house and I immediately laid down in our bed and bawled. (Pregnancy. Gotta love it.) Poor Nathan had to unload the car and put the kids to bed by himself. I am so lucky to have him!
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