California!!

A few months ago my parents mentioned that they were planning a trip to California to visit my sister Jamie and her family.  I quickly convinced them to take their SUV and let us hitch a ride with them!  The weather has been miserable this year and we were definitely looking forward to a little fun in the sun!  On the way down we stopped in St. George for some Mongolian BBQ.  My family loves this place and have been going there for years but somehow we are never with them when they go.

It was so good...even my picky Paxton loved it!  They gave him some trainer chopsticks and he took off!  My mom kept trying to feed him and the little ladies would come over and say
"No Grandma, he do it himself...leave him alone."  They also kept coming over and giving the boys different origami animals for being good eaters!

 I called my sister to let her know where we were and how the drive was going...she said "bad news, it snowed last night."  After a very very long drive we finally made it to California, it was 30 degrees not the warm sunny paradise I was hoping for!  The boys immediately took off with their cousins and we spent hours catching up on all the comings and goings of our household!  On Friday we knew we had a few stops to make...first Hometown Fabrics where my sister lives is going out of business so of course we had to go.  Everything was $2 a yard so we stocked up!! Next we knew we had to make a trip to IHOP...breakfast for dinner and kids eat free...who can beat that!  Well it was our lucky night because the balloon man was there and he hooked up all of the kids with some awesome balloon creations.

Mana's giraffe, Misi's helicopter, Paxton's Spiderman, Ofeina's Hello Kitty, and Ami's rattlesnake

 Paxton was loving the guitar the Mana got for Christmas and kept serenading anyone who would sit still long enough to listen!

 *The Cousins*

Misi, Ami, Ofeina holding Meilani, Tegan, Paxton and Mana

This is how they really act most of the time!!

 We left California on Sunday morning and were not too excited about heading back to Utah because there had been a huge snowstorm while we were gone.  It had snowed 2 1/2 feet at our house in the 4 days that we had been gone!  We got to Richfield about 7:00 p.m., had a quick bite to eat, and were on the road again about 7:30.  We got to Scipio about 8:10...as we were pulling into town we saw tons of cops and flashing light close to the freeway onramp and thought oh great a wreck.  Well it turned out that a gas truck had caught fire on the freeway and both lanes were closed.  They diverted us to a frontage road where we sat for an hour waiting for the lanes to open...once they realize how serious the situation was and that the freeway was not going to reopen for hours they just sent us south back to Scipio.  By now we had been on the road for 11ish hours so we decided just to head back to Richfield, spend the night, and go back again in the morning...so we walked back in my mom's door about 10:30 and crashed for the night!!

The next morning we made it back to Payson but right when we walked in the house knew something was wrong...the furnace had gone out and it was 44 degrees in our house!  I was planning on staying home from work but knew we couldn't sit around in a 44 degree house so off to work and the babysitters we went!  Luckily the furnace got fixed that afternoon but it took a good couple of days for the house to get back up to a reasonable temperature so we spent a lot of time on the couch like this!!

What a great break but what a major stress to come home too...oh well it was totally worth it to see my kids having such a great time with their cousins (and to get such a great deal on some awesome fabric!!)