Trip West: Part 1

Psalm 96:11-12 "Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy."

On June 3rd, our family packed our van early in the morning and headed for Midway airport. This was Micaela and Joella's first time flying in an airplane. Being a large family, it is usually cheaper for us to drive somewhere then to fly. We spent the first afternoon with my parents (after indulging in some Round Table pizza during a late lunch). Saturday morning we woke up early and headed to Grass Valley to visit Wayne's Grandma and his aunts and uncles. It was a fun day with family.

On Sunday, we spent the day with my parents swimming, talking, and having a birthday party for Abigail, Joella, and Wayne. It was extra special because my Uncle Eddie was able to visit us too (he lives in Montana). I haven't seen him since 2009 at our family reunion. 

Monday we drove to El Dorado Hills to visit Wayne's Uncle Wes, Aunt Lynda, and his cousin Colby. We had a great time catching up with them.

Early Tuesday morning (like 4am), I took Wayne to the airport. Wayne had to leave us and go back to work. I'm so thankful for a chance to stay at my parent's house longer and visit with them. We spent Tuesday relaxing by the pool. Wednesday morning, we headed to Mammoth Lake for two days. We stopped in Lake Tahoe at a park before traveling on. We also stopped at Mono Lake along the way and the girls finished another Jr. Ranger badge. We were all disappointed to learn that Devil's Postpone wasn't going to be open until the following weekend. The girls went fishing with my dad, took a little hike, and had a picnic at the park for dinner.

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Sneak Peak: Next blog post will be on Yosemite, blue berry picking, Lake Tahoe, and our trip to WA to see Wayne's family.

Wayne's next MRI is scheduled for Monday, July 11th. We appreciate prayers as we head into that appointment. We also received official word on Shan Chen - he's coming Monday, July 18th!! We are all very excited about meeting him!

Funny Sayings from our Trip

Today I have been busy unpacking from our month long trip away from home. Catching up on mail, grocery shopping, etc is so much fun!! I'm working on downloading our pictures so that I can start sharing our trip with you tomorrow. Meanwhile, here are some funny things that were said on our trip.

Grace: Grace has a cute shirt with some animals on it and it says, "I decided to be awesome today". We were at a park with our cousins and Karen (Wayne's sister) asked Grace, "So Grace, you decided to be awesome today?" Grace looked at her and confidently said, "No, my shirt decided to be awesome today...I'm awesome everyday!!" And walked off to play.

Joella: Joella was making weird noises in the car, which started to get annoying. Wayne asked her nicely to stop making noises and she said, "Okay Papa. I was just talking whale!" (do we have a Dory on our hands?) 

Sophia/Joella: While we were taking a ferry into Canada, Sophia said that she wished she had a fishing pole so she could catch a dolphin and then play with it. We told her that fishing for a dolphin would hurt it. We said that you can't catch a dolphin. Joella looked at her and said, "I know how to catch a dolphin, you say eeee-eeeee-eeee!" 

Grace: We went out to dinner at Cattlemen's (one of Wayne's favorite restaurants in CA). Grace was very concerned about how much Wayne was going to spend of everyone to eat. At the end of the meal she said, "I'll know a future boyfriend is really interested in me if he takes me to Cattlemen's." (Since it is so expensive...if he's willing to spend that kind of money, he must be super into her)

Joella: Wayne's credit card got stuck in a parking machine (it ate it...future story later). Joella was all upset. She cried and said, "Oh no, Papa's credit card is gone. That means that he doesn't have money to buy us food and we are going to all DIE!!!"

If you notice, there are two kids that get us to laugh a lot. I'm sure the other girls said cute things, but these are the ones that stuck out to us from our trip.

Blogging Break (June)

I'm taking June off from blogging, if you haven't noticed. I'll be back to posting at the beginning of July. I wanted to spend a month focusing on my family. Here's a picture of my kiddos to hold you over until July.

Psalm 145:5

"On the glorious splendor of Your majesty And on Your wonderful works, I will meditate."