So, this past March Josh's sister, Samantha, was getting married. We decided that me and the kids would head down there early and spend some time with her, Lemo, Dominic and their new baby Mateo, plus head down to southern California and spend some time with his other sister, Tina and her family. We ended up being there a whole month, a long time to be away from home, but we definitely enjoyed it and loved to have more time to spend with family.
Josh met us down there a couple weeks later for the wedding and then left from there to go to Altus, OK for Aircraft Commander School, so he can move up from being a co-pilot to an aircraft commander who runs the missions. It is a big step for him in his career as a pilot and we are so proud he has reached this point.
We wanted to take a military hop flight to Travis AFB near Sacramento, CA. For those of you who don't know, those are military flights that we can catch a ride on if they happen to be leaving when you need to go. One of the benefits to being married to a pilot is we have a little more inside information about which flights are going out and we totally lucked out that Josh was scheduled to fly to Travis when we needed to leave. We got a rare opportunity to actually fly on his flight and see him in action. What an awesome experience it was. After all these years of him studying, working, flying, we got to finally see him do what he loves. There are two jump seats behind the pilot and co-pilot seats, so we rode there for most of the flight and then set the kids up in a little bunk area just behind that for the remainder of the flight. I have to say, Bella did great, but it was a little tough with Carson up there....he just wanted to touch everything and of course endless buttons that little fingers really want to push! It became a little distracting for Josh, but we worked through and and I am so glad I got a chance to see him fly this amazing huge aircraft.
Bella loved trying on the headset and listening to the pilots talk.
Carson in one of his unhappy moments where sitting still and watching just wasn't what he wanted to do!
A happy set-up with snacks and a portable DVD player. Thank goodness for movies and modern technology!
Passed out after a long and tiring flight. In our rental car and ready to go to Fresno!
We have never been able to go see Fresno, which is where Samantha lives and where Josh spent a lot of his growing up years. It was nice finally seeing the place he has always talked so much about. Here we are at a park with Samantha.
Next, we headed down to Orange County to visit Tina, Ryan, Kylee, Brinna, Avery and Makenzie. They had all these beautiful flowers growing in a field next to the church building and we had to go pick some.
Happy 9th birthday Brinna!
So Bella and Makenzie are only a couple months apart in age. Lets just say they were inseparable, even through all the fighting. :) I guess that is part of being 3 girls. They played and fought, played and fought and played some more. It was great seeing Bella play so good with her cousin though and I am so glad they had this time to grow closer. Here they are stripped to their underwear inside the now almost empty dress up basket.
Back in some clothes doing one of their favorite things....playing dress up. Makenzie's model pose is hilarious. You know she has older sisters!
Carson after getting into the ash in the fire place. He wasn't happy to be taken away from it.
The older girls, Kylee and Brinna, entertaining themselves at the park.
It was so nice to be out in the sunshine and the kids just loved being outside as much as possible.
Happy 30th birthday baby! Once Josh joined us I cooked him a belated birthday dinner, Italian of course! Carson is checking out the goods....probably thinking I will never eat that!
Bella insisted we have a Star Wars cake for Daddy, that is their thing together, so I ended up making a tiramisu....mormon style with cocoa instead of coffee, then sticking little Star Wars men in it. That is my idea of decorating a cake :) Oh yeah, and the only candle we could find was the number one...one, 30....who knows!
There are an abundance of girl toys around, but he doesn't mind. Baby dolls are great!
A visit to the Wild Animal Park.
Look closely and you can see a butterfly on her back. This was inside a butterfly exhibit that was there. The kids thought it was great having the butterflies land on them.
Joining the rest of the family back up in Fresno to get ready for the wedding.
Josh's brother Daniel's wife, Ashley and their adorable daughter, Hailey.
Bella got to be a flower girl and loved getting to dress up in her "wedding dress." Here are the little princess's posing in the house.
That is one handsome boy!
Tina and Ryan's daughter, Avery was also a flower girl. They were so cute heading up the aisle dropping flowers.
Once up to the front they got to sit on a little bench and watch the ceremony.
Samatha and Lemo...so sweet!
Josh took us up to Shaver Lake, outside of Fresno and it was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately we lost our camera at the wedding so these few phone pics don't do it justice and we don't have any pictures of the remainder of our trip, so sad. Luckily, about a month later the cleaning person at the house where the wedding was found our camera and Samantha sent it back to us. I was so relieved. I had tons of pictures on it and it made me so sad to think I had lost those memories.
The kids loved throwing rocks into the water.
Still a little snow on the ground. The water was freezing, but so clear and pretty.
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