July Means California- 2018

As usual our California trip was AMAZING.  This time though it was made that much more amazing because of the amount of family we were able to see!  We always have such great and much needed family time when we visit but this time there was even more family staying there at the house and there was a colossal Chandler Family reunion.  Chandlers, Paredes', and Hanaikes galore with all the other new last names in the mix now as well.  

So the family time was ABUNDANT to say the least. And that's honestly what we always need, a lot of time with everyone concentrated into one short trip.  Because we wish so hard for it the rest of the days of the year.  It's quality and quantity at once.  For the two weeks before the reunion we were 20 people sleeping in that ever wonderful California house of my childhood- 10 adults and 10 kids under 5- and though some may think we're crazy nuts, we all have greed that it was well well well worth it.  Even when the worst thing that could've happened in that situation HAPPENED....when everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, every single man woman and child in the house but one, got SICK.  We won't go into detail about that....

But how amazing a trip would it have to have been to still be called great even after all that?  (Does that sentence make sense?  You get the point.) 

After all the kids went to bed every night we stayed up late watching movies and shows, talking about so many different things, and some of us even went and continued our hanging out in the garage when we got kicked out of the living room for how late it was (there was literally no other room we could go to without waking up at least 3-5 people).  We were like little kids who just didn't want to go to bed because that would mean one less day left of our time together.  

We went exploring, saw some new SF sights as well as some old classic ones, and of course spent several cumulative hours at the beach which is always my favorite part, like my mom.  

We've been home now for about 2 weeks and we miss the full house feeling.  We will treasure this trip and the relationships developed, holding all the funny, ridiculous, and sweet memories dear for years to come.

our one pitstop on our road trip- lunch at a gas station.  we found the one patch of grass and a tree over it.  oh and this was our first road trip with no one throwing up, not even Hannah! 

to the beach right away

andrew and audrey, peas in a pod, running around like crazies

hannah and i, kindred spirits, totally content to just watch the waves and poke at the sand while those other two go nuts

and eli is content to do this at the beach.  he knows whats up.

the kids and the beach.  my life.

this might be the best picture of them all.  do you see luke's head in there somewhere?  he was just sitting minding his own business...

but there were six bored little girls in the house.  who he likes antagonize.  they saw their chance...and took it.

mom and avonlea

i never once did my girl's hair while we were here.  okay not maybe one or two times, but honestly most mornings they would wake up with their hair looking like this- perfect smooth defined ringlets.  another reason we love the weather here!

cousin bffs

there are going to be a lot of me and hannah selfies in our life.  cause we are always the ones trailing behind everyone else.  so we always gotta stop and take a selfie!

andrew played darth vader at our nephew bear's birthday party!

a full battle ensued with storm trooper and kylo ten and everything.  there are pictures of everything on Julia and Mom's blogs, but these are the ones from my phone, mostly of audrey and andrew.  they broke off and did a battle of their own after awhile.

and cute little avonlea was quite popular to these girls who have baby brothers right now instead of baby sisters.  not that they don't love their brothers...but this baby participates in their princess parties!

smores at home with grandma!

the everyday

audrey and hadley.  also peas in a pod.

audrey and andrew again just going off exploring

i may have to frame this one

visiting grandma hanaike, the original!

one evening hannah disappeared.  we found her in our room like this.  under the blanket she had nothing on but underwear- she had come down to change clothes and i guess decided to take a little rest before she got done.  too much fun everyday.

bits and pieces of the family reunion!  again more pictures on mom's and julia's blogs

we had the honor of sitting next to the guest of honor, grandma chandler!

so we had to take some secret selfies of course...

on our way out of california we got to stop by our friends the snowmen's for lunch!  we were all newlyweds together in our first provo ward.  they are some of our absolute favorite people and it's always worth the time to see them when we come to california!  we have so much fun catching up that we always forget to take a picture all together.  but at least we got a picture of these cuties together!

 I wish I had even more pictures of every person we spent time with! 

I'm so grateful for family and friends in our life.  We're so blessed.