Mucho Syrup-o - Cali Roadtrip

Wow first off let me just wish our baby boy a Happy 5th Birthday! James turned 5 on the 30th while we were out of town. Is he not the most handsome boy in the world. So my laptop has been on the fritz. Started the week before we left. So I didn't get a lot of internet time while on our road trip out to Cali. I'm so behind on my blogging and updates, lots to catch up on. But I thought I'd give a run down of our trip.

So we went to Cali for 2 main reasons, one of which was a celebration we threw at my parents home for these 3 important guys...my Dad who turns 70 (can you believe it!?), my hubby who turned 34 and my son who turned 5. It was a great party - saw lots of family and friends faces who are all so dear to us.

The 2nd reason we made the trip out was because Stephen's 1st cousin, John, on his mom's side (her brother's son) was getting married. Stephen's brother, Mark, performed the ceremony at a beautiful location in wine country Temecula.

Mike also came down for the wedding so I was able to capture a photo of the 4 amigos.

Loved seeing Mark's wife, Laura, and Mike's girlfriend, Jacki. 

So we drove about 40 hours roundtrip (that's like a whole work week!). 20 hours in 2.5 days going, and 20 hours (plus 4 extra hours for when we got stuck in Indio cause the 10fwy was shut down due to a bad accident) in 2.5 days coming home. Thank you God for Stephen's job with Hertz and being able to drive in a brand new Yukon XL, with double DVD players and unlimited fill up of free gas in a 30 gallon tank. Made the road trip much smoother. Madeline played the driver's license state game. I think she got about 20...one as far as Maine. She was hoping to see a Hawaii license plate, but we told her that was probably a slim chance.

Driving to CA we stayed with Stephen's cousin Angie and her family in AZ for one night. Angie and Sam are due with baby #2 any day now. And their daughter Kendall is so sweet.

Kids had a blast swimming at their home. We had such a nice visit.

We have some really close friends in CA who are like Ohana. One of them are the Fanoga's. Here is Madeline with their kids Delaney and Isaac - both very close in age with our kids. They are half Samoan but doesn't it look like all our kids could be related?

We got to spend a special day with my brother, David's family. His wife Armilyn also celebrated a birthday while we were there, so we went to San Clemente beach with them for a birthday lunch and to play in the sand. Here are the kids with our nephew Alex.

My parents also came along that day, here they are with all their grandchildren.

We also did a belated birthday dinner for my best friend, Robyn, at our favorite Mexican restaurant.

She finally got her professional wedding pics from her wedding a year and a half ago. I was so excited to visit with her and finally look through them. I was able to copy them all. :)

My other brother, Tason, joined us that evening. The kids love their Oom Tason!

We spent a couple days out in Corona with Mark's family and Stephen's parents. We went to see the Angels play the Texas Rangers, go figure. We're die hard Boston Red Sox fans, but Stephen's 2nd favorite MLB team is the Angels. Uncle Bryce got Madeline and James Angels sweatshirts. Love this pic of James with his Poppi.

We had fun seats in the outfield. Rangers killed the Angels, it was still fun!

Our kids with all of Mark and Laura's kids after the game.

We also made a day trip out to Crystal Cove State Beach Park. We had a lot of Spence cousins in our Yukon XL.

The kids had so much fun at the tide pools there. They caught a ton of crabs!

Here is James holding a crab on a shovel.

On our trip back home we stayed with Stephen's best friend, Tim's family in AZ. Tim's wife Kacey was so sweet and made it a special time for James since it was his actual birthday. She baked and made him a birthday cake and they gave him his first real football for a birthday gift.

Still can't believe he's 5! This is their adorable daughter, Elizabeth.

James opened his new CARS scooter and pad gear from my parents and us while we were there. So him and Elizabeth had fun riding their scooters in the cul-de-sac.

To our surprise 2 equestrian riders came through the neighborhood. The kids were so excited about seeing horses. The gal asked if they wanted to pet her horse.

So cool!

Going and coming we also stayed one night in El Paso in a hotel. The kids are really good travelers. Overall we had a fantastic time. Now it's back to the daily grind!