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California Dreamin’

I’m going to deviate from my typical blog post format for this post. About a week and a half ago, we went to California to see Jason and his fiance Saira get married. We stayed at Mom and Dad’s for a few days, drove up to Central CA for Jason’s wedding (and saw the Sequoias while we were out there), spent a few more days at Mom and Dad’s (and went to the beach), and then traveled home. It was a whirlwind of a trip, but we took a lot of pictures. Consequently, this post is going to be mostly pictures and captions. I will try to stay in chronological order (or maybe not…we’ll see).

A Notable Thing that Happened This Week: Paul went to our HOA meeting and was elected as chairman for the Beautification Committee. I suppose the fact that he has organized our monthly park clean-ups played a big part in that. One of the first things he did was to rescue some trees that are planted along one of the streets. They still had their wire supports even though they have been planted for quite some time. Several of the trees had the wires cutting into the trunks (and one had even started growing over the wire and rubber). Hopefully now they will be able to heal and be strengthened.

A Funny Primary Moment or Two: Joseph took part in the Primary singing for Sacrament meeting today. He was able to get right up to the front this time, but Paul and I couldn’t help but laugh at his “performance”. He knew some of the words to the song (like most Sunbeams), but spent most of the time swinging his arms back and forth and draped over the stand, resting his head, lol. Later, during his class, his teachers told us that they were talking about the animals on Noah’s Ark. They mentioned horses and asked the kids what horses did (probably wanting the kids to make horse sounds). Joseph said that horses teach us to pray. ?! He started laughing afterward, so I think he was probably making one of his “jokes”. Either that, or he has already figured out that “prayer” in general is a good answer for a typical question in Primary, lol. 😉

Alright, onto the pictures!

This VACATION in Pictures:

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Reading with Grandma.
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Playing with the old Fisher Price record player.
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Block fun.
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Soaking up time with Grandma and Grandpa.
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We took Joseph to one of our favorite kind of “hole-in-the-wall” places, Taco Joes, which is right down the street from where we used to live in Highland, CA. He liked dipping the chips in the salsa until the heat starting to finally kick in . Then he decided the chips were better plain.
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Reading with Grandpa.
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Dr. Seuss books are the best!
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Reading with Daddy.
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Playing in the sand at the beach.
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This was the first time he’s really gotten into it.
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Letting the waves roll in.
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He liked trying to predict when the waves would come.
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At the tide pools: this is why we have a waterproof video camera that also takes pictures. 🙂
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Sitting in a tide pool.
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In a cave.
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Walking along the tide pools.
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I love the mischievous look on his face here.
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Fearless!
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He wanted to run right in…I had to explain to him that the shore line is very unpredictable (unlike the Gulf beach that we’ve been to where it is shallow and stays the same depth for a very long ways out…this beach has random drop offs).
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“Got my toes in the water…toes in the sand…”
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“Cheese!”
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While in CA, I had my mom cut my hair. I always have to give Paul “the look” just to mess with him.
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Easter basket time! A couple new cars, a couple new Rescue Bots, a new Elephant & Piggie book, goldfish, fruit snacks, and candy.
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Egg hunt in Grandma and Grandpa’s back yard.
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Making sure to get them all.
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Munching down on a chocolate bunny (he was done after a couple of bites…still not a huge sweets fan.
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Pausing for a picture before hiking down to General Sherman in Sequoia National Park.
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I’m glad Paul thought to bring sweatshirts. It was still really cold!
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The Sherman tree is behind us.
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Joseph and Paul.
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Standing in “the middle” of the Sherman tree.
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He looks so tiny!
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We all look tiny, actually.
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Even Daddy looks tiny!
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Standing in between two giant trees.
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Standing inside one of the trees (I think it caught on fire, but it didn’t kill the tree.
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In front of a cross-section.
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Running up the trail.
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The consequence of running up the trail. lol
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After leaving Sequoia, we went to Long John Silver’s for lunch.
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The “scenic” view from our motel room in Three Rivers (where Jason’s wedding was).
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Waiting for the wedding to start.
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Standing in the shade. People kept remarking how warm it was. Us Texans just smiled and nodded, lol.
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During the ceremony.
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At the reception. This is one of the only ones where he stood still long enough not to be a blur.
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First dance.
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I think Joseph’s going to love his Aunt Saira just as much as he does his Uncle Jason.
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Very seriously showing Paul a shape.
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As of late, he’s been into dissecting his cheeseburgers and eating them one layer at a time. *sigh*
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We stopped at Dairy Queen for lunch one day and Joseph got a free kids cone as part of his meal. I honestly didn’t think he would care for it…
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…boy, was I wrong. He was quite into licking it. We finally had to convince him to toss some of it (once he got down to the cone part) because we wanted to get back on the road and he was taking a LONG time, lol.

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Why this last picture? Well, see…

That time that I left my phone in a Tucson gas station restroom: I didn’t notice it missing until we stopped for the night a couple of hours later, in Deming, NM. I was frantic! We practically tore the motel room apart trying to find it. Trying to resign myself to the idea of it being gone forever, I heated up Joseph’s supper and set it before him, telling him to eat up. He reminded me we needed to bless the food, so I told him to go ahead. He said his normal things, paused, and then asked for help to find my phone. After he finished, Paul went out to look in the car one more time. As he was looking, a call came into his phone, from mine. He answered it. Apparently someone found it and was calling to see if there was a way to get it back to us. They were a few hours ahead of us on the road, but when finding that we were traveling the same route, they said they would leave it at the front desk at their motel (giving us all the information) and we could pick it up there. We did so the next morning. There are good people in the world! I’m also grateful for a Heavenly Father who answers prayers and for a little boy who was prompted to ask for help!