Aug. 13-15th Moving on to Northern California

August 13th

After packing up this morning, we left Anaheim behind and started driving to the San Jose area of California.  We were going to stop at Josh and Tanya's house and stay there for a few days on our way home to Oregon.  The drive was about 6 hours.  I think we left around 11 and got there about 7:30 that night--due to many stops for gas, restrooms and eating.  When we got there, they had a yummy dinner ready for us.  It was so nice to eat a home cooked meal since everything we had eaten for about 2 weeks was from a restaurant.  We got all the kids settled in for the night, then the adults stayed up talking till about midnight.  It was nice to just sit and visit.  

August 14th

I got up at 7 with Noah to help get him dressed, but then he just played with the other kids and I went back to bed until about 9.  So nice!  We had pancakes for breakfast.  The whole day was pretty much hanging out by the pool and swimming.  They have a beautiful house up in the mountains of Soquel.  It's actually the home that Tanya and her siblings grew up in, so that was pretty cool.  It's a beautiful piece of property! Tanya had ordered a trampoline that happened to show up that day, so Garrett and Josh helped put that up.  

 Caleb and Noah

 Bella

 Lydia going down the giant slide

 These two played so well together!

 The view off their deck

 View of the house from the deck

 This is their front yard.  The boys had fun riding bikes

 More swimming.  Paige going down the slide.

 Josh and Garrett having a war with each other.

We all got out and cleaned up and then we decided that we wanted to go down to the beach and have a bonfire.  We went and ate first at a yummy Mexican restaurant.    

 But by the time we got down to the beaches, all the bonfire pits had been taken.  You can only have fires in certain areas of the beach.  

 So, we just got out at one beach and had the kids play in the sand.  It had cooled off quite a bit.

 Beautiful sunset behind the shops

 Paige, Hannah, Caleb and Maggie

 Lydia

There were so many boats out on the water.  

We then headed home and got the kids in bed.  Our three little kids slept in the same room as Hannah and Caleb, so it was a big party.  I'm not sure how much sleep they actually got though....

That night we stayed up and watched Divergent.

August 15th

 This morning after sleeping in again, we had breakfast and then we all went on a little hike up behind their house.  It was beautiful!

Lydia checking out the view...

 The whole gang minus Tanya (taking the picture)

Garrett, Luke, Josh and Caleb

walking back down

Josh and Luke

After we got back, we all went swimming again--even me.  It was really nice!  We had a yummy lunch out on the back deck and hung out for a while.  

Paige and Hannah

Bells

Paige jumping in

Bella loved the water

Then I went to shower and started packing things up because we had to leave that evening.  There was a Youth Barn Dance in Tillamook on Saturday night that Maggie really wanted to go to.  This was a very sore subject for us because Garrett really wanted to stay a couple more days and hang out, but Maggie was sad that she was missing so many activities with her friends.  I know Garrett was very sad about leaving and I felt bad because I was pushing for us to leave (not just for Maggie) but because I wanted to get home and work on some projects.  

Uncle Josh going down the slide head first

Then Garrett and Josh were being goofy and trying to do toe touches as they jumped in the pool.

Bella body surfing

The gang.  I was in the shower and Lydia was taking the picture.

We left their house around 4 and then drove to Redding, California that night.  That was like a 5 hour drive and it was pretty late by the time we got to the hotel.
August 16th
Today was spent driving.  Long day.  It was 8 hours of driving and I don't remember how many stops.  We got her to Tillamook about 20 minutes before the dance was about to start.  I don't know how we timed it so well.  We made sure she had a ride home with someone and then we took off.  We stopped at the Tillamook cheese factory after dropping her off and I remember seeing a bunch of youth in cowboy boots/plaid shirts.  They were all headed to the barn dance--it was so funny to see so many of them!

Noah and Paige at the Tillamook Cheese Factory
After getting ice cream, we drove the LAST LEG HOME!  It was so awesome to be back home.  For this part of the trip, we were gone almost 4 weeks.  I think Garrett calculated that we had driven 3500 miles round trip.  We spent 11 nights in a hotel and were in the car driving for 8 days.  Whew--good trip!!