We did it!

We went on a family vacation!! Woohoo! The main reason of our get-away was to celebrate Jeff's parents' 50th wedding anniversary. (I know, 50 years, pretty amazing, huh?) We also took the opportunity to visit with some relatives on my side of the family who live near Jeff's parents.

Here we are with my Aunt Doris and a whole bunch of cousins/ second cousins! Thank you Hillary and Jon for having us. We really had a great time catching up with all of you!






My cousin Hillary playing with Blakey, Nico and Hannah.



Blakey checking out Justin's "robo-dog". Very entertaining!

I love this picture so much, I put it in twice! (still can't figure out how to take out a picture!!!!)

My cousin David being silly with Blakey.

My cousin Lynda and us. I love this picture!

Now back to Jeff's side....

Here we are with Jim, Nancy and Jeff's cousin Jill.

This was the first time cousin Jill had met the boys.

Grandpa Jim showing the boys how to switch an electric candle on and off. Nico is VERY into switches right now. He climbs toilets, sinks, chairs, bookshelves all in the name of turning on/off light switches.

I LOVE this picture! Jeff was drying off Blakey after some water play in the backyard and I happened to be there at the right time with my camera.

Silly Daddy! This is one of our favorite games to play- putting something on our heads and waiting for it to fall off. Blakey loves to say "crash" when it hits the ground!

Head on collision at the end of the tunnel.

Nico going through the tunnel.

Blakey getting cozy with the drink bin.







As most of you know, we are HUGE Charger football fans. As luck would have it, an event called Fan Fest was going on the same weekend we were in town. This event takes place at the stadium and they let you in for free to watch the team practice. They also have players signing autographs for children under 14 years of age. We weren't sure how it would go for us, as we normally stay away from these kind of scenes, but we decided to go for it and we were glad we did!

Nico sporting his Charger gear.

Blakey is ready for football season to begin!




Blakey watching practice while devouring a blueberry muffin!





This picture is quite deceiving. While it looks like the boys are attentively watching whats going on down on the field, this lasted all of about 2 minutes. After this moment, they were anxiously pacing the aisle and wanting to climb ALL THOSE STAIRS! We left not too long after this.....

No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you...we are really standing with the Chargers quarterback, Philip Rivers. We ended up getting several autographs as you can see on the white onesie, but meeting Philip was by far the most exciting moment of them all!! The picture makes me laugh for several reasons. I didn't realize it at the time (yes, we were both a bit starstruck!), but Blakey is totally getting squished between me and Philip. Nicolas is staring at him like he's not sure if he should trust him or not. He was really a big man and we had to remind the guy taking the picture for us to make sure his head wasn't cut out of the frame.

Overall it was a very successful trip. The boys did an amazing job in the car both directions, despite having to sit through a lot of traffic. They slept just fine in their pack-n-plays for naps and all through the night both nights. Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Jim did a great job babyproofing their house so there was minimal damage done there. Most importantly, though, Jeff and I really felt like we were living life again. We both love to travel and it had been a while since we had taken the boys away for more than a day trip. Now that we know they can handle it, who knows where we might end up next!! (wink, wink Grandpa Bob)

hugs,

Rebeca