the great california vacation - part 1

We made it home, and the boys are still sleeping.  (They should be after 12 straight hours of travel and NO naps).  I thought it was a perfect time to upload some photos.  The mass amount of laundry can wait.

I learned that you should not go on vacation without your husband.  But if you do decide to do this, make sure you take your AWESOME Family with you.  I could not have made it without 6+ extra hands.  I know everyone in the airports thought we were crazy to take 5 kids on an airplane, but somehow we survived.  My boys both had FREAK-OUTS, but luckily not on the same flights!

I LOVE all the memories that will be forever stored away from this trip.  The exciting part is that I think Amos will have some forever memories too!  They may become vague but I'll have my mass amounts of pictures to remind him.  Silas, not so much!  He had fun though.  Everyone can now fully appreciate his obsession with a ball.  If he's upset, give him a ball.

Here are some of my favorites, and yes, this is limiting myself.

Most of these pajama pictures took place at about 6:00 in the morning.  We've learned that our next vacation needs to be in the same time zone, or on the east coast where are children will sleep later rather than getting up two hours earlier.  It took all week to get them to sleep in until 6 am California time.

Luckily there was lots of good coffee, and enough hands that Mom got to sit back and do this sometimes.

On our second day there, we celebrated the reason for the whole trip:  Uncle Joseph's graduation!!!! Too bad for the kiddos, it took place at 7 pm.  They stayed home with the uncles and slept through it all!

WE ARE SO PROUD OF HIM!!

We spent the next few days catching up on sleep and relaxing at the house.  The kids loved Grammy and Gramps "new" house.  Especially because it had a pool!

The oldest two were pretty good swimmers by the end of the week.  Amos was in the pool until 6:30 the night before we left.

The rest of the first few days were spent like this.

 Clara Beth wins the award for most smiley!  She was perfectly content anywhere and everywhere.  If everyone wasn't waiting in line to hold her, you would almost forget she was there!

Well, I think that's enough pictures for one post!  Plus the boys are awake and ready for breakfast and a doctor's visit!  I'll save our more exciting parts of the trip for the next post.