Our California Family Adventure

It's time to brag about my amazing husband again!

Colt received an International Insurance Award in SanDiego California.  All Insurance companies (only one Agent in our company - American National - has ever been honored with this award) around the world have an annual meeting that rotates locations.  This year it happened to be in SanDiego, and we accompanied him to for his award and for a vacation!

Colt had to rent a tux for the occasion.  I teased him if the tux was considered "fine twined linen" and "costly apparel"

Colt and I at the $175/plate award banquet dinner.  Thankfully the company paid for the dinner :)  and our hotel room.  We are with Ken Gallacher and his wife Marcia.  Ken is Colt's Regional Director.  He is an amazing man who I'm glad Colt gets to work with.  Colt's work environment is very good with a very strong helping attitude among the agents - Ken has created a great Region with good work ethic and teamwork to learn and grow together.

River is really good at looking out for her younger sisters.  She could run and just have fun by herself but she always includes Silver and especially Summer - here she helped Summer climb up where she couldn't on her own.  

Silver, Mommy, Summer and River

Getting to California was half the adventure.  Here we are visiting another ward in Nevada for church.

Wherever you go, church always feels like Home!

Hotel Rooms!

I thought this was an especially sweet picture.  Daddy cuddling Summer.  She had a hard time falling asleep without her crib and Daddy cuddled her up until she fell asleep.  Too sweet!

Summer sleeping in the van with her hand blankie

River's back seat cove complete with CTR scripture bag.  She always brings it along if we going overnight so she can read scriptures.  

Silver's cheetah shoes.  This picture sums up "Road Trip" to me

Lights of Vegas - the girls enjoyed seeing so many lights out of nowhere in the desert.

Daddy went to meetings while we went to a park by our hotel waiting for our room to be ready.  

I was proud of Silver for being so brave to hold a parrot.  This parrot also sat on Mommy's head!

It was really windy and there were tons of kites.  This kite would raise and lower with the air currents and River and Silver would try to run under it - sometimes crawl under it. 

Silver in the Wind

Silver's Amazing Speed!

Silver LOVES to run and this was perfect after being cooped up in the van.

Interesting tree

Interesting Pose 

There were tons of little flowers mixed in the grass that the girls loved to pick. 

Balancing Rocks!  "Was an amazement to see" -River

There is a man who comes to build these up every day!  They make him take it down every night.  Colt and I both tried balancing rocks - he made it look so easy, like building a tower out of bricks instead of round stones! 

The view from our Hotel Room was wonderful!

We were on the tenth floor and the girls loved looking out the window.  They would watch for the train to pass.  

Silver brushing her teeth 

So many new experiences

VIDEO:  Silver brushing her teeth

New Parks to Explore!

A Swimming Pool!  AND a hot tub that wasn't too hot, just like a "BIG bathtub!!"

We also went to the beach!  We usually go to Coronado Island Beach by SanDiego and find Sand Dollars and "butterfly" shells.

This time we went to a different beach farther north and found a different kind of shells - spiral shells and iridescent ones.  Shiny and fun!

The girls love to make "nests" on the ground with their blankies.  

Restraunts!

It was a LONG day, and sometimes our smilers get tired.

But we managed to tickle out a smile!

...To Be continued

The BEST Fishing Trip EVER!

  We wanted to have a camping/fishing trip before the baby gets here - so we loaded everything up and took off!  We got there just after they closed the station where they check for muscles, so instead of camping on a nice sandy beach on the lake, we got a closed parking lot.  They girls slept in the truck cozy and warm and Colt and I slept on the asphalt......Memorable!  The great thing was it could only get better from here!

 

l-r Silver, Summer, River

River LOVES to climb things, so you will usually find her on the highest vantage point she can get to.  She is regularly ontop of Daddy's truck!

VIDEO:  Getting Ready to head out fishing!

VIDEO:  River and Silver:  We're gonna sink play

VIDEO:  3 fish on at one time!

Silver has one on her line, then River's line gets one.  Right after that Colt's ties into one too!

It was like that several times.  We had 4 poles and usually one or more had a fish on it.

VIDEO:  Silver reeled it in and River netted it.

We had been using 1/2 or a 1/3 a fish for bait, but this time River decided to put a whole fish on the hook.  It worked!  A whole fish caught the biggest ones!

SUPER proud of all the girls - they had so much fun!

River cut the bait, baited her own hook, cast it, set it once a fish bit, and reeled it in.  She was also on the ready when Silver or Summer had a fish on that needed to be netted.  

Silver's bait shop!

VIDEO:  Summer reeling in a big one!

Silver's voice in the background "Anyone want some fish bait?"

She kept up with all the poles that were needing bait - Silver's special job. 

VIDEO:  Summer "My Own Fish!"

Summer's fish!  Almost as big as she is!

VIDEO:  Silver's Bait Store!

She would take them one at a time out of the ice chest and cut them carefully up making sections of whole fish, fish heads, middles and tails.  Then she would call out asking if anyone needed bait.  She would take the order of what part they wanted and take it to them.  Super cute!

It was really sweet at one point we had another family pull up their boat along ours to get into our great spot and someone made an order out of Silver's shop.  When the delivery was made after weaving through several people to make it to us, Silver said "Sorry it took so long for this delivery - I was stuck in Traffic!"

Mommy and Summer fishing

River's highlight of the trip was to catch a catfish.  There was only 1 catfish caught, and she felt pretty special that it was on her pole!  She packed him around for quite awhile.  She would put him in the net occasionally and dip him in the water to stay wet and then pack him around again.  She asked for a picture with him, but I was holding Summer who was sleeping.  She then put him in a different net to dip him in the water, but this net had a hole and her friend "Cat-y the catfish" escaped!  We were sad she didn't get a picture with her Cat-y.  

Tuckered out at the end of a fun day!

I love how her flip-flops are barely hanging on!