Rodeo Break visit to Grandpa in California

To "celebrate" the end of my chemo treatments we took a road trip to CA during Rodeo Break (end of Feb) to visit Ammon's grandpa. We love going there. As soon as we arrived, Connor got out of the car and said "it smells like California!...it smells like grandpa's house!...it smells like grandpa's grass!" I think he's right- California has a distinct smell. It smells like the ocean and palm trees and grass (which we lack in AZ) and we love it!

We headed down to the beach early one morning. Ammon ran along the boardwalk, Connor went in the ocean and Amelia and I just watched from a blanket.

Connor was irritated that I didn't bring his swim trunks (I didn't think he'd want to get in the freezing water in February) so I suggested he go in his jammies and we'd wash them after. He definitely took me up on that suggestion and was soaked from head to toe! I'm sure he was quite cold. The water was frigid evidenced by the die-hard surfers all wearing their wet suits (all the black dots in the water are surfers in the picture above this one).

After we returned from the beach, we were told by Ron, grandpa's helper, that one of us had left the back door open and while we were gone, a squirrel had run into the house! Ron spent about an hour trying to chase the thing back out! He didn't appreciate that very much. It wasn't all bad, we all had a good laugh talking about it and I'm sure it also got his heart pumping. Besides, it's fun to have a little adventure in your life. ;)

Connor enjoyed making Angry Birds out of great-grandpa's legos.

Great-grandpa Maughan wanted to get a picture with each kid to put in their copy of his life history "A Glorious Struggle".

I love this picture

Kissing through the glass. Grandpa has an enormous front window that begs to be...kissed.

Connor's turn

Oh no, mommy caught me kissing boys!

A favorite father-child interaction is to play "tick-tock". Each kid loves to take their turn. Check out their videos below.

I love grandpa. I think of him like my own.

Grandpa likes to spoil us by taking us out to eat when we visit.

We love you grandpa!! We're so glad we were able to come see you!