Hey Gorgeous Friends,

Trying hard to keep up with journaling our travels. It’s been fun to document them and tell the stories!

Day 8 we woke up in California at our RV resort. We will be here in California for the next week visiting with family every day.

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This day started off with the kids waking up and heading straight to the playground that is next to our motorhome.

Next, we headed to my grandma’s house. My grandma and I have always been close. She took care of me when I was younger. My mom and I lived with her on and off when I was really little. Then, after I moved to Florida, I would go back every summer and stay with my grandparents.

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I did this every year even after I became an adult, I visited California every summer. But when I went from a mom of 2 to a mom of 4 and then 5, it seemed impossible for me to travel back with all of the kiddos in tow. So, year after year ticked by without a visit. And I’ve been missing my grandma fiercely. The opportunity to travel back to California with all of my babies has been so special. And watching Chuck meet my family and get to know them has been really awesome.

We headed over to grandma’s to spend some time with her and my aunts and uncle. This was a smaller version of what would come tomorrow. Our family is quite large and the whole family would be getting together on Saturday, but for today it was just a few of us. We looked through photo albums and had coffee and the kids explored grandmas.

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While we were there, I took Ayden to a very special hill. There is a hill in grandma’s neighborhood that has quite the story. When I was about 11, my cousins and I got our parents old bikes out of grandma’s garage.. these bikes were old, had no brakes, and were too big for us. We took them out anyway.

Then, we found the tallest dirt hill in the neighborhood and decided to ride them down it. Bad idea…. my cousin Amanda recognized the danger and walked her bike to the bottom. Jennifer and I decided we could do this. We went to the top, hopped on these old, rusty bikes and went down. My cousin Jennifer crash landed at the bottom and broke her wrist. I crashed right at the top and was trapped under the bike, and slid down the hill on the side of my leg giving me road rash that took months to heal. There were rocks embedded in my leg and all. I boarded the airplane 3 weeks later and had to sit on a pillow. And when I returned to school in August it was still scabbed over. The scar stayed put until I was in my early thirties when the last remnants of it finally faded. It’s been quite a memory!

Well Ayden has been begging to skateboard in California, so I took him to “my” hill. They built a row of homes at the bottom so the land has been filled in making it a shorter hill, but still steep at the top.

Ayden did decide to try it by skateboard and successfully skated down it, but he was pretty scared and said he wouldn’t go again.

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After hanging at grandma’s and making plans for Saturday, we left and went to a skatepark and dog park nearby. We were babysitting my aunt’s dog so the dog park was perfect while Ayden skated.

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This park had so many things to do: a baseball field, playground, dog park, and extensive skate park.

Here is the skatepark.

And here is Alexi, my aunt’s dog playing.

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And Nia rocked the monkey bars at the playground!!

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And as if the day hadn’t already been full enough, we were heading back to enjoy our RV park and my cousin Mandy was coming over with her parents and her two sons. Our kiddos would get to meet eachother and play!

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We had a special milestone while we were there. My cousin’s son learned to swim! In the pic, he is with my uncle (his grandpa) and he is starting to swim!

My cousin Mandy and I grew up playing each summer together in California, and now we got to watch our kids play!

A beautiful day of visiting with family! And today was just day one of reconnecting with family!

Blessings,

Vanessa Lynn

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