Adjusting back to life

You know how people always say they need a vacation from their vacation? I find that so true. We had a 6:30am flight yesterday out of California, so that meant we left Michael's parents home at 4:30am. Fortunatley, not a lot of traffic at that time. Amazingly, all 5 of us slept on the direct flight home to Austin, Alyssa slept the whole time. At least we had the afternoon to recover. Michael let me take a nap which turned into 3 hours...I told him to wake me so I wouldn't sleep too long, but he didn't hear that part. While I slept, he helped the kids unpack. My suitcase is still full (Monday night). Then today I had to resume planning meals for my family and shopping for them, executing summer fun activities, and figuring out how to avoid the computer during the day.

We spent 8.5 days on Michael's home turf in Northern California. He was UBER happy to be back. It had been 6 years since we had been there. Sad, but we had family reunion's in Utah, Tahoe, Seattle, and Texas the past few years and just didn't make it to Cali. Michael taught the kids the song, "California, here we come, right back where we started from...." Which we found his brother also taught his kids the song. My 2 year old nephew interpreted that as, "Cabin fornya harry bum..." to which all the kids ended up singing all week long and laughed themselves hysterically silly each time.

When we left Texas it was 100 degree weather and arrived to 67 degree's in the city and down to 50 on the beach. Windy and chilly. Luckily, I packed light jackets because I knew the evenings would be chilly. I didn't realize we'd wear them all day long nearly every day.

Here is the family:

Michael is 2nd of 7 children...the birth order below
David lives in the Ft. Worth area, Michael, Steve lives in the Wash DC area, Joanna in Seattle, Brian in the Navy in Japan (don't you love his cutout?) Karen in Seattle, Julie finishing BYU in Provo.

Saluting Brian in the Navy
Grandma and Grandpa with all of their grandchildren (from just the 3 oldest boys)

The entire family...kids are by their parents here. I'm going to have to do some head swaps later (Jo is in big trouble).

A few of just the kids