Life off the Farm

Family Photos at the Farm

As I said, my friend, Sarah Stucky from nursing school took our family pictures. She did a great job capturing our family in this place we hold so dear. She took pictures of us here the last time we were in California as a family three and a half years earlier. It is fun to see how we have grown, changed, and expanded.

CA Day 6

With a few tears, my mom said goodbye to Adeline (and Eric) as we departed her house for Eric's dad's house (with a few stops on the way). Adeline was oblivious to the goodbye which made it more difficult.

Our first stop was to our first home and always beloved Paddison Farm.

The kids enjoyed seeing, playing with, and chasing the peacocks.

We spent some of the time there taking family pictures. My dear friend, Sarah, from nursing school was our photographer and did a fabulous job. I will post the pictures next.

Next stop was to Biola and lunch at the cafe. Our friend, Dave (one of Eric's groomsmen and the leader of the Romania trip where we found each other) joined us with his daughter Ellie. Ellie and Audrey are kindred spirits and hit it off very quickly.

Next stop was to see Eric's former hairdresser (I am actually the current hairdresser). It was so great to see Mary (she got teary) and glean some cuts for my boys who desperately needed cuts. It would have been nice to have cuts before family pictures of course, but we just couldn't pull that off.

We actually stopped back by Biola since a few people caught wind of our visit. They hooked up us with a quick "hi tour" of admissions, where Eric used to work, and some awesome new Biola t-shirts. It is really hard (impossible) for us to see everyone on our CA tours, so for those the we didn't see- I am so sorry and wish we had more time to see everyone the we love and did life with for so many years.

It was 3pm by the time we got on the road to go to John and Mary Ann's house. Of course 3pm is perfect time for traffic to start. It took us about 2 hours to get to the next set of CA grandparents.

We made it in time for a quick dip in the pool and wonderful dinner before stories and bed.

CA Day 5

Day 5 started out a little slower, since we were starting to get weary, especially the Disneyland folks. Adeline even fell asleep in the car at 10:30 am (that's slow for us). She usually won't fall asleep in the car until well after 2pm. I guess our vacation was catching up to us.

We had lunch with our dear friend Julie (who happens to be Eric's former boss) and her family. She was willing to host us even though she had just returned from vacation and was planning a huge birthday party for her daughter.

I didn't take many pictures of our visit, but did get a few of Elliott enjoying all the new toys and videos with John (while wearing a Ninja Turtle mask).

After lunch, Eric went to Santa Barbara to with some friends to surprise a friend for his 50th birthday. It was a quick trip up there and back in half a day, but was a priceless time together for those four guys.

I headed back south of the 5 to my dad's since I wanted him to have some more time with Adeline before she went back home with Eric on the 10th. We spent a few days with Eric's dad in the Valley before they left, but August 6th would be the last time he would see Adeline.