California Adventure

     We just got back from our summer vacation. We spent it traversing across California, visiting family and playing hard. We started out our vacation at Cody’s Grandparents house near Sacramento. (Don’t ask me where, I am still a little fuzzy about that, but they live on a large plot of land that backs up to a nice little private lake.)

We met up there with Cody’s parents and two of our nieces (Lindsey and Brooke), his brother Derek and his family, and his sister Kelly and her husband. It was a real treat to see them; it was the first time Rya was meeting some of her cousins, and it has been ages since even Cody and I had seen many of them. Needless to say, it was a lot of people jammed into a house just having a good time. (Poor Grandma Millett, though, I think we almost ate her out of house and home.)

Great- Grandma & Grandpa Millett	Grandma & Grandpa Christensen

Grandma and Grandpa Millett’s house is a magical getaway. Lake aside, they’ve built their own little paradise away from it all. Their property is surrounded by redwoods with secret trails cut all through the property by Grandpa. Along the trails, you’ll find everything from a trampoline and a secret berry patch to an authentic looking t-pee and a gigantic see-saw, among other things. We spent most of our time exploring the outdoors and enjoying the perfect California weather, and of course we also spent some time on the lake. They have a boat that is, well let’s call it vintage, but we had a lot of fun taking it out on the water. Sometimes it was an adventure just trying to get up on skis, but that didn’t slow us in trying. If you could hang on long enough and endure the onslaught of water, when you finally got on top of the water, the pull was worth it. (I even managed to slalom for the first time.)

Cody, Derek, Rya & Kylie on the paddle-boat

After Grandma and Grandpa’s we drove down to Anaheim headed for another Magical Kingdom, that of Disneyland. Rya, I think overall, really enjoyed it. She loved certain things like the castle, the Merry-Go-Round, and anything princess, but was really freaked out by the costumed characters (which I would be to if I were her size, just the heads on some of those characters could crush her). Albeit, we didn’t get tons of photo ops but we had a great day. I think some of Rya’s highlights were waving to Cinderella from afar (she never would have lasted waiting in the line it was so long) and shaking the hand of Tinkerbell (she also noticed us peeking in through the exit area and was nice enough to come over and talk to us- again the line- they were crazy).

The last few days of our vacation were spent in LA with Cody’s sister Kelly, and her husband Rhett. We went to the beach for a little bit, but for the most part we just took some much needed down time. 

It was a memorable, dare I say “magical”, vacation. And, that about sums it up.