The Boardwalk

The second leg of our trip took us from Fresno to Hughson where we spent one night before heading to Santa Cruz for the day.  It was a bit cold to enjoy the ocean, but we had a great time exploring the boardwalk.  

We enjoyed the fried foods and salt water taffy (delicious) and took Brigham on his first merry-go-round ride.  He was super excited to sit on the horse before the ride started, but not so sure about the actual ride.

A great day with my favorite boys.

1979 Miles

We just got back from a great two week vacation in California, traveling over 1979 miles.  It was so nice to have two weeks to relax and spend time with family that we don't get to see often.  It seems super overwhelming to try to sum up the trip in one blog post, so I will be splitting into a few different ones over the next few days.

Our first leg of the trip was traveling from Utah to Fresno.  We kept thinking we were going to stop and stay the night somewhere along the way, but decided to just keep pushing through.  Brigham handled the 14 hours in the car fairly well thanks to a little bit of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and a break at the state line.  We got to visit with the Castle family, our "old" friends that live in Fresno now.  Dave was in Aaron's MTC district and then they were roommates after the mission until Aaron and I got married.  They were pretty much inseparable for a few years, even having the same major and taking most of their classes together.  Dave was the first one of Aaron's friends to want to work at the ranch, inspiring the rest of them to join in and interview for jobs there.  So thanks to Dave for getting Aaron to work at the ranch.  It was so much fun to see their cute little family and get to spend a few hours with them.

Summer Nights

We love, love, love it when Julia and Jacob come to visit.  We were so lucky to spend a week and a half with them this summer.  We discovered this great park in Orem where we decided to spend their last night here.  We have tried multiple times to get a photo of these two boys in their matching hot dog shirts, but it seems that every time we tried it didn't work out.  One of them would get the shirt dirty or Jacob would try to give Brigham a big hug and Brigham would have a look of terror on his face.  So this was the best we could do.

Most of us enjoyed the two swingsets.

Brigham couldn't quite decide.

I'm so grateful for summer nights that we get to spend with family.  

What Happens in Vegas

 We had our first annual Bodell cousin's retreat in Las Vegas and we had such a fabulous time.  We headed to Vegas a day early and got to spend our first night in the fancy Marriott Cosmopolitan Hotel right next to the Bilagio (thanks to our favorite Marriott Associates!).  It was so nice and had a really great breakfast buffet and pool.  The boys loved the pool because it was so shallow they could sit and crawl around in it.  We liked it so much we snuck in again the next day after switching hotels.

 The rest of the cousins arrived a day later and we moved into the Marriott Chateau about a block away from the strip.

We had great classes, made cute crafts, did facials and pedicures, ate good food, had a crazy hat party, and had lots of time for catching up with each other.  We even had my aunt serving a mission in Africa join us through skype for some of the festivities.  We had a Dr. Seuss baby shower for my cute sister-in-law Becca and played a very competitive game of "Name that Seuss Book" (picture four people pushing each other to try to get to the chair and steal the hat so that they could answer the question).

Did I mention we enjoyed lots of good food?  Especially chocolate.  Charise taught us how to make great carmel chocolate apples like they do at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.  We also went to a restaurant devoted to chocolate called "Chocolate By the Bald Man" where we had pure chocolate shots, chocolate ranch dressing, and fries dusted with cocoa powder.  Delicious.

What a great trip!  Can't wait to do it again next year!