The Six Weeks, Part One: Southern California

One year ago, my in-laws made a simple request from all their family: Please make the time for your entire family to come next summer for a family reunion.

Lane and I, of course, said we'd be there. We had a year to plan. What emerged was a six-week vacation traveling more than 6,500 miles across the Western United States seeing every. single. member. of our families.

It was MAR-velous.

A little difficult (I won't lie), but marvelous. Lane stayed with us the first 2 weeks before flying back to Texas for work. He came back out to Utah the last weekend of vacation to drive us home.

We did a lot of things. Visited more than 10 museums/parks/zoos. And about 1,000 photos were taken.

So, I'm breaking it up into 3 parts (no, not with all 1,000 photos ... but close).

Part One: Southern California

I knew that there would be countless hours spent in the car. Days, actually. So I devised a solution for child entertainment: lap desks.

I used this pattern for the bottom and piping, but wanted something the kids could use with magnets and that would provide a barrier should crayons or food roll away. I bought cheap cookie sheets and nestled them in with Gorilla glue.

Activity boards

I didn't do a lot for their bags, but I made a magnet felt board, magnet puzzle, crayons/coloring books, sticker books and their LeapFrog books.

The dream was that Owen would sleep through most of it, but I decided to put together his LeapFrog books and little reader the day before we left ... only to realize he didn't have a bag for any of it. My solution? This little beauty made during his morning nap the day before we left:

It's lined with the baseball fabric ... because I'm wicked awesome like that.

We left at 4 a.m.

For the most part, they did wonderfully.

Owen defied my grand-plan dream and only slept about 1 hour of the first 16 hours. But he was happy.

Yes. That IS a diaper underneath him. It stopped potential leaks from getting his seat wet. Fairly genius, if you ask me.

We stopped after 16 hours of travel and spent the night in Arizona. The next day, we arrived in Camarillo.

Everyone was thrilled to see Grandma and Papa and GGP. Not to mention the next few days when 10 aunts and uncles and 15 cousins would all come together.

We went to the beach:

She loved it. She seems to belong here.

He loved it. Just like his Daddy.

Hated it. I felt like a voyeur zooming in so far to get a photo of him screaming by the car. We couldn't get him to come back.

We went to the HAPPIEST place on Earth.

Lane worked the first hour we were on the park. Yep, that's how his vacations go.

Luckily for us, Jane's friend lives down the road from Disneyland now and he and his wonderful mom and brother met us to play in the park.

She loves him so much.

Tentative of Mickey. What you can't see is Elliot having convulsive fits off to the side.

Carsland alone was worth the extra money spent to get a park hopper to California Adventure. It was MAGIC.

Eating at Flo's V8 Cafe.

Talking with Mr. Potato Head. Literally.

Park classic: Cotton candy.

How Elliot rode almost the whole time.

Toward the end of the day, we saw Cinderella come out to meet fans.

Elliot has something of a crush on Cinderella and when I let her know, she spent the next 3 minutes talking to him.

They talked for so long, she sat down to see eye-to-eye with him. Except Elliot couldn't help himself, he sat right down to chat.

Complete love (on his part).

His dream is now to become a prince when he grows up.

She kind of sealed the deal here.

We finished up the day with a low-key train ride

and, of course, ice cream at the Gibson Girl Cafe.

I looked like this when I finished too.

We stayed for the fireworks and needless to say, both children fell asleep 2 minutes after we got them into their car seats. Both of them literally fell asleep in the middle of speaking (they were in a bit of a tiff at the moment).

The next day, Owen didn't want anything to do with me. He was fairly upset at me for leaving him the day before.

That, in addition to undivided attention from his Daddy kind of cemented his Favorite Person spot.

Owen and his Favorite Person.

The reunion included swimming, soccer games, relay races and a family photo.

The kids were in seventh heaven running back and forth between Grandma's and their cousins' house (they live behind each other). So many built-in friends. So much to do.

With Papa ... and he couldn't be happier.

Grandma, Papa and 18 grandchildren

The kids didn't want to leave, but their solace was that they were on their way to see more cousins, more aunts and uncles, and Grammie and Papa.

Coming Soon: The Six Weeks, Part Two: Northern California.