Really fast trip to California

So on August 30th my mother-in-law threw a surprise picnic party for her mom who is turning eighty this week. We haven't seen her in almost three years, and she has never met Megan, so we made plans to go. It was a really quick trip (we left Friday morning and came home right after the party, getting home late, late Saturday night) but we arranged our trip so we could do some extra fun things with the kids. We made plans to stay close to the beach Friday. Even though it was a longer drive, we got to see the beach in the evening, get a good nights sleep, and then take a drive to a special place in the mountains before heading to the picnic party. Here are some fun pictures from our weekend. I know there are a lot, and so I used the slideshows to cut down on the size of this post.

At the Beach I felt bad for the lady who had to clean our bath tub at the hotel. It looked more like a sandbox, than a bath tub when we were done bathing the kids.

Chantry Flat Up in the Angeles National Forest of California is a place called Chantry Flat. The land was owned by a great, great, great (I am not sure how many greats exactly) uncle of Brian's named Charlie Chantry. When he died he left the land to become part of the National Forest and they named it after him. Since the kids love hearing their names anywhere (even if it has NOTHING to do with them) we thought they would like this place with a family connection. And they did! We hiked for a few minutes along a path that Brian helped improve for his Eagle Project. It was a beautiful area, and a place the kids want to go back to someday.

Not Your Typical Petting Zoo At San Dimas Canyon Park (where we had the picnic for Brian's Grandma) there is a little "zoo" as Sue called it. IT has changed a bit since Sue was there last, and now their focus is helping small animals who need help for any number of reasons. We caught the tail end of a short "lecture" about a few different animals, then the kids got to pet some of them. Liz was fine with petting the possum, but preferred to look at the snake and tortoise. Michael touched all three, and so did Nathan. However, Nathan is most proud that he touched the tarantula, because as he says, "I am scared of spiders." Megan was fearless, literally. I think since she is little she doesn't know that some people get scared or squeamish around some of these animals, because she pet the possum, and went right on to stroke the snake, tap the tortoise and then she touched the tarantual OVER AND OVER again. It was pretty fun to watch them all.

Grandma's Birthday We had such a good time visiting with Grandma. It was wonderful to see her, and for her to meet Megan. Megan warmed right up, and even smiled for a picture with her Great Grandma. Hopefully it won't be three more years before we see her again.