Golden and Sunny

At the beginning of last week Lexie, my mom, baby Lily and I packed up the car and dropped the kids off at grandma Kathy's for a week they'd been looking forward to for a long time. They were spending the week. We, on the other hand, had much different plans as we drove off into the sunset heading for warm and sunny San Diego. It was with optimism we began the hours long drive, loaded down with water bottles, granola bars and CDs. For maybe the first half hour I read aloud from my Drivers' Handbook, etching into my brain all the things I'd only just finished going over in my Drivers' Ed class which had been completed the day before. When my mom could take no more driving rules I put the book away and we drove on, listening to some random radio station until I convinced her to listen to a Weird Al CD. I am actually quite amazed that we made it through the entire first CD, although I couldn't get her to put in the second. We stopped at the grapvine and were shocked at the progress that had been made there. I mean they had an Ikea for goodness' sake! They had a Chipotle, and an In N Out Burger too, which we took advantage of. My mom got a salad at Chipotle and my sister and I got burgers at In N Out. Then we continued on our way, I played my birthday playlist CD and the two Maddi made for me for my birthday and then we switched back to the radio and finally we made it. When we go there we walked in to find my uncle Bryan at the table, working on a project, aunt Amanda at work, aunt Stacy still asleep, grandma Holly helping Bryan and my grandpa off at work too. No one had been expecting us this early! "Where is everyone?" asked Bryan, getting up. "It's just us," replied mom, "Me and Halie and Lexie and Lil. We left everyone else at Kathy's." "Oh come one REALLY? You left the boys? I wanted to play with a BOY!" "OOOOOHHHHHH!!" I said, laughing and shaking my head with a mock glare. The rest of the day we just hung out together. Later after my uncle and his girlfriend, Nicole had gone we watched a movie my mom and brought and I texted Maddi and Brenten on his mom's phone until we went to bed. The second day we went to visit my great grandma Paukovits at her house. We picked her up at her house and went out to lunch at a place called Savannah Grill. It was nice and we were served by a really cool waiter who suggested we go climb the Helix "You can see all the way over into Mexico from there! It's beautiful!" We had a good time then went to her house. We sat in the living room talking and then I moved to the kitchen so I could sit and write and finally I ended up downstairs with Lexie and Lily. My grandma has a bathroom downstairs in her house, and it's a nice size room, but most of the walls either are or are covered in mirrors. It's super cool but also a little odd! When you walk in you see yourself from every angle, which is something I'm definitely not used to! We stayed for dinner, which she cooked us, and it was really good! Finally we went back to my grandma Holly's for the night and played Scattergories with the family. The third day we went out and took my aunt Amanda around to apply for several jobs around the area. My grandma Holly took us into Costco to buy candy and movie tickets for that evening. Amanda decided against going with us so Lex and I called my uncle Bryan on my grandma's cell. "Hii uncle Bryan! We want you to come to a movie with us!" I said. "We got you a ticket!" Lexie added. "No, you got AMANDA a ticket!" Bryan corrected, amused. "No, it was yours," Lexie lied sweetly. "Pleeeease?!" I said. "You guys! You're just trying to sucker me into going to the movies with you! Let me talk to grandma." Grandma finally convinced him to come, telling him we had lots of candy and really wanted him to come! So we met up with him there and watched "Just Go With It," or as we kept calling it, because the name kept escaping us, "The Adam Sandler One". It was really great to go with just my grandma and uncle, and we had a good time. We picked up some pizzas on the way home from Marechiaro's and came home where grandpa Joe had finally come home from where he was working away for several days and Bryan and Nicole were already waiting. It was some really great pizza! I loved it! (To be continued...)