(not so) Sunny California

This past week Pat and I went on a vacation to Southern California’s Newport Beach. Every few years my family has a family trip that my 5 siblings, their spouses, my now 10 nieces and nephews and my parents attend. It is very rare for my whole family to get together, so this trip was very much anticipated.

We had many high hopes for this trip including: going to the Price is Right, a hot air balloon ride, going on jet ski’s and going to a taping of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, all of which fell through due to weather and show schedules.

Even though the majority of our trip was filled with a rare spurt of rain and cold weather, we still made the most of it.

We enjoyed many hours enjoying the pool at our resort. It is amazing how kids can play in the water for hours despite cold, hunger, rain, exhaustion and pruney fingers and toes.

A week prior to our family’s vacation, the 10^th grandchild, Emerson Storm, was born. He is my brother Justin’s first boy, already having 3 beautiful little girls.

It was really exciting to see and hold the key to the “Storm” name living on.

My sister Kim, who has apparently become the cook and hostess in our family, cooked all our family meals, which were delicious. I was very impressed that she knew how to cook for such a large crowd, and she even seemed to enjoy it.

My sisters are games people, which means we play a lot of games when they are around. They always tease Pat and me about not liking to play games, but the truth is we do like to play games, but it has to be the right kind. This trip they taught us “Monopoly Deal” and “And it Came to Pass”, which were both really fun.