Redding Trip in June (Part 1)

Most of June was spent visiting my family in Redding. My cousin was getting married in Sacramento and asked us to make her wedding cake, so we decided to make a trip out of it. Josh and I flew out first and Matt joined us a week later. We spent a lot of time outside enjoying the weather, the water, and having the whole family together.

Josh's first birthday happened to fall on Father's Day, and Matt's birthday came a few days later, so we had plenty of reasons to celebrate! Here he is devouring his first piece of chocolate cake ever! I think he gets his love for chocolate from me.

My little brother Steven likes to shoot BB and Airsoft guns on our property. The boys (and Julia) put some soda cans on the pool gate and practiced their aim. Which is a good thing, considering Steven usually shoots at the wild turkeys that wander into our yard.

That's right -- my 93-year-old grandma didn't want to miss out on the fun. I love that woman!

Here are the birthday boys waiting to open their presents! Josh looks more like he's calling for the dinner check, but at least Matt was excited.

Ties for Matt are like shoes for girls. When I told my family this to give them gift ideas, they got really excited. They had no idea Matt cared about accessorizing, and for a family of mostly girls, this was great news.

In an effort to take some nice family pictures, this is what we ended up with. Very classy.

My mom has a new picture frame that says "Laugh" on it, so she wanted some pictures of us laughing. Don't we look natural?

I love my baby sisters so much! Maybe some day we'll live close to each other again.

For family night, we all went to Water Works Park. It is the only water park in Redding and it's very small. My family used to have season passes here until we moved to a house with a swimming pool when I was seven. Josh loved it! It was so fun to see him playing on the same slides that I enjoyed as a little girl.

Steph loved playing with him in the water. He would crawl up this little rubber slide, turn around on his bottom, reach up for her hands, and yell "weeeeeee!!!!" on his way down.

Uncle Steven is so good with Josh. They both need a little more "man time" when we go to Redding, so I'm glad they have each other.

And Matt too, of course. Nice faces.

Josh liked the swimming pool at my parents house a lot more than I expected. The water was pretty cold still, but he was a stud. And yes, let the record show that my baby could palm a basketball at twelve months old.

We can't have a day at the pool without my dad taking TONS of pictures of people jumping off the diving board. They turn out pretty cool, though. Good form, honey!

Aunt Melissa and Uncle Mike were able to come up for a few days from San Jose.

Mike has a new camera and took some really cute pictures of Josh. Melissa, if you're reading this, email me those other pictures please!

Josh and I were able to see my sister Julia's piano recital. She is becoming very accomplished. Each of us kids took piano lessons for a long time and had to have a recital to pass off each book of music we learned. My mom figured out that this is about the 25th recital we have had out of our home. We sure have some great friends to sit through all that music!

The day before Matt joined us in Redding, my family went out on the lake in our friend Chuck's boat. It was soooo nice! And Josh actually didn't hate it. He was such a good boy, he didn't even mind the life jacket.

Here I am pretending I'm still as cool as I was in high school.

Going in for the kiss...

What you can't see is that I have a goldfish cracker sticking out of my mouth. That's what he's after. It's a great trick for getting baby kisses.

And here is my awesome dad showing off his macho-ness, surfing on the wake of the boat.

Oh, California...you will always be my home! More pictures to come in Part 2.