Cousins

   Dave grew up in small town Illinois in an area with lots of his relatives. He has a cousin David Todd that is 1 year younger than him. Thus David Allen and David Todd (how confusing is that….) had many adventures together and were great friends as well as being cousins. They still live in Illinois so we don't see them much anymore. We were so happy that David Todd and Lavonne stopped through for 4 nights on their way home from Hawaii. Here are a few photos from our Saturday together. They got the nickel tour of Torrey Pines, La Jolla and Carlsbad.

High above the surf

We ate at our favorite Korean restaurant in La Jolla

View from the restaurant

Happiness is toes in the sand

Carlsbad sunset

2 weeks of our kids!

    We had our kids with us for 2 weeks in a row….. first our second born then our first born. Brooke of course came with Tristan and Brooke's parents, Jeff and Tina ( for a long weekend). I am going to let the gazillion pictures tell most of the tale. I just want to say the kids were very pleased with our drought because they had wonderful weather for their visits. Especially gorgeous since they left below zero wind chills behind. Sea World was on their wish lists so I did it 2 weeks in a row!

Tina and Jeff's favorite ride…..no one told them exactly how wet they would get in the front seat!

Tristan tried to pay for the dryer to help Tina but alas it wasn't functioning!

Big party on the patio on Sunday. Can you name those faces?

Belated birthday cheesecake for special injured boy.

This is were we found Brooke -always sitting in the sun.

Tristan worked on this hotel project in Oceanside remotely.

Guess they arrived back in MN to very different weather!

And then the WI kids arrived about 24 hours later….. all 2+ of them  :)

Champion move!

Well gotta go….. time to head to the airport to pick up our next round of guests!

Out with 2013- In with 2014

 Between Christmas and New Years I took a trip to Indio to spent a night with Jason and Sarah, Tristan, Wade and Owen. They were staying at the Wyndham Worldmark resort with Jason's family. For those who don't know all the famly ties- Sarah is the daughter of one of my double first cousins. Our families spent a lot of time together and took many vacations together. They live in WA now so it is special to get to see them!
It was very brown on the way to Indio! But the resort and weather were perfect!  And the 3 boys are handsome,lively and fun!

  We took a 2 night mini vacation with our friends John and Julie to Big Bear. Big Bear is only 2 hours away and it has real winter except it was quite warm and nearly snow free. On the way I had my first In-N-Out burger. Sorry my CA friends- I am not impressed! Culvers has much better burgers! I hope I don't get kicked out of CA for saying that!

Our cute cozy cabin.

One of the locals.

  Perfect hiking weather. Brilliant sunshine and 58 degrees. Julie and I even made a snowman with a dried mango scarf!

   We spent New Year's Eve at our friend's- Brandon and Andrea. A lovely evening with good friends and food. Dave and Lynnae hosted the Newlywed Game which has it's roots in WI! They had played it at our house a long time ago on NYE. The tamed it down a bit since most of these folks had never endured it before!

  Jason and Sarah spent 3 nights with us. Sea World was super fun with those boys!

Surfer dude Owen