The Last Bit About CA

The last of the magical winter trip to California with every family member except my husband...  Everyone!  All my siblings and all their families.  My heart overfloweth.

 Poker Night #2

I love the generations here.

 Rube conquering the playground.

Necessary trip to In-n-Out. 

I'm doing the advanced maneuver of eating with a 26 pound unconscious Korean in one arm.

 Doesn't my dad look great?!

Leukemia, what?

Granny and Granpa with 3/4 of their grandkids.

Three Hermans in the back seat.

 Saddest picture ever:  Saying goodbye to Granny at the airport.

 Those of us who are two quickly recovered and became very excited about being on the airplane again.

He's got M&Ms to count.

 Reuben's latest style is buttoning ALL the buttons.

And now we're all home cherishing the memories, 

and preparing to make more.

Dad's 100th Day Party

Paul's at the bar tonight, two boys are in bed not sleeping, and Peter's playing a video game.  So I get to blog!  Here are unpublished pics I found on my camera from our last trip to California - January 28 to February 5th.  These all show our day at Sue and Paul's where we celebrated my Dad's 100th day since his stem cell transplant.  Lots of extended family.  It was fabulous.

The Sisters (my dad has four of them) gave my dad a bag of presents

that his new DNA would really enjoy.

His sister Jo was his perfectly matched donor, so now he has her DNA,

or something like that.

So naturally he would like to read about Will and Kate.

 And he would want a framed picture of Jo's dog.

 And he needs a little purse to carry the dog around.

 Sister Carly with my next niece, Charlotte.

Brother Craig

And then my dad gave a touching speech about being thankful to be here.

We are all abundantly thankful too.

My three sibling are in here along with our cousins who all live in So Cal.

 This is Max, my cousin's son and platelet donor extraordinaire.

He entertained Charlie a long time.

It was a nice break for me.

Paul wasn't on this trip, remember.

And then it was time for the 49ers to win the Super Bowl.

Except they didn't.

We all hung out here, watching a TV you can't see in this picture.

Aunt Cheryl and Charlie

 Granny making the most of the thirty-minute power outage during the game.

Chase and Charlie in their private lounge.

 Peter helped Aunt Jo keep track of the score.

 The Niners must have scored at this point

since Dave is kissing his moneymaker.

Brody and Charlie saying good-bye.

The Cousins

Let's revisit California for a moment.

Here we have all the west coast cousins.

Riley, Gigi, Peter, Reuben, and Brody on the fence.

Cade holding Cadence, Charlie crying behind the tall grass, and Hallee wondering what's wrong.

What's wrong is that just a few moments before this picture was captured in my parents' backyard,

Charlie was like this...

I moved him here from here...

He hasn't quite built up his stamina for California fun. 

Here's how Baby Cadence prepped for the photo shoot.

Fixing up her pedicure and stretching her hamstrings.

Multi-tasker in training.

Today's Family Portraits

Just some highlights from today.  More tomorrow - I have to get back to all the people here!

Sibling Pic 2013

(plus a sleeping Hallee and a future niece/nephew)

 Nicole, Tiffany, Carly, and I

on an early morning Target run

sans kids

so fun

 The Char and I

pregame

 The David and I

midgame

 The Craig and I

postgame



And the current situation

Cousin Time

Saturday afternoon...

David's family arrived first and while we waited for Carly and Craig's families, we played outside.

Peter's drawing Brody's outline in chalk.

 Charlie sharing with Hallee.

 Gigi and I and the vintage 49ers sweatshirt I found in my parents' guest room closet.  It's very red.

 David gets the box.

 Cute boys.

 Getting smashed by the bottom of Brody.

 Ah, Chase, Carly, and Cadence finally arrived!

 It started to get chilly so we went in for tea.

 And billiards.

Peter and Cade

 So fun to all be together. 

 On to s'mores

Gigi and Riley, both five years old. 

 Brody, Gigi, Riley, Charlie in the front

with Pete and Rube in back

and Cade and Granpa playing pool.

Sweet boy

 Poker lessons with Uncle Dave

And they're still playing as I type.