California Dreamin'

Last week we headed down to California to see family and go to the BYU vs UCLA game. We had so much fun and only wished we had more time to spend there.

We split up the drive by spending Thursday night in Las Vegas at my parent's house. Thanks for the bed and breakfast mom and dad! My Uncle Alan was there to spend some time with my grandpa so it was good to see him as well. BJ and Kirsten also came over (mostly to see cute Nolan ☺) and BJ helped with bath time. He loved Nolan's dino pjs!!

MORMON BATTALION HISTORIC SITE

I have been wanting to see the new Mormon Battalion Historic Site visitor's center since they re-did it  several years ago. So even though we had really only planned to go as far south as San Clemente we decided to drive down to San Diego to see it. Doug and Pam were already in SD and Preston and Devin drove down to meet us there as well.

We met up about 1:30 pm, had a late lunch, then took a tour. Unfortunately we got there right at nap time so the tour was a bit of a struggle for the kids. I'm pretty sure we spent most of our time shushing, wrangling, and taking out the little ones and only saw a total of about 15 minutes of the actual tour. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. But I'm still so glad we went!

It's actually pretty amazing that we got even a semi-decent picture of the kids, all things considering :).

Nolan with Gp Bailey

A little bit of what the museum looks like on the inside and outside.

Let's just say, I thank my lucky stars that I get to do laundry in a machine.

Panning for gold!

Nolan pretty much just enjoyed splashing his cute little feet in the water

Brick making.

The first courthouse in San Diego that members of the Mormon Battalion helped build.

Our ancestors that served in the Mormon Battalion

Michael Mathews > Dasil Mathews > Benjamin Lynn Mathews > Mary Ellen Eyre > Lucy Ann Wood > William Wood

Michael Mathews > Dasil Mathews > Esther Black > Esther Clarinda King > Eliza Esther McCullough > Levi Hamilton McCullough

Dana Hunt Mathews > Billie Lea Holmes > Eva Rosetta Andrews > Josephine Workman > Maria Amity Johnstun > Jesse Walker Johnstun

As a short history of the Mormon Battalion because I'm a nerd and like that sort of thing 

The Mormon Battalion was the only religiously based military group in American military history. In 1846, the Latter-day Saints had been forced to flee their homes in Nauvoo, IL and began their journey across the plains toward the west. As they began their trek, Brigham Young sent a church liaison, Jesse C. Little, to Washington, D.C. to seek the aid of President James K. Polk and the U.S. government for their migration. He arrived just days after the U.S. had declared war with Mexico.

Hoping to secure the loyalty of the Mormons who were at that very moment heading towards Mexican owned territories, it was decided to enlist a battalion of Mormon men to fight with the United States in the war.

The Mormons were understandably suspicious when first approached with the idea of volunteering to fight for the country they were currently fleeing. However, Brigham Young saw several advantages to the arrangement. First, Thomas L. Kane had arranged permission for them to winter on Indian lands near Omaha, Nebraska, which was a help because they could not make it all the way west that summer on their limited resources. Second, it would show the church's loyalty to the government, and third, the battalion men were allowed to wear civilian clothing despite being given a uniform allowance, meaning they could send all that money back to be donated to the church fund to purchase wagons, teams, food, and other necessities. And lastly, they could send 500+ men (along with a small number of women and children) to California on the government's dime.

The battalion marched over 2,000 miles from Council Bluffs, IA to San Diego, CA. When they arrived in San Diego they still had 5 months before their enlistment was up and would be discharged in Los Angeles. Not only was their enlistment not up, but the main body of Saints would not arrive in Salt Lake City until July 1847 anyway, so many of the men stayed and helped build new foundations in California. Some remained in San Diego and built some of the city's first government buildings. Others went up to the Sacramento area and worked at Sutter's Mill along the American River where gold was discovered. In fact, it was a member of the Mormon Battalion, Henry Bigler, who recorded the actual date of the discovery of gold which sparked the Carlifornia Gold Rush.

At the hotel with Doug and Pam

SAN CLEMENTE PIER AND BEACH

I got up pretty early Saturday morning and drove to San Clemente to go garage sale-ing with Devin, Marna, and Davis. At first we thought the day was going to be a dud, but ended up striking gold! Among a few other things, I got a brand new $75 REI backpack for $5, an upgraded piano keyboard for $175 (normally sells for at least $450), and Devin got a brand new two man REI tent for $15! Score! So after a slow start it ended up being a pretty successful day.

Justin and Nolan hung out with Doug and Pam at the hotel room in the morning and then we all met up at the beach!

Eating lunch

Apparently the peel is tastier than the actual banana.

More than one stranger, after commenting on how cute the boys are (of course), joked about how we definitely needed to get some sunscreen on their fair skin haha.

Once again, we attempted an outing during what is normally nap time and, once again, it was a bit of a struggle. But, once we got his swim trunks on and put his feet in the water he loved it!

Nolan and daddy in their matching swim trunks.

Cute cousins!

The boys were pretty cute playing together!

Nolan was loving it until his mom put him right in the way of a big wave. I didn't even see it coming! Poor guy got sand and saltwater in his mouth and understandably didn't like it...at all. Plus it was way past nap time and he was so over the sand, sun, and being awake. It was pretty stressful trying to clean him off, myself off, pack up our stuff, and get out of there. He was screaming the whole time we were trying to take his wet diaper and trunks off and shower him, and I had to walk him to the car wrapped up naked his towel, but we made it!

Even with the stress at the end, it was a great trip to the beach with a fun group!!

BYU vs UCLA

Devin's mom, Marna, was sweet enough to watch all of the kids for us while we drove about an hour and a half up to LA for the game at the Rose Bowl. There was a lot of traffic so we followed our GPS on a circuitous route on a lot of surface streets, but we eventually made it! And in plenty of time before the game started. Speaking of which, considering we had 20 people, in 3 different groups, who were all coming from different places at least 30 min away, I think we did a pretty good job of all getting there early, at about the same time, and communicating. We were the last to arrive at the entrance, but I don't think anyone had to wait more than 15 minutes.

I had a quick, but very stressful moment of panic just after we parked when I thought I might have left the tickets at Devin's parent's house. Oh man. The weird thing is that I remembered taking them out of my purse in the car and saying out loud (just to be sure), "I have the tickets!" but when we grabbed our stuff to start the walk up to the stadium I didn't remember seeing my planner with the tickets on the seat and it wasn't in my purse. I ran back to the car and, thank heavens, found the planner under the seat. Whew! That would have been terrible! Not only did we have our tickets, but 14 others! So I was pretty relieved to find them.

Parking was on a golf course. It kind of reminded us of the parking situation at UConn where it was just a huge field.

The Rose Bowl

Devin, Meghan, Stephanie, Ashley, Rob, Cameron, Preston, Justin

Ben, Megan, Wyatt, Adam, Devin, Preston, Meghan, Justin, Mackae

One funny thing to note -- my Aunt Megan's sister happened to be sitting only 7 seats away from our group! I mean, the Rose Bowl seats like 100,000 people, and we bought our tickets over a month ago, how random and awesome is that?!

Anyway, it was super fun to be at the Rose Bowl with family and friends. BYU played great against a number 10 UCLA and, in my opinion, looked like a better team. It was an exciting game and BYU was ahead most of the game before losing by 1 point in the last few minutes. Too bad, but it was still pretty exciting to be there.

 We got these pictures from Marna while we were driving and they made our night!

This one was captioned "Baby duty!" I love their little legs all intertwined.

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The drive home was long, but still not too bad. About an hour from home we stopped at a gas station to make a bottle for Nolan and get his pjs on. I sat him up on the front passenger seat and before I could stop him he had seen my phone and dove head first to the floor to get it. This kid and his electronics, ugh! It was pretty funny to watch though so I just let him go for it. Hey, at least he earned it right? ☺

I swear we already have a teenager on our hands. Ignoring us while we try to peel him away from his phone. Yikes!

We had a great trip and are so grateful to have had the opportunity to see Pam and Doug, Preston and Devin and their family, and so many friends and other family members all in one weekend. We only wish we could have stayed a few more days!