CA Trip

So we got back a few days before Christmas from visiting Jared's family in Susanville CA. It's a tiny town above Sacramento and closer to the Neveda border. I wasn't looking forward to the cold or snow, but it really wasn't that bad. It only really snowed once while we were there. I was glad that Ethan got his first taste of it too. We had to tell everyone that the high temperatures there were our lows on bad days in Phoenix. I remember waking up one morning and it was 7 degrees outside! It's insane!

Ethan and I finally got to meet Jared's brother Beau, his wife Lindsey and their son Caleb who is 4. I was worried that Caleb might not like Ethan because he's used to being the only grandson and getting all the attention. Caleb turned out to be pretty good. He would play with Ethan and try to make him happy if he was sad. Cute stuff. You could tell towards the end of the week though that he was ready to have his grandparents all to himself again. What else can you do though?

Jared's family wanted to wait until we arrived to get a Christmas tree. I thought it'd be fun because I've never gone out in to the woods to cut down my own tree. We picked the day it snowed to get it. It was fun though. I got out and walked around in the snow while Amanda(J's sister)and Shawn(J's mom)cut down the tree. I was trying to get over there to help, but it was slippery and I was trying not to fall down the hill. Caleb was out there running around too. Ethan would have been out there, but he decided to take a nap as we were driving up the mountain. He face planted in the snow when we went to visit some of Jared's friends from high school. They have a nice cabin out by Eagle lake. The house was covered in lights and they had a 16 foot tree in their house!! I was trying to figure out how they decorated that thing and how they were going to get it out. They had a huge train set going around the tree too. Ethan would play with the remote to the train and scare himself every time he turned it on. He also liked to train to go backwards...

We just spent time with his family and went to Reno(the only big town close to them)a couple of times throughout the week. It was a lot of fun. The Saturday before we left we had a small early Christmas. We ate food and just hung out all day. Oh and of course we opened presents! It's always nice when you get to open presents early!!! It was a nice family gathering. I think next time we go up there it should not be during their cold season. Jared and I both agree that people should come visit us in Phoenix for the winter anyways. We just have to try and convince everyone else of that now.