California: Where Swords Grow on Trees

As a lot of you know, at the beginning of September Jamie and I braved the drive to California to attend the blessing of my brother's youngest daughter, Ashlyn. I also had a conference the next week in San Deigo so it ended up being a good, week-long adventure.

One of my favorite days on the trip was Labor Day. A lot of the family had already left to go back to Utah. With just the two families left, Carl's gang joined mine for a day at the park. The first park we went to took Jamie back to the mission days as it was an Asian Invasion. There were Chinese women doing their fun dance/exercise routine and men doing Taichi. Unfortunately, there were also no courts that were not being used up. So, after doing some relay races and generally exhausting ourselves, we went to another park where Carl and I were able to play a set of tennis.

I'd love to say that the reason I lost to Carl was because it had been five years since I played. Unfortunately, since he had also not played in about that long I guess I'll just say that I didn't want to beat him in front of his new born baby. Ya, that's it! (We did have a very close match that was a lot of fun though).
While we were playing Tennis, Adam, Annaka and Tyler discovered hanging pods from the trees at the park. They quickly became "swords" in the mind of Adam and Tyler. Once they had finished picking off the low hanging and already fallen pods, they turned to Carl and I to jump or climb for more. It was pretty fun to see how many hits your "sword" could dish out or take in before it would break apart.

At one point, Carl pointed out that California must be a pretty cool place if Swords can grow on trees. Tyler agreed wholeheartedly.

After we got back to Utah, I asked Tyler his favorite part of the trip to California. He told me that his favorite part was Adam. Then he added, "and Ashlyn and Annaka." It really was great getting to spend time with my brother and his family. They were great about dropping everything and letting us invade their lives for a few days. I'm so glad that Tyler has such great family influences.