Friendscation 2014

Last weekend, we had our second annual Friendscation in Monterey! I've said it before and I'll say it again... when you don't have any family near you, your friends become your family. We are so blessed to have friends who needed friends too. You may remember last year when we had our first Friendscation up in Truckee, north of Lake Tahoe, and the ridiculous story of the owner of the house. We had so much fun we decided to keep up the tradition of Friendscation and head to the Monterey Bay area.

We found an awesome house to rent in Pacific Grove that all three of the families could stay in together. It was a beautiful house - big and spacious enough for 6 adults and 5 kids.

After a busy week of VBS at our church, we took off on Friday afternoon and made the 3.5 hour trek to Monterey.

Friday night, we got settled into the house, had dinner together, got the kids to bed and had a fun time hanging out.

Logan made himself comfy

Hanging out with his friend, Ava

Saturday our big outing was to Carmel, just down the beach from the infamous Pebble Beach golf course. The big boys loved playing on the beach... until they got wet in the cold Pacific water. Then it was shivering and goose bumps. We decided to call it a day after the babies with advanced enough hand dexterity had eaten enough sand and all the snacks to keep them happy were doused with sand as well.

On the way back to the house, we drove the 17 Mile Drive along the coast. It was so beautiful. California, you impress me yet again.

We spent the rest of the day at the house for naps and cooking dinner. Since we had a busy day, we decided to have an early dinner at 6:30 on the dot and get the kids in bed at 7. We spent probably 3 hours all together making a wonderful dinner of ribs, tri tip, fried zucchini, rice pilaf, potatoes au gratin, and dinner rolls. Unfortunately, all three of the babies lost it during dinner so we ended up rushing to eat dinner to get them to bed. Oh well, it tasted good, even if it was rushed.

Sunday morning, Mitchell woke up with his stomach feeling a little off. We had a great breakfast and started packing up to head out to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Mitchell got worse and eventually lost his breakfast. :( Turns out he had food poisoning and it was only going to get worse...

We made it to the aquarium and had a less than ideal experience there. The aquarium is awesome but Logan was tired and Mitchell was sick. We were there for a few hours probably, at some point Mitchell went out to the car and waited for us. After lunch, we met up with Mitchell and realized he had gotten a lot worse. We said farewell to our friends with the intention of heading back to Sacramento.

We got on the road and I had to pull over twice in a few miles for poor Mitchell to upchuck on the side of the road. It was bad, y'all. Poor guy. He wasn't getting any relief in between throw ups and he couldn't stop. I was scared and I think he was too. We decided to go to the ER in case he had something worse than food poisoning. Thankfully Logan took a brief nap in the car despite Mitchell's condition so when we got to the hospital, he wasn't a total wreck but he did want to get down and crawl around the ER, which was not going to happen. Once Mitchell was settled with some anti-nausea meds and saline bags, Logan and I took off to go get a hotel room. We hung out for a few hours while Mitchell was being treated, went back to pick him up and then crashed for the night.

Thankfully, Monday morning, Mitchell was feeling well enough to make the trek back to Sacramento. It was a fun, exciting Friendscation but now we have another crazy story for the second year in a row. Brucey Bruce the first year, food poisoning the second year. Can't wait to see what next year brings...