Northern CA and time with family

After our fun adventures in Southern California, we headed up north to my parent's house. 

Brek in the car pretending to have a mustache

He thinks he is so funny!

We were able to attend the monthly Biggs Family gathering at my cousin's house, and was able to see several cousins and aunts and uncles. 

Daddy and Brek playing the Didjeridoo. 

Brek called it the "di di di di (this sometimes went on for a while) doo."

We went up and celebrated my birthday at my brother Mark's house, with his wife Eliana and all their kids. Brek LOVED the cousin time!

Playing dress up. Poor Colby got dragged in; he's such a good sport

A close up of our princess and prince.

So I decided a few years ago that for my birthday I wanted to make a tradition of making a fancy or fun cake. Last year I did the triple layered cake of brownie, cookie dough, and funfetti. This year I found an Oreo cake. There are oreos baked into the batter, plus an oreo whipped cream in the middle. I didn't care for how the decorating of the outside went, but I decided it didn't matter all that much. It was heavenly tho.

All 29 candles!

It was a perfect cake for sharing with my family!

This year, on Joe's side of the family, for each person's birthday, all the family members submit a word or phrase that makes them think of the intended person, and then Joe's younger sister Janelle puts it into the first letter of their name. Here's my Birthday Letter A:

Anyway, back to family time. Here's pictures of Brek and his cousins playing on the trampoline.

 

Trying to capture a Kodak moment of the kids:

Originally, our vacation plans were only going to allow for one day to hang out with my brother and his family, but my grandfather ended up passing away, so we extended our trip so we could attend the funeral services, (I ended up missing Girls Camp), and we had a longer visit at my parent's house (even tho my mom had to leave and go be with her mom and siblings.) This meant we had several more days for Brek to play with cousins and for us to hang out. We were able to attend my oldest niece, Heather's very first piano recital, and we spent an evening playing games on another day. Also, the youngest, Anna, who is Brek's age, was able to join us for a trip to the Folsom Zoo, a visit to the Sacramento Temple, and a ride on a real steam engine train. This was the first time that Brek and Anna have gotten along, and it was so much fun! I'll do a separate entry for the zoo. 

We also ended up celebrating our 5th Anniversary while at my parent's house, and we had my dad join us for lunch at Leatherby's. The other big deal about our trip and our visit to my parent's house was that we ended up adopting a cat: 

She had been hanging around my parent's house for about a month. My parents never fed her or encouraged her to stay around, and yet she kept coming back. Whenever we went outside, she would come up to us to be pet. We took her to the vet to see if she had a chip in her, and she didn't have a collar, nor had there been any signs posted in the neighborhood of a lost cat. My dad still teases me that we stole some little girls kitty. Well, we called our landlady and asked if we could bring a cat home and she said yes. Her name is Muser, which is a Russian word, meaning trash. It comes with a backstory of a family I taught in Russia who had a cat, and I misunderstood their pronunciation of their cat's name, and I thought they had said it was Muser, which I thought was a very strange, but very funny name. After 3 months of me calling their cat "trash," they realized I was pronouncing the name wrong (which I didn't even hear a difference when they told me her real name), and ever since I have wanted to name a cat Muser. We love how friendly she is! And she's a beauty. Brek is still learning to be gentle. haha!

The only bummer part of our trip was that we didn't see friends. Since our original plan was to only be at my parent's house for a couple days, we figured our priority was to be with family. Then when our plans changed and we stayed longer, I felt embarrassed to call people up and say "now I want to see you." I probably should have just sucked it up and maintained important relationships, now that it is all said and done. Lesson learned. I won't make the same decision next time. But all said and done, although saddened by my papa's passing, it was wonderful to be with family and we still enjoyed our trip, even the extended days. :)