California - Days 9 & 10 - Easter!

It is rare that we get to spend a holiday with my side of the family, so we take advantage!

First up - dying Easter eggs. I let Nate do this while Mia was napping...

Bad vegan mom!

Then an Easter Egg Hunt led by my mom and Jerry's church.

This makes a good hat!

Mia's first hunt!  

When they let the "big kids" go Nate ran all the way to the end of the  lawn.
He had it to himself for awhile, but was too interested in what was
in the eggs to get too many of them

YAY eggs!

Checking out their loot

After this trip, I have decided that it is probably a good thing that, unless Peter switches industries, we will never be able to travel for Christmas. Luckily we don't go crazy with Easter baskets so everything we took fit in our suitcase, but what would we do at Christmas? Order stuff online and send it before us? Then how do we get it back? Order two and send one to our house and one to our destination? Try to ship it all back home? I don't know. For now I don't need to think about it!

Deconstructed Easter basket!
I couldn't' find my camera when I was filling the Easter baskets.
Books, sunglasses, socks, sippy cups, utensils, snack bowls...
Nate got a lot of Lion King stuff, Mia's was kind of random.

Easter breakfast!

Good morning!

 We left my mom and Jerry and went to a Catholic church for the Easter service. We went to a church named after St. Francis of Assisi. It was packed! Easter Catholics and the fact that the new pope chose to name himself after this Saint (who, PS, is one of my favorites!) so we ended up sitting in the fellowship hall or something with a kind of secondary service. Weird.

After church we went home and started cooking up a storm for the arrival of the rest of the family for our Easter feast!

Mia sharing with Nonna

The Shipman crew

Cousins! Kat, Mia, Sydney and Nate

Kat checks out what is inside her eggs

Fisher-Starr family - Katie, Kat and Walker

Easter fun! Nate and his "new friend" Sydney

Geez is it hard to get them both looking good at the same time!

Silly boys!

Happy Easter from the Morris family!

Calfirnia - Days 5-8

After the fast pace of the first few days of our trip, most of the rest of the time was just spent hanging roaming Bakersfield, shopping, eating all of the CA food that we miss and spending time with family.

Hanging out at Nonna's

My little adventurer

Cousins! Nate asked to play with her every single day!
But once she was there they were usually fighting. Hmm.

John's Incredible Pizza

This was train ride #2 of 3 for that day.

Ski Ball

Bust a move!

Peter taking over

Feeding the ducks

Reid Taco Night! The fake meat was fine, but the vegan cheese left something to be desired.

I went to see TWO movies with my sister (Oz: The Great and Powerful and The Host), got to sample her new favorite vegan market/lunch spot and share vegan meals at some of our old favorite restaurants.

YUMMY desserts made with love by my favorite sister

Nerds!

Peter and I went on a date night. We had sushi and I saw another movie (Admissions). Sadly, I didn't get any pics of that.

We went to CALM (California Animal Living Museum) where Nate and Kat got to ride on a real-life Dinosaur Train!

Snack time!

Daddy daughter time

Dinosaur Train, the dinosaur train...

Gonna ride, ride, ride, ride, RIDE. The dinosaur train!

Time tunnel! Time tunnel approaching!

And, of course, we can't go to California without some In'n'Out!

He got a 3x3.

Boogers aren't my favorite.

Yummy! This girl can eat!

Because he was just so excited! It had been awhile.

California - Day 4

On Saturday night, Peter went to LA with his friend Collin to spend a little time with his family and get some much needed friend time. He even got a tour of Disney on Monday, and that is where we had to pick him up.

Disney HQ

Since we were there anyway we decided to make a day of it with a trip to the La Brea Tar pits. Nate didn't like it as much as we'd hoped, I guess because the bones weren't actually "dinosaurs" just other very old things. I found it pretty ineresting though. Maybe next time we should go to the Museum of Natural History that is right next door.

Before heading inside we picked up some Baja Fresh and chowed
down on the picnic tables. What a great view of the pits!

She wants to get out!

Pretty little "park"

Looking down on the atrium

Pretty much all Peter did was chase Miss Mia around

Yay Prehistoric animals!

After hitting up the Tar Pits we went to BabyCakes NYC for some vegan treats! I think Peter saying "I couldn't even tell it was vegan!" goes a long way to tell you how good they were. He got a cookie sandwich and Nate and I split some red velvet and lemon cupcakes!

YUM!