Next, we headed south to the Central Valley to visit my parents and a few siblings and their families.
My little brother Robbie and his wife, Priscilla were enjoying a trip together to Mexico, so Nana and Granddaddy's house was extra fun because 4 cousins were staying there as well as us!
Reading with Granddaddy
Mom and I were able to get to Saturday morning Mass together
My old parish has several relics of Saints that we were able to venerate.
The names were hard to read though because they are in a glass case that is fairly high. But St. Therese was definitely one of them. My fav.
Then we met everyone at the soccer fields where we caught the end of Christiana's soccer game and got to see Logan, Benji, and Dominic play next.
They all did GREAT! So much fun to watch cousins and cheer them on!
Swimming and fun with Kevin and Sara's family happened too,
but I apparently didn't snap pictures of everything.
Chris and I snapped a picture with our godson, Benji!
My parents and I went with the kids to the Fresno zoo one morning.
Under the sea
Fun was had by all!
CA condors! Spreading our wings to see how we compare.
Thanks, Mom and Dad, for all the fun and memories!!
I snuck out one evening on National Guacamole day to have guacamole and some laughs and cries with my wonderful sister in law, Sara, and dear friend and mentor, Jennie.
And before we headed down to Southern California, we stopped to see my big sister and her family in Bakersfield where we hung out, played more games, laughed, and took a picture with our goddaughter, Eilish.
Thanks for all the memories, family and friends. We love you. Pray for us.
Yes, this is all jumbled since I already wrote a post about the actual wedding day, but oh well. My life is a busy one and as it is I'm trying to pound out this post while the kid's are playing nicely together for a few minutes in the morning hours before they begin asking incessantly for their breakfast....so we'll see how far I get. I guess it depends how imaginative a game they've created this morning........
Let's start with Thursday before the wedding. On that day, my parents, most of my siblings, their spouses, and kiddos headed to the Fresno Zoo for the morning. Mark's friend, Jordan, also joined us, plus my second cousin Karen, her mom Janie (not pictured) and our dear friends from Spokane, Maryann and Paul.
This picture has 23 (out of 24) of my parents' grandchildren in it.
Two of my brothers, one brother-in-law, and one sister-in-law (with her little 3 week old sweetie) were unable to make it to this gathering, and were missed, but fun was had by all.
In case you were wondering, the current breakdown. There is one 12 year old, one 10 year old, one 7 year old, five 6 year olds, three 5 year olds, two 4 year olds, five 3 year olds, one 2 year old, three 1 year olds, and a 5 month old.
It was definitely an adventure running around with that many little ones, but it was the good kind of adventure. So blessed to have such a big, loving family.
Sorcha and Kayla
Sorcha and Kayla measuring up to the Condor
Feeding a giraffe
Two of my goddaughters, measuring up to the condor.
The sea lions were a huge hit
After our time at the zoo, we headed back to Porterville where there was to be a holy hour (adoration, praise and worship etc to prepare for the marriage Sacrament)
Shannon had asked Chris and I to lead the praise and worship, so we worked with her future brother-in-law, Father Zyg on that. It took place in the large church (Holy Cross) so it was a bit more difficult for Chris and I since the sound really echoes in there and we aren't used to that church being from out of town, but that's what prayer and grace are for. Father Zyg brought Jesus out and placed Him in the monstrance so we could spend time praying and praising and it was just a really blessed time. I so wish that we had done something similar before our wedding, but it was really wonderful to participate in this spirit-filled hour.
Later that evening the girls headed out to a local Italian restaurant for some drinks and fun-- a sort of bachelorette party. We had a blast laughing, chatting, and playing a round of Catch Phrase.
My phone was dead, so I stole this picture from Shannon's friend, Maggie
The following day we spent mostly at my parent's house just hanging out. The Mazanowski clan came over and we all had lunch together. It was nice to have the chance to chat with a few of them a bit more and also to chat with my brothers and sisters, some of whom I only see every few years.
The rehearsal was an early one. I don't have any pictures of the actual rehearsal, but since I forgot these pictures in the wedding post, I'll put them here because they are a still a rehearsal of sorts. These actually took place just before the wedding while the bridesmaids were taking pictures. Chris snapped them while my dad was leading last minute "flower girl practice". Pretty cute, pretty funny.
So this video is pretty much just the ELEVEN flower girls going crazy waiting....haha
And here is my awesome dad leading flower girl practice. Perhaps the best father of the bride ever.
After the rehearsal at the church, we headed to a local Mexican restaurant with a nice big back room and had some dinner with the whole big crazy group of Mazanowskis and Cruesses.
The nearly bride and groom
(rehearsal dinner pictures from Priscilla)
cousins feasting on tortilla chips
Mango margaritas with some sisters
Boy, am I glad I married this guy
The Mazanowski's opened the floor up for affirmations for the couple and it was fun to listen to family members get up and share about Mark and Shannon. The day was a long and exhausting one though, and I can tell you that when we left, we were all very ready for our beds. And for the wedding the following day, of course....
Yesterday we joined in on one of the field trips that a fellow homeschooling mom in our group organized to go to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. On the way home, I asked the girls about their favorites of the day.
As soon as we got there, Kayla checked the map, and saw that there were flamingos. And of course, we just had to go see the flamingos. And we did. Several times, too, because they had several flocks throughout the park. Kayla's lucky day!
It was so bright that the actual flamingos didn't come out very well, but the reflections are pretty lovely and reflect better what the flamingos actually looked like.
Ok, so moving on from the flamingos....
The other BIG hit with the girls at the park ended up being Robert the Zebra. He was a funny digital puppet that you could interact with (like Crush at Disneyland!) The girls thought it was HILARIOUS. (See the videos below) My favorite part about our visit with Robert the Zebra was watching Sophie in the stroller though. She was bouncing and chattering and smiling. Too cute for words.
Dance party with Robert
For part of the day, we ventured around with a few other families. Kayla and her "twin-friend", Val, were inseparable during that time.
With the group we saw the Birdshow, lions, gorillas, lemurs, meercats, and more that I can't possibly remember or name...
Later in the day, we broke off into our separate groups to just explore the park on our own and saw the elephants, warthogs, antelope, giraffes, rhinos and more. It was just so fun to adventure around the park with my girls and experience the "African Safari" together.
We weren't sure we'd get a group picture of us, so we tried a few seflies.
We actually took 4, and Sophie smiled in every single one. Little ham.
On the way out of the park, we saw this bat photo opp which cracked me up. Random side note: It's probably worth noting that we did NOT see the whole park even; just too much for us to do in a day without hubby and without making it a loooooong day where meltdowns occur. Hope to go back again sometime and check out the rest and take Chris with us.
And when I was snapping the photo above, a woman from our homeschool group walked by and offered to snap one with all of us, so we did end up getting a picture with the girls and I that wasn't a selfie after all. :)
I'm so grateful for our fun homeschooling group organizing this. Kids were free in October and with the group rate, my adult ticket was only $10 plus the parking fee was also waived, so we got a super fun day for the price of gas to the park plus my $10 ticket.
Mostly though, I'm thankful for the memories I made with my little girls and the adventure we had on our "African Safari".
