My Sweet, Simple Life: Vacation #2: Santa Rosa, California

Yesterday (Monday) morning we got home from our second trip to California this month. This time we went to Santa Rosa for a Hillgrove/Lockwood Family and Friends Reunion at Aaron's aunt Vivien's place, Mom's Head Gardens. First of all, I love visiting Vivien (a.k.a "Bunny") and Karen at Mom's Head. I've only been there a couple of times before, but each time I go it feels like heaven. It's a beautiful, natural place where you can wander for hours and around every corner is something unexpected and lovely. Plus, it smells even better than a Bath and Body Works store. Roses, jasmine, and honeysuckle- I just couldn't get enough!! Anyway, we left on Friday morning and drove all day to arrive Friday night. We stopped in to say hello to everyone who was already there and to rest a little before driving a few more miles north to where we'd be sleeping. Aaron's Grandma Diana has a house in Windsor that is currently empty (she's now living in a custom built cottage on Bunny & Karen's property) so our family and David & Gayla would be sleeping there.

The next day was the big party. I can't even guess at how many people attended, but I think the turn out was close to the expected 60. Everyone just kind of sat and talked and laughed, becoming reacquainted and enjoying themselves all day. We had two bathtubs worth of cold drinks, a huge grill rented just to cook up all the hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken that had been prepared, a rented snow cone machine, music for dancing, awesome appetizers and snack food and the yummiest lemon cake I've ever had for dessert. It was a great day. The kids spent most of the day playing with the other kids that came, trying to get the dogs to play, exploring the red train caboose, getting rides in the gardening cart and just having a great time getting dirty. :)

Sunday we woke up exhausted and got over to Bunny's a little later than we'd wanted. Most everyone else had gone but we got to say a few more goodbyes and then spent the rest of the day talking, eating and napping. Originally we'd planned on leaving Monday morning but decided we'd give ourselves a head start and take off for home Sunday night. We went back to Grandma's house and packed up our stuff, dressed the kids in their jammies and loaded up the car. We thought we could stop and sleep at a motel on the way, but Aaron was wide awake the entire trip so we got home in about 11 hours (though to me it felt like 20). We all slept for a few hours then had the rest of the day to ourselves. I know Aaron was glad to have a little time to recover before going back to work today.

I'm sooo glad we got to go to this reunion. It isn't often that we get to see our relatives that live in California, and this was such a great chance to do just that. We really enjoyed ourselves and are just sad that we couldn't have stayed longer.

Can you spot the totem pole?