California here we come, Right back where we started from

 We left for California on friday, june 8 after I was done with my meetings. Our plan was to drive through the night so that Gabe would sleep the whole way. We ended up staying the night in Battle Mountain, haha, guess we had drastically overestimated our energy levels. Guess what, though? Gabe was silent the entire way. It was actually kind of weird. We thought he was sleeping the whole time cuz he was so quiet, but sometimes we would look back and his big eyes would be wide open just looking at the world pass by. We just laughed at our good fortune that we have a 5 month old that didn't make a peep on a 11 hour drive. We had a good drive, chatted and sang along to songs, but we were sooo happy when we saw the "welcome to Chico" sign.

We got to Chico and went to my cousin Johnny's mission farewell on Sunday. He is going to Guam and he is going to be the best missionary since Oliver. It was so fun to see him give his farewell talk and be so mature and prepared. He and his sister and brother are the kids that I remember being there when they were born and seeing grown up so it was so nice to see him before he left.
Here's Gabey with my Grandma Seipert. He looks so big next to her.

 We drove to Oakdale that night. On Monday, we went to the farm to see Oliver's grandparents. They are lovely. I love riding around on the golf cart and seeing their pretty property. They have a grandchildren's grove where they have planted a tree for each grandchild. I love that. They also have a bamboo forest and lots of fruit trees. Gabey met their dog, Minnie. I think he is gonna be an animal lover.

 Tuesday we had dinner with Jenni's friend, Jack and his daughter, Molly.  It was nice to meet them because we had heard a lot about them. After dinner we played pit and had a good ole' fashioned sing-along. We lost Molly at the sing-along, haha. Like pretty much any normal 15 year-old, she was not about to sing along to the oldies with a family she is meeting for the first time. It was a fun and interesting night. On Wednesday, we went swimming at Oliver's aunt Amanda's house. It was Gabe's first time swimming. He was not all too sure about it. Actually, he didn't really have a reaction to it. Just had a blank, kind of concerned look on his face. I loved it. Swimming is my all-time favorite activity. It felt great to dive in. Oliver and I came up with a very fun game. It's kind of like horse but with diving. One of us jumped or dove off the diving board a certain way and then the other had to duplicate it or get an H, O, etc. My favorite jump was one that Oliver came up with  called the "good day sir" where he jumped off and tipped his hat before landing in the water. We also found all the albums of pictures we could and looked through them. We wanted to compare Gabriel with Oliver's baby pictures.

I think there are some similarities but Gabe is definitely a mixture of Oliver and me. Thursday evening I went to relief society. They had a Shakespeare expert come and talk to us. It was pretty interesting and fun to see how passionate he is about the subject. The point of the activity was not necessarily to learn about Shakespeare but to encourage lifelong learning about whatever it is you are interested in. It was an "English Tea Party" and each table had a tea set and pastries. You may not know this about me, I have an affection for tea sets and have always wanted to host a tea party but don't think any of my friends would come or if they did they would make fun of it, lol. I told Ollie about it and he said he would have tea with me and even talk with a british accent, so we did and it was veeeery fun. One thing we've been doing that I absolutely love is getting up early (anywhere between 6:30 and 9) and exercising (either running outside or using the eliptical machine that is out back or a combination of both). It energizes us for the day. After my work out I go out on to the front porch and read scriptures and write in my scripture journal and sometimes my "I'm crazy and I need to figure out my life and why I feel so crazy" journal (although being here in California on pretty much an endless date with my honey had all but eliminated the need for that journal for the time being. Don't worry, though, it will fill up fast come the fall:) I cannot tell you how much I enjoy my mornings of physical and spiritual exercise. It is the perfect way to start every day.
On Friday, we went to Chico. We swam at my Aunt Laurie's house and this time Gabriel seemed to enjoy it more. He splashed about.

I pretended that I was the owner of their beautiful home and read US magazine on a big floaty. It made me want to say things like, "someone bring me a frosty beverage" and "darling, should we summer in Europe or Hawaii this year?" We are so lucky to have such nice and generous family who share their things with us.

After swimming we ate burgers at only the best burger joint anyone's ever been to. Burger Hut. Then we went for a long walk through beautiful Bidwell Park (I have serious Chico pride. It is my hometown and, in my mind, will always be kinda magical) and ended up at a downtown concert. Now, let me explain a bit. Chico is a bit of a hippy town. It's got some natural vibes, it's big on barefoot, whole foods, swimsuit optional at the creek, etc. So, imagine our delight when we stumbled upon a concert with a big group of mostly middle-aged folks just lettin' the music move them. They were free-flowing, barefoot, flowy skirts, just living in the moment and I loved every second of it. It didn't take long to us to join them and show them what the Abbotts have got. (we have been brushing op on our moves by playing Dance Central)
The fun dance crowd

Then we had fro-yo at the best fro-yo shop anyone has ever been to-Jon n' Bons yogurt shop. We sat at the same booth where we sat 7 years ago on one of our first dates (prior to our 4 year sebattical) and just reveled in the fact that we are together. Then we walked home and watched House Hunters-my new fave show. Saturday, I went to Alisa's baby shower. She is a great, great lady. I love that she is still kinda the same as she was in high school, but even better. She is having baby boy #3 soon. I also saw Angie. I love her. We ate at a delicious taco truck and then went home for a nice, quiet evening. Oh, I guess I should mention that my parents were out of town, that's why I haven't mentioned them, we stayed at their house. So, we looked through the game/book cupboard and found some fun games we hadn't played in a while. Guess who was my fave, we decided that most of the people on the guess who board appear to have had pretty rough lives. The main expression is one of concern, disgust, or faint amusement. lol. We also decided that we want to make our own guess who boards featuring people we know. How fun would that be? Then we decided to read some of the kids books that we found in the cupboard to see if we wanted any for Gabe and, let's face it, kids books are just fun to read. My favorite was "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile". It was legitimately funny and made us laugh out loud. We also liked "Guess how much I love you". Oliver is just soooooooooooooo fun to be with. I have not gotten tired of him and it seems like the more time we spend together, the more fun we have. He has been loving being in a house with a piano. As I type this, I am listening to him play and sing in the other room. When we got back to Oakdale from Chico, it was Sunday and we had missed church:( so I decided to listen to some talks on LDS.Org while Oliver went to see his dad (it being father's day and all). I listened to several talks by Elder Holland cuz he is the bomb and after I listened to one I decided to just stick with him and I sewed on the stocking that I am making for Gabe. I will finish that thing before Gabe moves out to college- I swear:) There was some tension in the house that night and I was glad that I had spent the afternoon filling myself with peace and calm to be able to handle it well.
Monday I went to Grass Valley to see my Emmy. We ate fro-yo and went to a very cute shop in the very cute downtown area of Grass Valley where I purchased hair chalk. Then I took a tour of her new house and we went swimming at the river (Yuba River). It was soooo pretty and refreshing.  The drive home from Grass Valley was terrible. I hated every second of it. I kept being unsure of where I was and felt lost. I made it home, though and Oliver had prepared a wonderful FHE for us. He even had typed up a program and included everyone in the house. Have I mentioned how awesome he is? Then we ate fro-yo (yeah, i've been eating a lot of that lately) and watched the bachelorette.
Yesterday we ran errands during the day. It was not so much fun. Too hot and too much driving. Then we went to the Oakland temple. It was one of my favorite temple days I've had. The Oakland temple is unique and beautiful.

We had not noticed this statue of some kids and a puppy before. It is at the entrance to the roof in front of a scripture where Jesus invites the children to come to him. Fun and sweet.

On the drive home from the temple Oliver and I had some great conversation. I learned more about him that I had not known and everything I learned made me love him more.
California is being very, very good to us.

We went to the waterslide park in Roseville. Sunsplash.I was a scaredycat and didn't want to go on the big rides to we went on the ones with no line that were not scary. Our fave was the lazy river.My parents were so nice to watch Gabe while we went to the waterslides. I liked visiting them and staying up late chatting with my mom. Also, I liked going to visit my Grandma. She is almost 91 and still the best.

The week after that we went to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. That is our special place cuz we went there on our honeymoon. The Giant Dipper is my all time favorite roller-coaster. One of our goals was to ride the giant dipper 17 times. We only rode it 4 or 5, but we got our fill:)

We also love the carousel where you grab a ring every time you go around and try to throw it into the clown's mouth. Ollie and I both made it in:)

Here's Ollie looking pensive and handsome on the carousel

Here's me on the carousel

We agree that the scariest ride at any amusement park is the hangy cage thing that goes slowly on a wire from one end of the park to the other. We like to ride it cuz it's a nice way to gaze at the ocean and smooch, but it is truly terrifying.

Here we are....scared

I went to visit Greg in Santa Clara at his new place, which is actually Brian and Lindsay's place. I drove down with Gabey while Oliver was doing some work for his dad. We had a fine time going to Palo Alto and walking around, having dinner (Teriyaki Tuesday) with Brian's fam and making up all the renditions of "Cathy Rodgers" songs to the tune of popcorn popping that we could possibly think of. I ended up staying the night and coming home the next morning. Oliver and I took at trip down to visit them together a week or so later. We went to dinner and went swimming. Our fave was being flipped in a circle by Greg and Brian.

Gabe and his cousin Milo

We drove to Knight's Ferry where spent many of his growing up years. So pretty. We really enjoyed sitting by the river.

Daddy and Gabey by the covered bridge in Knight's Ferry

We spent the fourth of July with Shane and Emily. Shane's dad rigged some seriously awesome fireworks. Gabe was not too sure of them but couldn't take his eyes off them. They are so nice and fun.

Here's a pic of us all together














We went to a baseball game with Oliver's dad. A's and Red Sox. I got super into it. The Sox were ahead the whole time until the last inning. Gabe was really good except for when he got scared after the Sox hit a home run and everyone screamed. It was so fun to sit outside in the nice summer night and watch a game.

My cuties watching the game

 Handsome Abbott men

This last 2 weeks have been busy ones. Oliver went for a very quick trip to Utah to do some business there and drove back on Friday with Kelly. While he was gone, it became even more apparent that I would be a terrible single mom. He really does so much for me and Gabe and it was so hard and sad without him, even for just 2 days. I was so glad to have him home. That weekend Micheal got married to Betsy so David, Kelly, Mal and Wren were home for the weekend. The wedding was pretty and they had yummy food. Oliver was asked to give an impromptu toast and did great. He really can do anything. We spent a lot of time with his family. Oliver even had a morning that was kinda a flashback to the past where he and his bros played nintendo for a few hours.
Then we left for Fort Bragg to spend a few days camping with my family.
The campground we stayed at is beautiful and right by the ocean. We could see it from our site. The weather was perfect and the greenery around the campsite was almost as pretty as the ocean. It was nice to have a couple days out in nature. My parents had planned the trip very well and we had great food at every meal and a warm and comfy place to sleep. I wish we'd gotten a picture of the whole fam:(

The pretty ocean

Greg, Brian, Ollie, and I braved the freezing Northern California water and played in the waves. They knocked clean over twice, which my brothers thought was hilarious.
Here we are after playing in the waves

Ollie let me bury him. He said it was relaxing, but he looks rather peturbed, lol.

Our fave things we did there were:
1) reading on the beach. We went into Mendocino-the cute little town close to Fort Bragg with cute little shops and Ollie got a new book. He is super into it. After our trip to town, we sat on the beach and read for a few hours. It was so peaceful and nice.

here's our reading spot

2) Exploring the tide pools. We found lots of cool things including Sea Enenimies (hard to say, even harder to spell), star fish, crabs, and sea lions.

Our fave was the star fish

3) Playing games with the fam and getting to spend some time with my nieces and nephews.
4) Eating smores. I perfected them on the third night. The perfect smore goes; graham, marsh, chocolate, marsh, graham. So good.
On the way home, we stopped at San Fransisco. It was a terrible drive. We were almost ready to just skip it, but we kept on. I ate clam chowder- pretty much the reason I wanted to go and we went to visit our beloved sea lions only to find that all but 5 of them had left.

Then we took a ride on a ferry that took us under the Golden Gate Bridge.

WE LOVE YOU CALIFORNIA!!!!