Visiting California & Arizona Relatives

Last week we flew to California to visit Josh's mom. She lives in Hesperia (in the mountainous High Desert of Southern California). This was her first time to meet Kate, and she was thrilled to say the least. Kate and her Oma (German for "grandma") had a blast getting to know each other!


Oma's house has so many fun toys and new adventures.


Oma doted on Kate and took spoiling to a new level while we were there. :-) She fed us delicious German food and stuffed us with chocolates and other yummy desserts.


On Wednesday morning we left for the four hour drive to visit Josh's sister and her family in Kingman, AZ. Josh, Kate and I made the long drive in a rent car without tented windows through the Mohave desert. Beautiful mountains and desert landscape, but hot! In Kingman, Kate met her Aunt Natia & Uncle Johnny, as well as her three cousins Christian (6), Aubrianna (4), and Jocelyn (2). The kids were SO excited to meet Kate. Kate was pretty amazed by these "big kids" and their whirlwind of activity, but by the second day she was completely keeping up with them.

On Thursday we took a trip to their local museum (Kingman is an old train depot/mining town and Route 66 runs right through it), and ate burgers at a 50s diner. We also visited a beautiful state park in some nearby mountains, where the temperature was 20 degrees cooler and the scenery was fantastic.

We hiked up the mountain as far as we could with kids in tow. Uncle Johnny carried Kate in a backpack carrier, and she enjoyed the ride.

We returned home for cake to celebrate Josh's 31st birthday. (Here Josh is wearing the special birthday hat that our nephew Christian made for him.)

We left early Friday morning to return to Hesperia to spend one last day with his mom before our flight left on Saturday morning. It was a quick trip but we enjoyed our stay and especially enjoyed introducing Kate to her California and Arizona relatives. We hope to return soon!