And? We're Back.

Did you miss me? Ed and I have just spent the last 6 weeks in some of our favorite places in California, touring around some of our favorite spots and soaking in the state we'd dearly missed. I decided after we left that I didn't exactly want to publicize our being out of town, plus I wanted to take a bit of a technology break, so that's why this little blog went into hibernation.  I'm going to actually try to keep up with retelling all our many trip parts, so we'll see how I do. 

All told, we drove around 4,200 (easy to figure out since our car had very few miles on it when we started our trip!)

And this was our journey:

It's interesting that there is apparently a good 1,600 miles beyond just our destination miles. That's probably because I only tracked the major cities visited here, and not necessarily the day trips (of which there were many!).

Our trip was a great opportunity to spend time with family and friends, which was especially valuable given some unforeseen events on our trip. Quite a bit earlier than expected, our niece Meagan and nephew Matthew were born in Fresno to Ed's brother, Keven, and his wife Noemi. They are both quite the little fighters, already, and we were so thankful to be close enough that we were able to go out for a little bit and visit them in the hospital. Around the same time (crazily enough), Ed's mom, Sabine, ended up breaking her hip while we were playing tennis together. Again, we were very thankful that we were there to help out, and were able to rearrange our schedule to spend an additional week in Cambria. So, things definitely didn't go as planned, but we were so glad to be in California when everything happened. It really showed us the value of our family, and of being able to be there when we wanted (definitely one of the big motivators for a hopeful eventual move back to our home state). Ed's side of the family is certainly incredibly strong, as they all proved this summer, and I'm so glad to be a part of it :).

Despite the unplanned events, there were so many positives on our visit that I'm excited to share! We had so many beach/ocean days, mornings and evenings sitting by the fire (got to love Cambria summers), board games, books (and books and books), time with nieces and our nephew, sibling fun,  so much good food, and spectacular views. Our hope is that anytime we are feeling discouraged with Arizona or life in general, all we'll have to do is think back to this summer, and we'll be alright.

So, hopefully you will all enjoy hearing about the Lyon family summer.