The Mangelers: Our Whirlwind of a Weekend

So excited to be back together! It's nice to have everyone home. It feels complete. I can't wait to meet Bryce's future wife. Toni (Trev's fiance) and I were both joking that whomever he marries has to fit in with us or it's just going to be a disaster.

So, I was hesitant to post this because I didn't want to make anyone feel like they weren't important because we didn't come and visit them but I got some really cute pictures of my kiddos with their Uncle Bryce and I had to post them. So we like any young family are pretty tight on money so we weren't going to go to California to be there for Bryce, Shaun's youngest brother, who was coming home from his mission in Puerto Rico. But, if any of you know me, I'm a sucker for family sentimentality. I felt so bad not being there to see Bryce, especially since he hasn't met Jake or Savannah yet. (He left right before Jake was born). So all day Thursday (the day he came home) I was going back and forth in my brain and I was texting Shaun about how we were going to pay it off if we went. And finally we decided that we would like to see our brother and we would figure it out. So I started packing and as soon as Shaun got home from work we took off. I called my Mom because we weren't going to get there until 2 or 3 in the morning and we really wanted to surprise Bryce. So my Mom set up the pack-n-plays and the craft room for us. We pulled in at 2:30 am with no incidents, oh except for the crazy drunk person who almost hit us. We never caught back up to get his license plate but someone else did. And then there was Jake who woke up when we pulled into a gas station in Fresno at midnight and didn't go back to sleep until we got him in the pack-n-play at my Mom's. That would have probably been really bad but he wasn't really crying or whining until we pulled into Elk Grove. I just knew he was going to be tired the next day. Anyways so we got like 4 hours of sleep and then got ready and went over to Bryce's house. I should have had my camera ready so I could take a picture but he was really excited to see us. It was a lot of fun spending time with him and getting fun pictures. It was fun to hang out with Trevor's fiance a little more too. I really like her and she is going to make an amazing addition to the family. We spent all day Friday and Saturday with Shaun's family and I felt kind of bad because I didn't do much with my family. (I saw them at Bryce's homecoming party and the next night at another party, but that was it.) We decided to spend some time with them Sunday morning and then head out and stop in Fresno for dinner at my brother's house and then the kids would be ready for bed and we wouldn't have to stop and we could just go. We were hoping that Jake would sleep the whole way this time. It worked and we made it home at 12:30 pm. We were sooo tired. I had to keep talking to Shaun to keep him awake. But we made it and it was a really fun weekend. We wish we could've seen everybody but that's what Christmas is for!!!

Awwwssss!!!

Our little fam bam with Brycey!!

My cutie patootie!!

I LOVE this shot!! Even with the food on her face.. It's just soo Savannah!!

Jake was being a poop and wouldn't let anyone take his pictures so we got some pretty funny faces from him.

We also celebrated Toni's birthday while we were there. It was a pretty happening weekend. And she beat us the first two games of Clue. Trevor finally took over her streak and won the third. I almost won but I got ahead of myself. Dang competitive genes of mine!! :-)