Finishing California

Our last days in California were so bittersweet and such precious times with friends for whom we are so grateful!  Here is a brief, though not all-inclusive, summary...

Last Country Mart playdate with Nat, Josh, Les, Sammy, Jen, and Lucy (or "Yuce" as Abby Jane says)...

Big Pepperdine cookout- here are all the ladies and a few of the children... 

Went back to the fountains with the "Malibu library" crowd- here are Abby Jane and Jaxon, though Charlotte and Campbell were there too!

Last beach playdate with Jenny and Campbell, Trisha and Jaxon- how we will miss these sweet friends and amazing memories!
Sammy's 1st bday party was a puppy party (with real puppies brought in for the kids to play with!)  I don't have a great picture of the JOY this event was in Abby Jane's life, but I do believe that playing with all those puppies may be the highlight of her life so far.  OK, one of them.

Abby Jane kissing the birthday boy...
Precious Les and Sammy with us girls...  Jane asks to go to Sammy's house on a daily basis...
Sammy putting out that candle with his fingers.  What a man!
Aufhammers, DuBachs, and Hoffs...
All the kids being in the same place for a picture lasted about 10 seconds...
Sandy and Ken got there Sat. afternoon after Sammy's party and joined us in a whirlwind couple of days of packing and the aforementioned traveling craziness.  Here are the guys and Abby Jane taking a break from their hard work.  Truck is due to arrive tomorrow!

I will catch you up on our first week out here in the next couple of days, but I could not go forward until I had recorded that last week- and even that's leaving out some precious times during which my camera battery inopportunely died...

As we've said before- it's a sweet thing to be sad to leave people and a place- it would be so much worse if we were leaving nothing dear there after investing three years of our lives!  We feel blessed for sure...