Live Laugh Love: The Lopez family goes to CALIFORNIA!!!!

Towards the end our Utah trip back in August, we took a road trip to California. It was a great chance for the kids to see a part of the country they have not seen since they were small, and a wonderful opportunity to see a bunch of John's family. We had a great time. The kids LOVED IT.

They day before we left, John and I were shooting a wedding in Utah. We finished the reception that night, picked up our kids, grabbed our stuff, and drove all night. The kids slept the entire time (not even bathroom stops for them), and woke up as we were driving into L.A. Easiest road trip ever. The first thing we did was drive up to the Griffith park observatory. We had a picnic, got an eyeful of the Hollywood sign, and enjoyed the California life.

A very tragic thing happens at this very moment in the vacation. MY CAMERA BROKE. Just started giving me some weird code and would not take a picture not matter what I tried. I was SO FRUSTRATED, as this was the first time seeing some of John's family is a long time, and I really wanted to do some family shoots. But at the same time, I was SO GRATEFUL, because literally 15 hours earlier I was finishing up shooting a wedding and reception, and my camera worked beautifully through all that. What a blessing. I now have a new camera, and I'm getting that one repaired, so it worked out in the end. Just bad timing.

While in California, we met up with a bunch of John's family. So many of them live in California, and so the L.A. area (Santa Clarita), was a good place to meet everyone. We were able to see John's grandma who we haven't seen for a long time, his aunt and uncle, and a cousin. 4 of John's 6 brothers were there, his sister and her husband and her new twin babies, his mom, and two sister in laws and nieces and nephews. IT WAS A LOPEZ PARTY! Sadly, I do not have pictures of every second of it like I wish. I did steal these pictures below from my sister in laws blog :) , so I am not completely without. We hung out, played at a park, went to the beach, went to a cool museum, celebrated a birthday, and basically just enjoyed each other.

Five of the seven Lopez boys. Together once again.

Cooper and Carver mocking their uncles for having goofy mustaches! This picture cracks me up. Oh I love those Lopez boys.

John's mom and some of her boys (above), and some Lopez women below!!!! (me and my girls with John's mom and two of my sister in laws).

Fun day at Santa Monica Beach . Very different than Florida.

Okay, here is where my true sadness come about my camera. You see these two darling babies? They are my little niece and nephew. John's sister susan had these little cuties about a year ago, and they are her first babies. She is 43 and a first time mom. It is AWESOME. We fell in love with these babies and I was going to take SO MANY PICTURES OF THEM. Maybe a special "twins" baby shoot. Cousins shots. Etc. I'm so sad that I didn't get to do that. But we had the most wonderful time bonding with them. Cooper and Carver still can't stop talking about them. Such good babies. So darling. So sad we live so far away.