A long time and no update!

Hey guys, it's been a long time since I've written and I'm sorry I've been such a slacker lately. July has been such a ridiculous month it's not even funny. Well for starters I am no longer working at Banfield it's a long story and I'm not going to get into it now, but I have been interviewing left and right to no avail, but I'm being optimistic and hoping to have a job soon. But on a good note I went to California this year to see family and it was AMAZING! We went to Wrights Lake which is West of Lake Tahoe my mom's side of the family owns a piece of land up there that the Malone family had built a cabin on. It's "Like Camping with a roof over your head" as my mom puts it. There is no electricity, an outhouse the works... The Malone side have owned this place ever since my mom was a little girl she even took her 1st steps up there, she used to spend all summer up there as a kid her dad would come up at the beginning of the weekend bring up new clothes and food and at the end take dirty clothes home. It's so amazing up there and unfortunately I didn't get any pictures but I will put up some from a website that I found that has some of the views from up there. It's amazing it was super warm up there I spent most of it on the Lake. My aunt Kathleen and her granddaughters Lauren and Emma (who are close to Lilly & Adrian's age) came up and the kids had so much fun swimming, exploring, going on walks with grandpa. It was fun seeing them. We got up the mountain on Friday and came down Wednesday to spend time with Jerri and John (mom's sister and brother-in-law) in Carmichael, a suburb of Sacramento. It was great seeing them and getting caught up and of course being able to take a nice hot shower, =-). One day dad had planned on going on a hike with his sister Terri so Jana, mom, the kids and I got into the car and went to the Jelly Belly Factory to see how Jelly belly's are made. It was fun except the part where we waited in line for two hours however it wasn't too bad because they had staff members periodically passing out Jelly beans and there were little stations along the way. They even had this station where they had these mystery flavored one's (ex vomit, baby wipe, skunk scent...) that looked exactly like regular flavored ones and you had to spin the wheel and you were given whatever color it landed on so you rolled a blue it could've been Blueberry or Baby wipe the kids all wanted to try it and Hannah and Isa both got a triple dare where they had to take three flavors. I don't think either one of the kids got a regular flavored jelly bean. But it was fun nonetheless. After the tour we went into the gift shop and mom got "Belly Flops" the kids all picked out one thing and Jana got some of the mystery flavored ones. Jana really wanted to take her kids there because she herself remembered going there and having a great time as a kid and wanted to share that with her kids. The kids had a great time learning how Jelly Belly's were made. After we got back to Sacramento we picked up dad and Aunt Terri (his sister) and went over to Grandma and Grandpa Hartup's house. It was great spending time with them and catching up with them as well. When we got back to Jerri's the kids had fun having Aunt Jerri and I try the mystery flavored ones. The kids loved playing in the hot tub, and playing with Jerri's dogs Molly (a chocolate lab), and Teddy (a toy poodle). The next day Friday Jerri had off from work and we went to all of the places that we used to go to when we went to California. My grandma lived by these couple of Amusement parks and it was great going there again. We first went to "Fairytale Town" which you guessed it was a little place dedicated to fairy tales (click here for info on Fairy Tale Town)right next door is an amusement park that has a bunch of rides for kids called Funderland (click here for info on Funderland) seeing all the kids play on rides that I used to ride on as a kids brought back so many memories. There are now officially 3 generations of Hartup's riding the Roller coaster "The Flying Dragon" there and it being their first roller coaster ride. It was my mom's first, mine and Jana's first, and Lilly, Adrian, and Isabella's first (Hannah would've totally gone on it but we didn't have enough tickets) It brought back so many memories of going to that park when I was a little girl I would want to go every day...and we would always try and figure out ways of earning money so we could go...even one where Josh (my brother) and I found my grandma's neighbors missing cat and she gave us money for finding him, and to earn more apparently we tried to coax her cat away again ha ha...but anyways seeing my nieces and nephew ride on the same rides I used to ride on and where I used to spend my summers was extremely emotional for me. We then had lunch at Carl's JR. (a burger place we don't have here in Washington which I love) and afterwards we drove down my Grandma's street to see her house I pretty much almost started crying seeing my Grandma's house, which I hadn't really seen since her death. After that we went back to Jerri's house to drop her off and then we went back to Grandma and Grandpa's one last time to spend a little bit more time with them. On Saturday we packed and Dad and Jana went to the Roseville Auction (swap meet) and then we got on the rode for the 14 hour ride home. I have to add here that we left at about 1:30, and drove all the way home and got back at like 5:30 in the morning. I definitely love California and very much miss it. I miss the warm weather which was high 90's to low 100's and Jimboy's tacos (which I must say are the BEST taco's EVER and that is no lie) . Oh well...now that I've been home I've settled back into regular life job hunting, taking care of my baby boy (which he's doing great) and just enjoying life. I had a great time in California and can't wait to go back. Down below are pictures of some of the views at Wright's Lake