The Wilson Family Overseas: Cousins in Escondido, California!

Montana and Bri play in the kitchen and make tea and pizza.

After a miserably long and seemingly endless drive from Merced to Escondido, we tumbled into my brother's home. Our trip took 10 hours including 1.5 hours for meals/gas stops. Our GPS had said it was just over a six-hour drive... We were smooth going until we hit LA. You would think we would remember to account for the horrid rush hour/Friday traffic since we lived in LA for seven years.

Ryan had lots of fun LEGOS.

The girls jumped right into playing with the outdoor toys when we arrived. It was tough to pull them away for bedtime because we were cooped up in the car for so long.

Saturday morning we were refreshed. We spent the morning at the house relaxing and the girls playing with all the new toys. There wasn't much interaction with cousins Ryan and Brianna at first. Once we settled in at the Encinitas beach in the afternoon, the sand pit that Donald dug brought them closer together.

My goal during this visit to the beach was to make Montana realize the fun of sand and ocean waves since she had decided to sit out in Monterey. That didn't happen this time. I held her above the wave splashing my legs for about 20 minutes. Then I quickly dipped her toes in. She got a kick out of it and we kept dipping for a few more minutes. Within no time, she was fully immersed in the water with only her shoulder and head above. She couldn't get enough of the assisted jumping over splashing waves. She easily jumped into the sand play near our towels after that, too. Mission accomplished!

Ryan and Bri jump in the waves with their daddy.

We wrapped up our beach visit just in time to pick up dinner on the way home and get cleaned up for Saturday evening church. Tana and Bri were dropped off in the nursery and Ryan and Loralynn came with us to the family friendly service in the gym (the kid's church workers had the month off). It was like no other I have ever attended, but I must say that I really liked have Loralynn and Ryan with us to listen and discuss, play games and do a craft as a family.

On Sunday morning we relaxed again. After lunch we went to San Diego Children's Discovery Museum. It was a fun time of diverse activities and play for the kids and us. We treated the kids to Dairy Queen ice cream afterwards and then went back to Donald and Jamie's house. They played outside for a while before bath time and Ryan caught a lizard for Loralynn. She was fascinated by it and must had held it for 15 minutes. When it suddenly escaped, she cried for her lost friend.

The next morning we said our goodbyes and head back toward LA. Only two days of our U.S. vacation left...