We stayed with our wonderful friends the Mitchells who graciously hosted us. Many years ago we stayed with their kids for a week while Ruth and Bill went off together, and it was really fantastic to see them again. Their kids are obviously much bigger now; the oldest is almost off to college, amazingly. Ruth and I have known for years that our boys would be fast friends if we could just manage to get together again, and they totally were. Caleb, Isaac, John, and Will had so much fun!
We were visiting over Memorial Day weekend, and on Monday we all hiked up Cuyamaca Peak.
I loved seeing Ruth so much. Ruth is one of the most beloved people I know; she is an extraordinarily generous and thoughtful friend and person.
One of the Mitchells' traditions is to eat Oreos on Memorial day because one of their kids, when they were very young, thought the name of the holiday involved Oreos, and that's as good a reason as I need to eat an Oreo!
California's not half bad. If only all the people would go away.
That night we had a barbecue in the Mitchell's terrific back yard (looks even better with a bit of daylight!) with several families from our San Diego days.
It was so good to see everyone! It is fairly indisputable that we are middle aged now, and when we knew all these people last we weren't really. We were still in school or just starting on our careers, and now a decade later things are different. We have houses and established careers, and things have happened in each of our lives, some really, really hard, and some wonderful. It is just a fascinating thing how life just marches on and suddenly you are in a new place in your understanding and experience.
The most amazing thing that happened to all of us is all these kids, who were just babies not long ago.
They are a pretty amazing group of kids, let me tell you. After spending the night running around playing some wild variation of tag and doing normal kid stuff, they all noticed the piano and just put on an impromptu recital for each other. Like pretty much all of them just knew impressive piano pieces off the top of their heads.
Also, they played a lot of chess. Incidentally, John beat Caleb pretty consistently, which I can assure you Caleb has not forgotten. He will relish a rematch some day.
One morning Nephi and I were able to go with Joseph to the San Diego temple for him to do baptisms for the first time. It was lovely.
One afternoon we took the boys to Mesa Student Housing where we lived eight years ago. Here is our apartment and balcony. I felt so incredibly nostalgic about the whole experience; it was surreal to have my boys back here, and so big. They were just tiny babies not so long ago. That apartment housed such an intense time in my life. It is no joke having three babies; the experience was overwhelming. A lot of it is recorded on this blog, actually. In many ways it was idyllic; the community I had around me was unbelievably amazing and supportive. At the time I really didn't realize how unique and wonderful it was to have just oodles of young families around that we had so much in common with. So much of how I experience and think about things - religiously, politically, socially - I can trace to that time in my life. I grew up in this apartment in some ways.
The playground we went to at least daily with little toddler Joseph and baby Caleb in a Bjorn.
We went to La Jolla Cove and saw the seals.
We ate at In-N-Out.
We willfully ignored the cool, cloudy weather and went to the beach.
Isaac ran into the ocean with gusto, as he does most things. It's a nice way to live life.
Caleb thought we were the "stupidest family ever" for going to the beach on such a cold day.
Joseph and Nephi went out snorkeling and saw a fairly large ray. No leopard sharks, though.
Caleb eventually warmed up a bit and cracked a smile.
Who needs warm weather to dig in the sand?! Not the Thompsons.
We also got to spend some great time with our friends Jason and Diedra and their kids. We actually knew them at BYU and not, for the most part, when we lived in San Diego, so it was a bonus for us that they have settled there now.
And finally it was time to head up to LA. We had a few extra hours so we went to the La Brea Tar Pits of ice age fossil fame. It was fairly small but interesting. Lots and lots of big animals got caught and died in the tar here; they are still making new discoveries after a hundred years of digging. Ben was decidedly creeped out by the animal skeletons, poor guy.
And then it was time!! We parked our car for a month, went to the airport and were OFF!!
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