The Stevenson Ohana

Feb 20, 2024: Dana Point, California

We flew to Southern California and met up with my sister Kenzie and her family! She picked us up from airport with the biggest surprise— She’s pregnant! 20 weeks along too— it was the best surprise. Cal came out with a “big brother” shirt and was so cute. I teared up, such happy news and so good being reunited with Makenzie! She’s literally the best. 

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It was such an epic day, the 20th is also her birthday! So we celebrated from the start, and never really ended. It was a party the whole time! Smitty pulled out all the stops with a really cool cake and went out to the best restaurant, maybe ever? Makenzie got a deep freeze so was fun playing with that and making astronaut food :)

The kids just all got along from the start, it's crazy looking back at this day and pictures and thinking it was the first day together and realizing how instantly the all connected. 

During the school holiday break me and the kids flew to California! Our first stop was Moraga ,California to visit Mimi and Papi Stevenson. It was so fun, basically Julene has a toy shop. She has saved all the toys from her kids and they have a garage full of fantastic toys and just pulls them out one after another for the kids play for hours and hours. 

The backyard is equally cool for the boys, with a fun sports court. We had a really great time playing and visiting together. David took the boys to Riley’s high school and they got to walk around and see some volleyball and meet Riley’s old coach and they also had a couple session of running around and playing with balls at the church with David. The weather was the only downfall of our time together, but the kids just loved playing indoors so didn’t matter too much. 

Quin and Rachel were also there so it was really awesome to catch up with them and they are so good with the kids and so fun to chat with. 

One of the highlights was the unbirthday birthday party. Julene wrapped some presents and had a treat and games for kids. It was very cute and thoughtful, because we live so far away and never together for birthdays she made a celebration for them all. It was something Riley’s grandmother did too, the cutest little tradition. 

We made a countdown for California and took them off day by day, it was really nice to get us through the cold days here in Amsterdam to look forward to seeing family and trip.