I miss the cold weather and all of the pretty leaves already! I even thought about packing up the car with leaves to bring back to Arizona. I really should have!

It was so nice for my feet to be warm & comfortable in my UGG boots! Tyler and my sister, Lauren, kept throwing leaves at each other like it was snow. I’m sure people drove by and thought we were stupid. We probably looked like tourists anyways.

We were at my aunt and uncle’s the first few days since my mom was still in town. We went through old pictures that my grandma had. I found a lot of really neat pictures of my grandpa. He was a photographer and worked for a company that was responsible for taking pictures of the Space Needle when they built it. There was even a picture of him standing out on the rim on the top of Space Needle. I could never do that while trying to take a picture!

I love this picture of my mom with her brother. They have this amazing relationship and I’m glad they were together when grandma passed away. I cried every time my mom cried. I hate seeing her cry and wish she didn’t have to lose her mom so soon. Always being with family during these times is the best medicine you can get.

We also spent some days over at my other grandma’s condo by the water in Edmonds (north of Seattle). She spoiled us by taking us out for every meal of the day! She’s such a sweetheart that loves everyone. She just brightens up my day and being around her makes my day better.

I just love seeing Tyler with my grandma. He’s truly a gentleman with my grandma just like he is with his grandmas. We also went up north close to Bellingham and stayed with Tyler’s grandparents, Amma & Ampa. Tyler’s mom and brother, Brent, were there too. They fed us an early Thanksgiving dinner which was really nice since they knew that Tyler loves Amma’s food.

Our trip to Seattle was a much needed trip to see our family relatives and just get away for a while. Now I can’t believe it’s Thanksgiving next week already?!

In the summer we found out my maternal grandma had stage 4 lung cancer. I didn’t really share this with anyone to respect my mom’s wishes. My mom flew back and forth to Seattle to help take care of grandma where she was staying at my aunt & uncle’s house.

She stopped eating and lost weight. She was in so much pain and hospice came a few times a week to help. And still she was amazingly strong!

My mom went up last week as things started to get worse. I wrote my grandma a letter which was really hard considering that I knew it was going to be the last letter to her. My mom read the letter to her when she arrived Seattle. A little part of me was hoping she would wait until I’m in town but at the same time I didn’t want her to be in pain anymore.

Last Thursday they doubled her morphine since she was in pain. She was having a hard time letting go. She passed peacefully on Friday afternoon after my uncle got home from work and kissed her. She was such a lady since she waited for everyone to go to the kitchen for a few minutes before she left.

Tyler, my sister and I will be going up to Seattle this Saturday to be with family and then drive my grandma’s car back down to Phoenix. Thank you all for your sweet comments & messages on Twitter and Facebook. It means a lot to me and my family. xo!

The weekend before we left to California, we did errands and spent the afternoon at the pool. It was really nice considering that we haven’t been at the pool all summer since it was a long sickly summer for me.

Wednesday morning, we got up at 5AM and quickly got on the road and headed west to San Diego.

It was so nice having the iPad with us especially in the middle of nowhere. I rented a movie on the iPad and unfortunately didn’t get to finish it because I kept pausing it to talk to Tyler.

We went straight to San Diego Zoo to meet the family there. The whole family was there except for Blake, the youngest. Tyler’s aunt & uncle and cousin were also with us at the zoo. We were there all day and saw so many animals including my favorite, zebras!

Tyler and I stayed at his aunt & uncle’s house while the family stayed at a hotel. Since they live so close to the beach, cousin Amanda took us to the beach. It was so nice to dig my feet into the sand again after being in the “desert” for so long.

Some day when we’re rich, we’ll have to buy a second home on the beach!

We went to Sea World on Friday. There was a water ride called the Shipwreck Rapids. Everyone wanted to go on it and we waited in the handicapped lane for our turn. The family in front of us only got a little bit wet so we obviously thought we wouldn’t get that wet. Well, we thought wrong because we all got completely SOAKED as if we all fell into the water! There was no point of doing my hair that morning.

We also saw sea lions and bought some fish to feed them ourselves. They were soo loud and kept begging and screaming at us!

We also went on the sky lift over the water. That was fun since we were kind of dry by then. Then we got soaked again after going on another water ride, Journey to Atlantis.

The result of the day at Sea World was that I got sunburned…ouch! We drove up to Murrieta for the night and to visit with Tyler’s other aunt & uncle and cousins. Brent wasn’t feeling great at this point so our visit with them was sweet & short.

We continued our trip up to Los Angeles and stayed at a hotel near Universal Studios. We found cheap tickets from Costco for 2 passes per person so we were able to go Saturday night and again Sunday morning.

We wanted to go on the Studio Bus Tour and the last bus was leaving in 20 minutes and we saw that the line was so long. So this is when we used my deafness as an advantage to skip the line. We told them I needed closed captioning since it’s not fair that I won’t understand the tour guide. That was nice and we went to Wisteria Lane (Desperate Housewives)!! I was so excited and really bummed that we missed the filming of an episode earlier that day. I would have LOVED to see an episode being filmed on Wisteria Lane.

We went back the next day for a few hours but with Brent this time. We only stayed a few hours before heading home. By the way, the traffic in LA sucks!

We did a quick stop at the huge outlet mall in Palm Springs to buy 2 sunglasses for $20 because we’re cheap like that! I also had to go to the Kate Spade store. Unfortunately I left with nothing purchased since there’s no way I’m paying $100 for a wallet or $300 for a purse.

We were back on the road! This picture is so perfect for the quote, “my future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades”!

As the sun was setting, we knew our vacation was coming to an end. We had a great time with the family!

Now I need a “vacation” at home to catch up with life & emails.