Monday, June 10, 2013

On our way home from California we broke up the trip home perfectly again and stayed at my sister's house. We went to church and enjoyed relaxing together. 
Walk around the beautiful temple.
 Johnny & Lily- cute babies.
 Isaac got spoiled.  
 Finding bugs or slugs or something.
 After church we left St George and drove a few more hours and stopped at my brother's house.  Since it was summer and Matt had my sister's car to drive back for work, me & our kids decided we might as well stay another night and play the next day so we did.  We went to a fun splash pad.



 And we got our first snow cones of summer!
 The ice was so fluffy at this place- delicious!
 Hooray for Summer!


Friday, June 7, 2013

California Here We Come-

We figured since we were in St George for the baby blessing and half way to California we'd keep going and get our family vacation in first thing this summer.  It was totally awesome.  

The drive went well and the our kids did great!  We made it to the our friends, the Budge's, where we stayed by early evening.

Monday morning we made our first beach stop at Huntington Beach.  We kept up our tradition of eating at Ruby's.  
 Ava loved digging in the sand to find a lots of little crabs and collected in her bucket.
 Owen loved the waves.
And Isaac found the sand very interesting.  

Tuesday we headed to Disneyland.  The kids were pretty excited.  

Ava has a fear of people in costumes. So when we saw Goofy from a distance she started freaking out.  She said it was only because she wanted to see Mickey first but I have a very similar picture of her like this when we came 2 years before.  

The most important thing for Ava was to see the princesses so Ava, Isaac & I went there first.  While Matt, Owen & Lily went to the Jedi Training.
Ava loved meeting the princesses
and Isaac was a little flirt and the princesses ate it up. 



The cool castle.  
 Lily, Isaac & I waiting while Matt, Owen & Ava went on the Pirates ride.  Ava was not a fan.  
Coming out from Splash Mountain. Splash Mountain & Star Tours were Owen's favorites.
Isaac was so excited about meeting Winnie the Pooh, Tiger & Eeyore.  
 
 When Matt was a boy he got to go to Disneyland every year with his friend Mike who was raised practically like an only child because his next oldest sibling is15 years older or something so Matt understands better than I how everyone often gets tired at amusement parks at some point in the afternoon and you start grumbling a little more and wondering why you paid so much money to walk around with so many strangers that don't know how to stay to the right when walking.... you get the picture. Owen & Ava & I got tired and grumpy.  Matt was able to talk Owen & Ava out of there grump pretty quickly but I had a hard time shaking out of it for a little while.  Luckily Matt is a rockstar and we got some food, watched the parade and stayed until 11:00 having so much fun. 

After a day at Disneyland we took it easy and got to go swimming in this amazing backyard pool. 
 And Lily started scooting!

On Thursday we initially thought we'd do another amusement park but with Isaac & Lily being so little I was amusement parked out so we went to the American Girl Doll store and a lego store instead.  
TheAmerican Girl Doll store was something else and Owen was happy about being able to get some legos to bring home with him.  It worked out awesome for everyone.

 Then we went to the coolest beach for tide pools called Little Corona Del Mar.  It was beautiful and we found lots of little critters.




 Isaac was copying Owen digging his feet in the sand and then all of the sudden a big wave came 
 and totally knocked him over.  


 The family that we stayed with have kids similar ages and they loved playing together.

On Friday we checked out another beach for tide pools that was a bit of a hike to get down to but was cool.  Isaac was a little afraid of waves after being taken out by one the day before and got nervous each time a wave came in.   
 Then we had a bonfire on the beach.  It was so fun!  



I love this family of mine!

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Family Vacation 2013! Part 1- St George

They day after school got out we took off for our family vacation!  Our first stop was for St George for little Jonathan's baby blessing. 
We were lucky on the way down to have Grandma & Patrick ride with us!  

We went to a fun spot with a bunch of giant rocks to climb on & around.  
The boys would usually run from any pictures but stood perfect for me when I told them they'd look huge standing on the edge of a cliff :).  
There was a cool house/cave spot that was surprisingly cool inside inside and my mom's shirt matched perfectly.
Cute cousins!
After climbing around in the hot sun we went to a splash pad & stream in the middle of town to cool off.  


 On Saturday night I tied Ava & Madalyn's hair in rags/socks but we didn't have a any socks...or rags...so we used paper towels and and it worked! 


Baby Jonathan's big day!