Last Days of our Trip

We ended up leaving for this trip a day late, when the alternator in our car went out.  So in the end we decided to stay an extra day, to get some good family days in.  On Sunday morning we woke up and had a slow start-eating breakfast, cuddling and playing in the comfy hotel beds,

and finding a place to wash some of our clothes, since we ended up staying that extra day.  We eventually went to the beach again.  I regretted having so much stuff to carry the first day at the beach, so this time we didn't have phones and cameras with us.  I kind of wish I had some pictures from this trip, but at the same time it was nice not worrying about taking them, and just enjoying ourselves.  Jess hung out with Reed and Cason up on the beach a lot this time, letting me do a little more searching for shells, which is my favorite thing.  I saw a starfish and couldn't quite catch it because the water was a little choppy.  :(  I found a little sand dollar, but it ended up breaking.  So I had no treasures to bring home.  Neely and Paige liked searching with me, and Cason would too, here and there, but mostly he was into his sandcastles again.  For a while Jess took the big two out into the waves, and I walked in the shallow water carrying Reed and holding hands with Neely.  It was nice and relaxing.  We saw quite a few fish, including a couple of these, right next to our feet.  I thought Neely might freak out because it was like a foot away from us, but it was pretty much the same color as the sand and she never saw it when I pointed it out.  Probably better that way.  :)

That night we tried Pieology, since our kids love pizza so much.  We all liked it, and I have good memories of our little beach kids eating their pizzas and dancing in the empty restaurant (once we got a little chilly and moved inside)

We also ran into a Target, where I tried to sneak gifts for Cason's upcoming birthday into the cart without him noticing, and then went back to our hotel for bed.  

In the morning we had another delicious breakfast, in beautiful weather...

...and headed for home. 

We were greeted home by a pretty crazy and lovely rainstorm.

Day 3-The Beach/My Birthday

The third day in California, we woke up and enjoyed our comfy room, 

and the view for a little while.

It was my birthday, and Jess had looked up some breakfast places because I love me some breakfast.  So we tried a little cafe, and it was SO good.  We sat out at a table on the sidewalk, the weather was perfect, and our food was awesome.  We had the nicest little older lady as our waitress, and she kept complimenting us on how good our kids were.  That's always nice to hear.

The juice was the best part of the meal. We had orange juice, and Neely had apple, and both types were clearly made fresh there.  SO good.

Paige can eat as much as most adults when it comes to pizza or pancakes.  So instead of the kids pancakes we got her the "One Big Buttermilk Pancake" off the regular menu. I didn't realize they meant one BIG pancake.

She made a good dent in it anyway.

Then we drove around for a short bit, and headed for the beach to meet the Cassons.  Once we found a parking place, changed everyone into swimsuits, found a spot on the beach, and got sunscreen on all the kids, we had a good time.  :)  

Paige and Cason have both been to the beach, but the last time Cason went he was just over a year old.  Paige mostly LOVED the waves, and getting crushed by them with Jess.  Cason went back and forth between the waves and building sandcastles with Liam.  

 

Those boys were pretty cute.

 

 

 

Liam seemed to really like the sandcastles.  I somehow didn't see much of Colin at the beach, so I'm not sure what his favorite part was.

 Neither Neely or Reed had ever been.  Neely liked it, but didn't seem overly impressed.  

She sort of walked happily back and forth between the water and the sandcastles, never getting fully into either one. 

 Eventually she fell asleep on the blanket and had a little nap. 

 Reed loved the sand. 

He spent some time gazing at the ocean when he got sleepy.

 

 ...and then he was out.

 

 

With his sandy lashes.

California Vacation Day 2-The Zoo and When Mama Got Rich

The next morning everyone wanted to go for a swim after breakfast.  

 

 

Sarah's sister Sadie came along with them on the trip, and she was SUCH a big help to all of us.  Neely really loved her and wanted to "hold that other girl's hand" everywhere we went.  She was really good with the kids and made our jobs a lot easier.  Especially whenever water was involve, with all these little folks around.

 

 I didn't feel like swimming so at first Reed was hanging out with me.  

He clearly wanted in though, so I changed him into his trunks and gave him to Jess.

 After swimming, we headed to the zoo.

We're all fans of pandas, especially Cason, so our family had made that our goal, and the Cassons seemed happy to go along with that.  So we headed that direction, seeing whatever we could on the way.  It was a nice little workout, for those of us who aren't in good shape(me).  

Not much to say about the zoo that you wouldn't guess, so here are a bunch of pictures instead.

We had some tired little people at the end of the day.  A couple of them slept right through souvenir shopping.

We met Noel and Michael for mexican food afterwards, and I was a failure and took no pictures.  We let the kids run free for a bit after, and I only took pictures of the children apparently, so you'd never know the rest of us were there.  Ha.

We all headed for our hotels after that.  Ours that night was downtown.  It was a really nice and really old hotel.  

I loved it.  We had mints on our pillows and robes, and all the fixin's.  Ha.  I pretended to be fancy, and Cason was messing around on my phone, glanced up at me just as Jess took my picture, looked BACK at the phone and said, all casually, "you should call that one:  "Mama got rich."  Haha!  That had me cracking up.  Crazy fellow.

Then Neely got rich.