California 6-9

Thursday we spent all day a Newport Beach. The waves were great for boogie boarding and there wasn't as much seaweed as the other beach.

It was a little cold out of the sun as you can tell by my dad. I don't know if it was cold enough for a wool blanket though!



This was Braden's first attempt at boogie boarding. It took a lot to convince him to try again after the wipeout.



On Saturday we went to Huntington Beach and had a cookout. We played games, boogie boarded on big waves, ate, played beach football, and relaxed.

It was especially nice to relax after Will fell asleep!



On Friday night we had a friendly poker game at the house. Even though we were playing for nothing, we still had a good time. Cory ended up winning the pot. Which was nothing.




This was the hotel that everyone else was staying at. It had a fun pool that we ate our dutch oven dinner around while the kids swam. I think Braden had more fun here than at the beach (at least swimming).

We took Dan, Danika, Luke, Layna, Jenni, and Grandpa to Boomers. We had a good time, but Luke was too small to do almost everything.



We looked forward to the family reunion for 6 months and it did not disappoint! We already want to go back. For now I'll have to face the winter and dream of the beach!

Happy Birthday!

Ok-I'm a little behind and still need to blog on the rest of California, but I wanted to throw in Will's 1st Birthday. We had Grandma Cindy, Grandpa Rick, Dan & fam., and Aunt Terri over for some cupcakes. Will really didn't care about opening presents, he just wanted to dance to the music in the background.



It's a good thing he has an older brother and cousin that love to open presents. He did, however, enjoy his cupcake!



Will then got another party on Saturday with Cory's family. Everyone was getting together for a BBQ so we thought we would throw in cake and ice cream and make it a party. Of course, Will had no idea what was going on, but he did enjoy the ice cream and presents. Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate!

California Days 2-5

After another 5 hours of slow traffic we finally made it to California. Cory's parents have a house a couple of blocks from the beach, and it just so happened to be 5 miles from where the family reunion was. So we had Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday morning until anyone else showed up to take it easy. We went shopping, miniature golfing, to Boomers, and Cory and Braden played a par 3 golf course Tuesday morning.






My parents and sister flew in on Tuesday afternoon and then we walked down to the beach.








On Wednesday, we went back to the beach for a while, then we took off to see a Dodger's game. We enjoyed a Dodger dog and some peanuts. Nobody I know EVER eats peanuts, but when everybody came back from getting their food, they had a bag of peanuts! I guess that's what you do at a baseball game. Gotta say, I'd rather have the cracker jacks!



The crowd hits around beach balls (which you want to hit in the right direction, or you get booed!) and Braden wanted to hit one sooooo bad. Bottom of the ninth, the ball comes right to us, Cory catches it and gives it to Braden to hit and this is what Braden was doing-

Oh well- maybe next time!


The Dodgers ended up losing 1-4, but it was still a lot of fun. We almost didn't go because I thought Will would be all over the place, but thanks to the rowdy LA fans, Will was quite entertained. I'm glad we went even if they did lose.

Vegas

This year our annual family reunion was in California. We decided to leave a couple days early and stay a night in Vegas. Not really a place for kids. We thought the kids would like seeing the tigers at the Mirage and the pirate show outside Treasure Island. But you have to pay $20 a person to see the tigers and Treasure Island was too far from our hotel. And it was HOT! Our hotel had a really neat pool with 3 slides that the kids (and parents) had fun on. We ended up having enough time to swim on Saturday afternoon but were planning to do most of our swimming Sunday morning. We woke up, got everybody ready with sunscreen and swimsuits and floaties and towels and waited for the pool to open. Well just our luck. The filter went out and the pool was closed all day. So I didn't get any swimming pictures because I procrastinated and waited until Sunday and then we didn't get to swim.
We did see the fountain show at the Belagio and Braden thought the 'fireworks with water' was pretty neat. This is Braden and Will looking at the strip from the safety of our hotel room. Will loved all the lights.


As we walked down the strip Braden asked how come everybody littered, and I just hoped he didn't see what was on the litter. He also loudly pointed out all the cigarette butts. I don't think we will be going back soon.



This was on the road and so excited for a week of fun. Vegas was the first stop and there's more to come of the rest of the trip.