San Diego - Seal Beach

I wanted to spend way more time at the beach than we did when we were in San Diego, but that was mostly because we were there for Legoland almost exclusively.  And it was cold. But Adam humored me despite the weather, and we went to La Jolla to Children's Beach to see the seals.  Here are my favorite pictures from the excursion.



Max couldn't wait to get back to what he called "my sandbox."  He had been missing it since we went to Maui in December! 



Tasting the sand.  This is seconds before she totally face-plants into it and gets more than she bargained for. 

Adam building a castle while working on buying one.  Okay, he was really just on a real estate call, but you know...

For all their fighting, these two really are such good friends.  They were collecting shells as they washed up on the beach.

 

Gathering around the most exciting find of the day...a crab claw! 


Sigh...I need to get back to the beach...

San Diego - Legoland

Our kids had been begging to go to Legoland for months, and their pleas only became more insistent after their cousins went in March and brought home brochures with slick colorful pictures showing how totally awesome it is.  We hemmed and hawed about it since our kids are not big ride riders, and we finally told them no.  But...secretly, we planned a surprise trip for the day school ended.  We planned to have our carpets cleaned while we were gone, so the whole house was crazy and the kids didn't even notice me packing.  Here we are telling them we were leaving.  This was minutes before we got in the car and left: 

Katie turned out to be much more adventurous than we had anticipated, although she is still not a fan of the dark rides (they are really loud and she is very sensitive to noise).  She rode all the scariest rides Legoland had to offer, and Isaiah rode most all of them as well.  We were really impressed with how tailored the park is to young families. It was clean and fun, with no pushy, vulgar behavior because there really wasn't anything to cater to anyone over the age of 12. 

Some things that made our time at Legoland so much better:

The sling.  Lily usually rides in a hip carry, but here she had fallen asleep and I slid her down across my front to be a bit more comfy.  It is so nice to be able to hold her without killing my arms (she likes to be held a lot). 

The stroller.  We have a Joovy Caboose and it is awesome for the stage we are at.  I do wish it could recline more and be a bit more comfy for sleeping, but it is so nice to have a stroller that can fit more than one, and that an older child can hop on and off of easily.  For as fussy and needy as Lily is, she did amazingly well sitting around all day in the stroller or sling.  She could only go on a couple of things, and where she was at the roll-all-over-the-floor stage, I was worried that she would be going nuts not getting down on the floor to play. 

The monkey.  I was always a bit critical of moms who leashed their children...until I had Max.  Literally losing him in a public place once a week makes me paranoid about going to a theme park.  But he did pretty well between the monkey and the stroller, and it was simple to clip him out to go on rides. (By the way, he loves his monkey, so that also makes me feel a little better leashing him.) 

We didn't get pictures of some of our favorite rides, but here are pictures of lots of the things we enjoyed. 

If you go to Legoland, make sure you check out the water park.  We didn't spend much time there because it was cold and we were more interested in other things, but if you do go, remember your towels!  We didn't and were glad that there was a "family dryer."  It did a pretty good job and was pretty warm, but towels would have been nicer! 

San Diego - Memories

Okay, I'll give you some pictures of all the fun things we did soon, but as I looked at the pictures I couldn't help but remember our trip to San Diego 5 years ago, and compare how much our family has changed (and stayed the same) since then.  (Click on the pictures to see them bigger.) 

Holy moly, 5 years is a big difference in a little boy!
(And can you see the red section of the barrier right behind Adam, where Isaiah leaned 5 years ago?)

 

You wouldn't know this from this view, but the sweater Lily's wearing is part of the outfit Katie's wearing.  Gotta love hand-me-downs!

Have to admit, I got a little teary looking through these pictures and reliving memories.  My kids are getting so big!

Exercise #16: Acknowledging Limitations

If you're feeling overburdened, prayerfully choose one activity this week to say no to.  Then skip that activity without feeling guilty, without feeling like you have to explain, without worrying about what others will think.  See--was that so hard?

I like what Anne chose to skip this week: grocery shopping!  (I wish I could stop grocery shopping all together.)  She is really good at keeping her food storage stocked, and can really subsist on it for a while, so she chose to put off making an "unnecessary" trip to the store and instead do her visiting teaching.  She found both sisters she visited home, and even was able to wish one a happy birthday instead of stressing over buying, finding space for, and consuming more food. 

I skipped some sewing that I felt really responsible for...until I passed it off to someone else, and then wondered why I had felt so responsible for it!  It really was a big relief to not have to do it all myself, and while I can't say I did anything more productive or worthwhile with my time, it definitely lessened the amount of stress I was feeling. 

Next: Keeping it Real

The Double Wedding

Adam's brother's Justin and Isaac married sisters, Katie and Brook...on the same day!  There is not much that is more fun than a wedding, unless it is a double wedding.  Here are some of my favorite pictures from the wedding party, not a full representation of the family, mind you, just some of my favorites.  (All these pictures were taken by the fabulous Jonathan Canlas.) 

Brook and Isaac

Katie and Justin



Exercise #15: Hearing

Get to sacrament meeting a little early one week.  Look up the hymns that you'll be singing that day, and read through the words carefully and prayerfully. Is there a special meaning for you there?

SKIP

Anne and I were both really excited for this exercise when we read it because it was so easy and a little less soul-searching/emotionally draining than some of the last few.  But alas, it turned out to be not so easy for either of us.  Notice it's been three weeks since the last post of an exercise?  Yeah, we could not manage to a) get to church early, b) pay attention to the music, or even, in my case at least, c) sing half the hymns during sacrament meeting over the last three Sundays.  We are just not in a season of life that makes that a possibility.  Maybe someday when our children are able to handle life for five minutes in a quiet meeting....

Next week, appropriately: Acknowledging Limitations

Playing in the River

Shelli told me she was taking her kids to feed the ducks at the Tonaquint Center, so I asked if we could tag along.  Unfortunately, the ducks didn't want to have anything to do with us and our bread, so we started exploring...

  

We found frogs and bugs and this cool bridge washed out by a flood...

It was all water-rotted and stank really bad.  It was hot and we were hungry, so we went to the park nearby and had a picnic...

Even in the shade it was pretty hot, so it was impossible to keep the kids from the river nearby.  We decided to wade in...



Then Katie fell in...

And everyone just followed suit...

 

 

We definitely cooled off, and it was such a fun day!  We are so sad that they have since bulldozed this same spot, and it is just not the same.  Hopefully we can find some other fun river spots to cool off in this summer. 

Katie Dance Recital

Katie has been dancing at Westside Studio since October, but this was her first recital with this class, and she was so excited and nervous.  We were pretty irritated with all the rules and expectations (and the costumes, and the traditions, and the cost!)...until we saw how beautiful and professional the recital was.  Her class had the second number of the show, so I thought she would get bored eventually after an hour or so, but she insisted we stay until the end.  She had decided to quit dance before the recital, but after watching all the jazz, hip hop, and tap numbers, she realized it was actually ballet she was tired of.  Either way, we're taking a break from dance this summer and may choose sports as activities during this upcoming school year, so I'm feeling a bit nostalgic as I post these pictures of my beautiful dancer.  She danced so well, and we were all so proud of her! 



Katie with her two carpool buddies, Lilly and Hailey
(yes, they really are the same age, Katie is just really tall)

BFFs

Toddler Time

It's been such a different experience doing toddler time for Max and his friends than it was doing it for Katie and her friends. Girls are just so different! And Max and Katie couldn't be more different in temperament and development. But it has been so fun to see how much Max has learned and grown over the past 9 months. On our first day last fall he could only say a few words and phrases, but by this spring he was singing all the words to our hello song, it was so amazing! Here are some pictures of our toddler time friends on our last day together before the summer break.

Can't wait to play with all our friends again this fall!