Sunday, August 21, 2011

Best Vacation!! Warning: Tons of Pics

We had an amazing trip to Huntington Beach this year.  The kids are all finally at an age where it's not so hard it isn't even fun...we all had a blast!!  We had to stop in Vegas for a night because Mike had a tradeshow for work, so we made the most of it.  We picked a good hotel for kids...we went swimming, saw a movie, ate snacks, watched tv.  It was great!





We got to Huntington late Monday night.  We were glad we were there in time for the street fair.  They do it every Tuesday, and it's just fun to walk around and people watch.  And buy a bag of kettle corn!  We sat by the pier to eat it and watch the ocean.  :)

We drove to Laguna to see the tide pools, but it wasn't quite what we expected.  Parking was ridiculous, and then the tide was so high that tide pool access was closed.  We decided to just hang out on the beach since we were already there, but even that made me nervous because the waves were bigger than the kids were used to, and it got deep really fast.  It was a beautiful beach, but we're happy with Huntington!
This is Molly pulling her monkey move.  If she doesn't want to be put down she'll wrap her legs around yours and make it impossible!  She always takes a few minutes to get used to the idea of touching sand.  And she refuses to walk on it if she's wearing shoes...she hates getting it in her flip flops!



Mike and the boys ran in the waves...Molly sat in the sand.  She would sweep her foot across the sand and say, "Mommy, a rainbow!"  Love this girl!


Every day we would go to the beach, then stop by the pool to shower off and swim.  When the kids were thoroughly exhausted we would go home, throw them in the tub, feed them, and put them to bed.  It was so great!
The kids loved playing with the boogie board in the pool.  Will towed Molly all over, she was in heaven!


Papa started teaching Molly how to float on her back.  She actually did it!  Well, not without help, but that's still pretty good!


Mike took me out to dinner and a movie, and it was so fun!  We had reservation at Houston's, one of our favorite places to eat.  It's a lot fancier than our normal night out, which is why we do it once or twice a year.  The food is amazing, the atmosphere is really cool, and being in a restaurant where you have to have reservations (or wait at least an hour...any day of the week) makes you feel much more important than you really are.  :)  We saw Captain America afterwards...it was such a great night!

Uncle Nick was in town on business, it was really fun to see him.  Sam and Uncle Nick are buds, it's really fun to listen to their conversations.

The kids dug a lot of holes on the beach.  It kept them entertained for hours!  Except for the time when Sam buried his flip flops and it took forever to find them, this was such a great activity.  :)

The boys wanted to be strong like Mike and pull the beach wagon.  I think they moved it about three inches.

Molly's favorite pool activity is to knock Mike's hat off.  She was in the process right here...she thinks it's hilarious.

Love this.


We always go for surf week (US Open of Surfing), and one reason we love it is because they also do this skateboard competition and a bmx competition.  The bmx is my favorite (it was awesome last year), but they did it the day we left, so we missed it.

We had so much fun, we're so grateful that Lon and Grace let us come visit them at "Papa's Beach House!"  We had such a great time, we loved every minute of it!

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Cute Kids


Molly and Corbin are buds.  It was so cute to watch them drive the little one-seater car together!


 Will tried really hard to drink the chocolate cake glaze.  It wasn't very successful.

 He had much more success smashing Sam's piggy bank...with his bare foot!  I couldn't believe that all he got was a little scrape on his ankle, that could have been a pretty serious injury!  Sam told Will that he wanted to buy him a Transformer, so Will was just trying to speed the process along.

The problem with not immediately putting the hairspray away as you're unpacking from a trip is that Molly might find it.  And empty the rest of the bottle onto her head.  We had to wash it three times and then comb out the rest of the residue.  There was a lot.  Awesome!

Bear Lake: Fourth of July

We went up to Bear Lake for the Fourth, and when we got there someone was doing fireworks at the lake.  The kids thought the fireworks were just for them and sat down to watch with their blankies!  It was really late when we got there, and my blurry picture isn't very good.  :)


Molly and Will thought they were hilarious hiding in our bed.

Jane came with us, and Daniel (Charles Hope's brother) and 5 of his college friends came over for some foosball and Aw Heck.  Jane and Mike are a pretty mean foosball team!

French braid!  She had enough hair to braid, I was so excited!!  She has since had three haircuts (two being self-inflicted), so her hair is shorter now.  Maybe I can put it in double braids...





I was really on this trip!  I'm the picture taker, so I don't make it into most shots.  But I really liked my glitter toes!  Almost as much as my flip flop tan.  :)

The lake is super high this year.  In some places it's only about 10 feet away from the road.  It's nuts!  Beaches are in pretty short supply.  I took this off the pool deck at Bear Lake West.  Look at all those trees just hanging out in the lake!


I was shopping with the kids when Molly saw this tutu swimsuit.  She stood up in the cart, pointed at it, and started screaming, "PINK! PINK!"  It was on sale.  I didn't have much choice...I had to buy it!!


We hurried home to do fireworks with the Nielsens...I think this is the third year we've done it with them.  Mike grew up doing the "Cul-de-sac of Fire" every year in his neighborhood, so he likes carrying on the tradition in Doug's cul-de-sac!  We start just before dark to try and get the kids in bed a little earlier.

I forgot my camera (and my book) the day we went to the beach, so these are the pictures that Jane took. And while I was at it I stole her other pictures too!  Doug and Jami were up there with a group of family and friends, so we met them at the beach.  The kids had lots of fun.  I sat on the beach...I was having a hormonal day, so that was about all I could do.  :)








The boys helped me make oven s'mores.  One of our favorite treats!
I'm 24 weeks pregnant here.  

I just realized that we went up over the 24th too, and some of Jane's pictures were from that trip.  So I'm actually 27 weeks pregnant in this picture.  My pics from that trip will be in a separate post.  :)

Bear Lake is one of our favorite places to go in the summer, we're so lucky to have Papa's cabin!