California Trip!

During fall break John and I decided to take the boys to California. We had a great time! Hope you enjoy seeing our pics and reading about our adventure.

We started out early Tuesday morning for the big drive. I was completely dreading the drive, but was pleasantly surprised at how well the boys did. We had our moments, but it wasn't even close to being the awful chaos I imagined. The first thing we did when we got to California was head to the beach. We ended up at Huntington Beach and it was pretty cold, but the boys didn't care. They ran out there and in no time were jumping the waves and having a great time. Ridge even braved the water, but soon found out how strong the current is and found himself down and flipping around in the water. From that time on he spent his time playing in the sand, a safe distance from the water.

Here's Ridge after his bad encounter with the water! I started to take him to the car to change, but he wanted to stay and play so we just took off his shirt, put on his jacket, and he was content from then on.

Kyson was so excited to find out that there was mud at the beach. He had a great time playing in it and seeing how far he could throw it!

This is the best picture I got of Trey. I had one of his flexing his muscles, but it was too fuzzy. Trey loved the beach, but was confused about when we were going to see the ocean. I told him we were at the ocean and he said, "no, we're at the beach!" I had to stop and explain about a beach and an ocean. I never really stopped to think that that could be confusing, especially to an inquisitive kid like Trey!

This it the infamous ferry boat. John spent a lot of summers as a child in Newport Beach. He told the boys all about balboa bars and the ferry boat that took cars across the bay. They were pretty nervous about putting our car on the ferry, but once we were on and moving they thought it was pretty fun. And we did have a balboa bar while were there, but apparently it got eaten too fast for me to get a picture!

On Wednesday it was off to the happiest place on Earth, Disneyland! We were all set for a great day! The first ride we went on was Autotopia, which the boys loved. They got to drive their own cars and race around a big track. Kyson thought it was so fun to drive crazy and "drive Mom nuts!" The second ride of the day made a dramatic impact on the rest of our day...Space Mountain! Trey liked it, but said he'd never go again. Kyson DID NOT LIKE it and wanted to go home and never go to Disneyland again! From that point on Kyson was scared of every single ride except It's a Small World and the carousel. Here's a few pics from our eventful day:

The fire truck in Toon Town, Trey and Ridge are having a great time and Kyson is plugging his ears!

You can't go to Disneyland without getting a picture with Mickey Mouse. Ridge was so excited to see "MicMouse". He was a little nervous to pose by him, but he did it!

This was the highlight of the day! Lightning McQueen and Mater! We saw them here as well as in the parade at CA Adventure. Each of the boys had to have their turn getting their picture with Lightening!

Trey

Ridge

Kyson

This was after a fun, long day at Disneyland. We let each of the boys pick a toy and Ridge fell asleep with his "shooter gun" as he calls it. It lights up and makes all kinds of noises. As you can imagine this made for a delightful experience every time we got in the car. John tried taking the batteries out to save our sanity, but then Ridge was heartbroken that his shooter gun was broken. We put the batteries back in...

Kyson had also had enough. I'm so glad we brought an extra stroller. It was definitely worth it at the end of the day with two very tired little boys!

Now Trey on the other hand, was still full of energy. He had thought carefully all day about what treat he would like to buy at Disneyland and had finally decided on a new pair of sunglasses. Here he is posing in front of the Lego store in Down Town Disney. Isn't he cool?!

We had planned on taking the boys to Disneyland two days in a row, but they voted to swim and go to the beach instead! Crazy kids! My cousins from Tennessee were also in town and stayed at this hotel with a fun water park. We tried to get reservations there, but they were booked. So instead, Derek and Jodi were so nice and let us come visit for the day and let the boys play at the water park. They loved it! The big bucket up top fills with water and then dumps over. I learned about this cool feature the hard way. When we very first got there I was standing in the dump zone watching the boys run and play and to my great surprise was soon drenched in water! John and the boys got a great kick out of it. I'm so glad I made their day!

After a fun morning of playing at the water park we headed to the beach. The boys loved the idea that there were so many different beaches to choose from so this time we went to Newport Beach. We got a pizza and had a picnic on the beach and once again Trey and Kyson went to jumping waves and playing in the water. Ridge however still remembered his incident with the water and stayed clear. Instead he chased birds and played in the sand.

So John and I had this great idea to rent a surrey bike to ride around Newport/Balboa. It looks easy enough, right? Wrong! We about killed ourselves trying to pedal this thing all around Newport. The boys had a great time, but John and I just laughed and laughed at our great idea. But we were determined to ride the dang thing no matter what! We did pay to rent it after all. We spent a couple of hours touring around and did finally decide that it was a good thing we got in our exercise for the day/week/month!

Just so happy to be having their picture taken once again!

Gotta get a family picture in too. I was sure I was going to do better getting John and I into more pics, but it just never happens that way. The kids are always the center of attention!

This is one of my favorite pictures from our trip. The boys loved everything about our trip, but I think they loved the beach the most. It was a great trip.

On our last day we headed once again to another beach, this time to Oceanside. We met up with my cousins and one of John's mission companions. They had a great visit and the boys loved having another chance to play at the beach. I left my camera in the car so there are no pics to share. Trey braved the cold water and a boogie board and thought it was pretty fun. We didn't leave the beach until almost 5pm which made for a very late drive home. The boys slept a lot of the way, John drove, and I DIDN'T fall asleep!