We just went on our annual summer vacation to Oceanside, California, which was another success! This was at least our 6th year going. We left early Saturday morning, and surprisingly the drive went well. The girls were very good for the most part. We took a little break at the Viejas Outlets for lunch and a little shopping, and the kids played in the splash pad there. We finally made it to the beach house late in the afternoon. We got unloaded, relaxed a little, and the kids got to play on the beach while Emily watched them. The rest of the evening the kids did a lot of playing, while the adults did a lot of lounging around. On Sunday, we went to church, and then drove down to see the beautiful San Diego Temple. Liberty loved the colorful flowers, and couldn’t resist picking a few, even though we told her not to over and over. We walked around the grounds for awhile, and enjoyed the beautiful weather.
When we got back we had our traditional fish and chips dinner – YUM! Later on some of us took a nice stroll on the beach. After telling Liberty over and over only to touch the sand and water with her feet, I gave up! She was in pure heaven on the beach. She ran, jumped, danced, twirled, splashed, stomped, and leapt! She even occasionally sat and dug in the sand. I knew she was going to love being on the beach with her cousins for the next several days!
Monday morning we didn’t waste any time, and hit the beach after breakfast. I bought Liberty some new beach toys for the trip, so she was excited to try them out. Liberty had a total blast playing in the ocean and sand throughout the week. She played and played non-stop with her cousins. At one point during the week, Jessica asked Liberty where she lived and she said, “California!” Liberty also bonded quite a bit with Avery the last couple of days, and announced to me that they are now “best friends.”
On Saturday we were all packing up to leave and Liberty and Avery were standing at the top of the steps outside. I told them to make sure and stay right there, and don’t go down the stairs. Liberty responded, “We are just protecting ourselves!” which Avery repeated in her cute little words. I think Liberty has finally decided Avery isn’t a “bay-bay” anymore.
Hadley was introduced to the ocean and sand this week. At first, all she wanted to do was eat the sand, which I totally expected. I came prepared with a little inflatable pool, thinking she could play in it and not get too sandy. It worked for a few minutes here and there, but anytime I turned my head, she reached over and grabbed a handful of sand to stick in her mouth. The thing that actually worked the best was to have her sit on the wet, packed sand right on the shore, which wasn’t as easy to grab handfuls of sand that way. She was so intrigued with the sand that I could hardly get her to look away from the sand. Aside from waking up a little too early each morning, Hadley was a really good baby on the trip! Oh, and her first tooth came through while we were there!
Trever enjoyed the ocean by doing a lot of boogey-boarding (he even got some new fins for the trip). He also took advantage of the beautiful weather by taking a few beachfront runs and bike-rides. Trever’s book of the week was Glenn Beck’s, “An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World’s Biggest Problems.”
One of my favorite parts of the vacation was relaxing on the beach reading my book. I found, “Shopaholic Takes Manhattan” on the shelf in the beach house and read that during the week. It was light and entertaining, which was a perfect beach read. I also enjoyed the nightly games of Liverpool and Scrabble. For some reason, another one of my favorite things about our stay was eating lunch in the yard right on the beach. Each day we took a break from playing and relaxing on the beach for lunch. Instead of cleaning up and eating lunch in the beach house like we have done in the past, lunch was served on the back patio and we ate our lunches on our towels in the sun and grass. I guess is what a simple pleasure for me.
A few other highlights of the trip:
Our traditional trip into Old Town San Diego for some delicious Mexican food
Shopping at Fashion Valley Mall and the Carlsbad Outlets
Trading off cooking meals throughout the week – always good food!
THREE trips to Rite-Aid for THRIFY ice cream – I can’t get enough of that Chocolate Malted Crunch!
Hadley was introduced to the ocean and sand this week. At first, all she wanted to do was eat the sand, which I totally expected. I came prepared with a little inflatable pool, thinking she could play in it and not get too sandy. It worked for a few minutes here and there, but anytime I turned my head, she reached over and grabbed a handful of sand to stick in her mouth. The thing that actually worked the best was to have her sit on the wet, packed sand right on the shore, which wasn’t as easy to grab handfuls of sand that way. She was so intrigued with the sand that I could hardly get her to look away from the sand. Aside from waking up a little too early each morning, Hadley was a really good baby on the trip! Oh, and her first tooth came through while we were there!
Trever enjoyed the ocean by doing a lot of boogey-boarding (he even got some new fins for the trip). He also took advantage of the beautiful weather by taking a few beachfront runs and bike-rides. Trever’s book of the week was Glenn Beck’s, “An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World’s Biggest Problems.”
One of my favorite parts of the vacation was relaxing on the beach reading my book. I found, “Shopaholic Takes Manhattan” on the shelf in the beach house and read that during the week. It was light and entertaining, which was a perfect beach read. I also enjoyed the nightly games of Liverpool and Scrabble. For some reason, another one of my favorite things about our stay was eating lunch in the yard right on the beach. Each day we took a break from playing and relaxing on the beach for lunch. Instead of cleaning up and eating lunch in the beach house like we have done in the past, lunch was served on the back patio and we ate our lunches on our towels in the sun and grass. I guess is what a simple pleasure for me.
A few other highlights of the trip:
Our traditional trip into Old Town San Diego for some delicious Mexican food
Shopping at Fashion Valley Mall and the Carlsbad Outlets
Trading off cooking meals throughout the week – always good food!
THREE trips to Rite-Aid for THRIFY ice cream – I can’t get enough of that Chocolate Malted Crunch!
And of course, all the time we got to spend with each other (We missed Jeff, Devry, and kids!)
On the way home we stopped in Yuma for a break from driving. We went to lunch and went to a couple of stores. One of the times we loaded up into the car Liberty asked, "Are we going to the beach house now?" Trever and I agreed that Liberty definitely got her money's worth out of the trip!
Does she look happy, or what?
***I have a lot more pictures to post, but I gave up because it takes SO long to upload pictures, and blogger isn't very user-friendly these days. Or maybe it's just me?
