Family Vacation in California!

Although we were planning to go to Colorado for a week, we had to change plans and head west to California for a long weekend.


Friday night we were able to stay with some friends, the Jenkins, who will shortly be moving to Japan for three years. The boys were excited to run around and play with their friends and spend Saturday at Mother's Beach with them. It's actually on a small island, so the boys took advantage of no waves and ventured as far as they could while walking. This beach was really fun, it also had a playground for the children and a grassy area nearby. Clearly, this added up to an awesome day for the kids. After a full day with the Jenkins, we drove up to my grandmas house for the night.





Sunday we attended church with my grandma, she's Episcopalian and attends St. Martin in the field. It's pretty nostalgic for me, because she's been going to the same building since I was a child. She was doing a reading at the service, so we send the boys to the kindergarten playroom with the teacher while Paul & I attended the service with her. Evy was fussy, but otherwise it was really nice. We were too tired in the afternoon to go anywhere, so we organized grandma's boardgames and then went to dinner with grandma & Aunt Jerri to Maggiano's.



Monday morning we happily headed out to our regular beach in Malibu again. It seemed to be an animal day! when we arrived, there was a pod of dolphins swimming back-and-forth we got to watch, then a seal swam up near us and popped his head out of the water! We got to watch the pelicans nearby diving for fish and Alec got to go touch a lobster, that a fisherman had caught and was releasing. So fun! Grandma held Evelyn for me a lot, so Paul and I were both able to build sand castles with the boys. Alec was mostly interested in making friends with the children nearby and James kept wanting to see how high he could jump off the bluff nearby. eventually we went back to grandma's house to watch some more Olympics and relax.



Tuesday morning we set off slowly, washing the last of the laundry and slowly packing. We were able to meet up with the Jenkins once more at travel town, a free train park. Poor James got stung by a bee there, but daddy pretending to spit out the venom made him laugh and feel better!