Day 5--Our Last Cali Day=BEACH!

Our last day there we went to the beach one more time. This time with Melodie, Julie, Andrea, and Aunt Lynn.  It was insanely awesome and not stressful one little bit.  Melodie was awesome and got the kids sand toys and a boogie board to play with.  

This beach had no tar, super clear water, tons of sea shells and a giant sand bar so the boys could go out so far, see fish, and not drown and die!  It even had a life guard to boot--woo woo.  

Not to mention that Melodie ALSO brought the perfect snacks of pineapple and cookies. 

 It was so lovely.  Just so so lovely.

Waiting for awesomeness...

Luke was on this boogie board like the entire time. He LOVED it.

That night we hung out at Melodie and Justin's awesome club-house for pizza and a movie.  (Monty Python and the Holy Grail...cause it's really funny.)

The next morning we drove home. I love this picture because of how it was taken.  Julie was turned around in her seat--lodged between the front panel and the chair trying so hard to take these pictures--then she tried to get out and it was hilarious! Also Andrea is a professional pretty face maker.

The trip was awesome and everyone came back alive and happier for it :)  

Hooray for family vacations!!!

Day 4: Hooray for ROCKS at the Natural History Museum

NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM!!!

(Rhett had a green stripped shirt so that's funny cause he blends in with the green screen background....)

Okay--so honestly, we LOVE rocks in this family.  I always had stashes of rocks growing up and these boys of mine loves them like crazy too.  Julie--Andrea--ALL OF US.  So going thru the rock section was by far my favorite. Me and Kade were almost giddy.  These were sooo amazing...so...here are some of our favorites. (I know I don't necessarily NEED to bore anyone with rocks--but these are awesome..and i can :)

HUGE NUGGET!

I loved seeing the jewels section. Isn't it so cool to see the big gem with the jewel they got out of it?

Mining for diamonds would be crazy?  Look how small/giant for diamonds these are in their rock bed!  Awesome

I would decorate my house with this. Sooooo pretty!

 You know what's not pretty?  The oar fish!  Wowza!  It's so long! Can you imagine swimming and seeing that thing next to you!  On wikipedia there was a picture of one that was 23 feet long!  Gross.  Also awesome. But mostly gross :)

Kade took so many notes during the museum. I LOVED IT SO BAD!

Max in the Butterfly room.

Say, "Butterflies are awesome!"

The museum was so modern and exciting with this nice big room with so many interactive displays.

Rhett in front of the thermal imaging camera.

Here's the deal...dinosaur bones are cool? But...I just don't really care about them.  The boys liked them but we were really all about the rocks.

So just randomly as we were walking through this room by the statue, the boys sat there and posed as statues.  It made us giggle.

At the end they got to pick out something to bring home.  They were so perfectly suited for these boys. Rhett picked a dinosaur slap bracelet and bag or rocks.  Luke picked an excavation kit, and Kade picked a book about rocks--which I covet but he kindly shares.

That night we went to Chili's with Mel and Justin!  Rhett likes his Uncle Justin a little bit....

Both of them are HIL.ARIOUS.

Day 3: The BEACH!!!! HOORAY!

So, since Jess was gone for the summer...and he's not a big fan of the beach (on account of him being worried the entire time that all the kids are going to drown)  I decided we'd make the most of the situation and take a trip to California!  

What makes it even better is that we had soooo many helpers!  Andrea drove out with me, Julie flew in later, and we hung out with Melodie, Justin, B.J. and Kara!  I decided I should ALWAYS take vacations with a 1:1 ratio of kids to adults :)  Here are some of our highlights:

Beach #1:

Our first beach was awesome.  Andrea stayed with Max the entire time, Rhett didn't like the temperature of the water so he played in the sand--and the boys all finished swimming lessons this summer and I wasn't very worried about them.  The day and weather were perfect.  

I like the honesty of this picture a little bit. 

Kade started helping us bury Luke....but we all got sprayed by his efforts.  

Rhett's and my face make me kind of laugh.

So, Luke wanted to be the starfish Patrick from Spongebob...I think we did pretty well on that!

Kade...well he wanted to be Poseidon...obviously right? ha!........(struggle I know.  But see how he's wearing a toga?  has a crown? and has a trident?....no?)

We had a surprise with TAR on the beach though.  It was so random too.  At first I didn't notice it when we were digging, then I saw giant globs all around that I thought were rocks....  If you touched/stepped on, any of it it WOULD NOT GET OFF.  I wish I would have taken a picture of it, cause it was all over us.  On the way home we stopped by the grocery store to pick up baby oil to help get it off.  It took awhile to clean up...

That afternoon we met up with Julie and Melodie.  Just to make sure the boys had enough water that day, we went swimming at Mel's apartment, and had a barbecue.

That.Night.

Day 2: B.J and Kara's!

B.J. and Kara are the most amazing hosts ever!  Late Saturday night we were greeted with 

fresh hot pizza, 3 different types of homemade cookies, and a full basket of 'in case you forgot' items.  They're adorable.  The boys were soooo exhausted that they tried to eat...but mostly just got sleepy eyed and we put them down.  

The next morning B.J. and Kara woke up early and made us waffles and had yummy cereals just in case we didn't want that...seriously...they're so nice.

I love this picture. I can't quite pin why. 

(it must be the combination of how bed-headed Kade's hair still was/and how B.J. was explaining something like how the brain works to Kade---It was just a nice Uncle/Nephew moment.  I love how blessed my kids are to know their aunts and uncles!!!)

After breakfast, off to church we went!  It was a super unique building with a little courtyard and classroom doors facing outside (designed by President Hunter).  Also an older ward...my boys were a tad distracting in that quiet lot.  But lots of really nice people.  

The rest of the day was spent putting together Lego creations, running around in the yard, eating amazing food, relaxing and just talking.  I love them so so bad.

Honestly--do you see those grapes above them?  SO.AWESOME.

Kara helping Max with his new shapes toy.

Playing Tic-Tac-Toe on the Ipod.

Kade showing Kara his and Luke's 'Chip' movie.

I had such a great time with them and wished that I had a week I could spend there--leaving was so sad because he had such a great time!  We.Love. Them!

We kinda do these faces often for pictures. It's a thing :)

So their house is adorable and they have awesome fruit tree's to eat from.  The boys LOVED picking oranges with them. So we decided to do a lil pic in front of the tree. The series makes me laugh.

Rad.

Trip to California: Day 1 Lego Land

So, since Jess was gone for the summer...and he's not a big fan of the beach (on account of him being worried the entire time that all the kids are going to drown and what-not).  

I decided we'd make the most of his time away and take a trip to California!  

What makes it even better is that I had so much help!  Andrea drove out with me, Julie flew in later, and we hung out with Melodie, Justin, B.J. and Kara! 

 I should ALWAYS take vacations with a 1:1 ratio of kids to adults :)  

Here are some of our highlights:

DAY 1:  LEGO LAND!

This was Julie's amazing idea. And what made it even more AMAZING, was that the day we went there it was Teacher Appreciation Day: Melodie's a kindergarten teacher so BAM! 

 She was free and all our tickets were like half price!  Woo Woo! 

(Andrea found out that little gem, she's so smart.)

Here 's everyone waiting in line.  The lines were all really fast and the kids were happy the entire day. 

It was amazing---due largely to the fact that 

Melodie took Kade and Luke on the big rides (like PROJECT X and other biggies),

Andrea mainly stayed with Rhett for his rides, 

and Max and I could be the homebase as we made our way through the park.  

(Which is great cause turns out I get all sorts of pansy sick on rides now.)

It get's better. The theme was LEGO STAR WARS!  Say-WHAT?  That was awesome. They had characters wandering around the park and lego creations of Chubacca and R2D2 and what not.

This Anikan was super in character...just meandered up with his somber face and did that death grip thingy.  So I snapped a picture.  Also I laughed really hard when I downloaded the picture cause I didn't realize Luke was doing the death grip too. HA!

So, there's a little water section of rides at the park right?  Me, Andrea, and the 3 older boys all decided to go on the Log Flume ride they have---kind of like Splash Mountain.  (Rhett was so excited he was tall enough for this one).  Walking up to the ride they had a warning sign about getting wet...but it should have said this: 

Caution:

You will get completely and utterly drenched 

during this ride and will stay wet all day.  

Not like splash mountain 'wet', 

but like you willingly jumped in the pool with all your clothes on 'wet'.

Rhett was so cute to watch. He was so brave as we were going up, up, up...and raised his hands and laughed and everything (ignorance is bliss approach). As we started to tip I watched his face slowly turn from smiles, to concern, to panic and then I didn't see anything cause we had several giant tidal waves cover us.  In the end he said he liked it, but didn't want to do it again anytime soon.  

Once out, we saw that Melodie had the same idea with Max and they were both wet from playing in the splash pad.  As we walked away from the water section of the park we saw Family Dryers.  It looked so space-age-ish.  You paid your money and 5 or so people would walk into a cubby that would blow warm air on you....we didn't do it but it was fancy.

Another of the boys favorites was getting their Driver Licenses.

Kade and Luke had a large scale drivers range, and Rhett had a little track. Rhett was killing me cause he hadn't had much 'experience' so to speak so he was stuck for quite awhile before things got moving.

Definitely a perfect day.  And to end it all off, as the boys were strapping in Luke said, 'Mom, thanks sooo much for bringing us here.' and all the boys chimed in with gratitude.  I love those boys. 

While Andrea and Melodie headed back to Melodie's, me and the boys were off to B.J. and Kara's!