This summer my parents very generously shared their time share with my entire family. We had a great trip to California with Grandma and Grandpa and all of the cousins. We stayed at sea side which is about 20 minutes north of San Diego. The first excursion that we tackled was a trip to the San Diego zoo. First we got on the buses and took a trip all around the zoo, and then we explored the zoo further on foot. Grant sat with Grandpa for almost the entire bus ride! He was happy as long as Grandpa was sharing his propel water with him. Grant managed to get a significant amount of propel on Grandpa during the process, luckily he is such a cutie that Grandpa didn't mind too much. We saw a lot of cool animals at the zoo. The highlights were: the polar bear taking a swim, the jaguar teasing the lion (the lion was going crazy), and the close up view of the hippo (FYI hippos are nasty!) The most memorable thing that happened at the zoo was Lincoln's decision to throw a bamboo stick at the panda bear. Oh my Gosh, I wanted to kill him! He threw the stick right over the head of a zoo worker talking about how the pandas. I think we may be very lucky we didn't get kicked out. He was ahead of me when it happened. I saw a stick fly into the panda habitat and had one of those "I hope it's not my kid" who did that moments, but alas the expression on my sisters face told me that my kid was the culprit. Boy did he get an earful! Overall we had a great time.
A trip to California would not be complete without multiple trips to the beach! Grant liked the beach but steered clear of the water, which was fine with us. Carson was a boogie boarding maniac! He was super independent and went out pretty far into the surf all on his own. Lincoln liked the boogie board, but didn't love it. He went out a few times with Nate and then didn't have a big desire to do it again. Lily went out with Nate and loved the boogie board! She was pretty fearless and took some pretty big waves for a little girl. I was definitely more nervous about her being out in the water than she was. She also had a great time hanging out with her girl cousins playing in the sand. Nate and I had a couple chances to get out in the water, but spent a lot of time managing our brood making sure that nobody ended up lost or drowned. One morning our family got up early and headed over to shell beach in La Jolla to look for sea shells. the beach was beautiful, but the beach did not really live up to its name.
This trip to Cali I ended up taking the boys to an Angels baseball game, which is kind of nostalgic for me because my dad used to take me to baseball games when I was little. I was afraid the boys might get bored, but they loved it! Well, at least Carson loved the game, I think that Lincoln may have enjoyed the food more than the baseball, but he still had a good time. Carson was so funny he cheered VERY loudly for the Angels on every play good or bad. On the good plays it was just standard "go Angeles type cheering" on the outs he would yell things like "It's ok so and so" or "Better luck next time" It was cute to see him get so into it! It was definitely memorable.
Our last big excursion was a trip to Disney Land. Since we were only going to be there for one day my Aunt very kindly watched Grant for us that we could really maximize our time. It was such a fun trip! The kids were great ages for Disney Land and could ride almost every ride. The only exception was Lily wasn't tall enough to go on the Indiana Jones ride, other than that she was tall enough to go on everything. The boys were great they enjoyed every single ride! The favorite rides by far were Splash Mountain and Space Mountain. Lily was such a trooper! The intensity of some of the rides really pushed her ( I could tell when I looked at her that she was a little scared), but she never would admit it. She also kept up pretty well with all of the intense walking. There was one moment when I thought she was so tired that thought she might loose it and not recover. She literally laid down on a small patch of shade in Tomorrow Land and refused to walk anymore. She can be extremely stubborn, and I was really worried that she might melt down into one of her demon like fits, but we coaxed her out of it. Luckily my parents were close by and took her on the nice relaxing it's a small world with some of the little cousins and she managed to recover her energy and mood for the evening. It was so fun to go to Disney Land with my parents and my siblings! Also going to a big amusement park with 7 extra adults really came in handy! While at Disney Land we stopped to do the Jedi training. Carson didn't get picked the last time we were there, and I was hoping he would want to want to do it again. It made me a little sad that when we got there Carson decided he was much to old to pretend to be a Jedi in training. Luckily Lincoln and no such reservations, and he and his cousin Fin got picked to be some of the participants. They were such cute Jedi's! We wound our day down by watching one of the Disney Land Parades. The parade was a big hit especially among the little girl cousins, because it featured about every princess and character in the park. The day was magical! I love Disney Land!
