We felt like we needed to spend Thanksgiving in California this year, so we set off as soon as the boys were out of school the Tuesday before. After running into horrible traffic and struggling to find a place to spend the night last May, this time we booked a room in Cedar City before we ever left our house. The ride to CA was pretty smooth and easy – thank goodness!
Plus the boys get along really well and have become really good travelers. Their bladders could be a little bigger, but other than that, I really can’t complain. I glanced back at one point and found these three watching the movie like this (of course they had to pretend to be asleep when they saw the phone go up to take a picture.)
Pit stops make for good selfie opportunities…
I’ve loved this road sign since I was a little girl. Back then I actually slept on the drive and I would feel so bad if I slept through seeing it. I don’t know why… but how cool is a name with 3 z’s and an x? ABC game winner, right there!
Bobby has lost most of his “stranger danger” senses and didn’t complain too much about being loved on by his aunts and grandparents. It helped that Aunt Sheri came armed with a bowl of olives. Bobby does like his olives!
He also likes his CARS and loved that the tv was down low enough that he could speak to them face to face.
He settled right in and made himself at home…
Thanksgiving Day meant lots of yummy food …
And visiting and more cute food …
And taking some time to think about the things for which we are so very thankful!
No visit or Thanksgiving Day is complete without a little Ticket to Ride action…
Rusty was the big winner of the evening!
Tommy seems to think, “It’s our tradition to go to the beach the day after Thanksgiving.” We did do it again this year!
This time we went to Newport Beach and hung out near the pier. There were people around, but not so many that we couldn’t enjoy the beach and since most of them were surfers, it just gave us that much more to watch! We hadn’t brought our swimsuits because we thought it would be too cold to swim. Next time, we should bring the suits, or at least a change of clothes. We weren’t there 2 minutes before Tommy just sat down in the surf!
Rusty loved collecting “sea mud.”
Oh, the wet jeans! You just can’t hang out in wet jeans. Tommy walked up to me at one point and his jeans just fell right off! There are shops along Newport Beach, so the boys all got new pants after they were finished getting wet.
I left Wendi with my phone while I splashed with the boys. She gave me this picture of love …
She also took some fun pictures of the family playing together! I’m so glad she joins us in our beach adventures!!
Bobby was fascinated with the seagulls. He squealed when they flew over us and he kept trying to catch them or pet them or just get close to them when they were on the ground!
I do love the beach!
After a while the boys did get cold, but it was a beautiful day and they were so happy. I love adventuring with my boys!
Our adventures of the day weren’t over yet. We went to Little Corona del Mar Beach to check out some tide pools next.
This beach would be pretty awesome to visit for swimming as well. It is smaller but supposedly less frequented by tourists. Plus there are the tide pools!
The boys were in heaven crawling around the rocks looking for living things in the puddles!
It was stunning here!
We saw crabs and snails and anemone. The boys were hoping for a starfish but we weren’t there for too low of tide.
Maybe next time, because we will definitely be back here sometime!
It was a hike to get down to the beach from where we parked. Wendi stayed up top of that hill at a cute look-out site to wait for us. This really was a beautiful beach!
Photo bombed!
Nothing better than coming home from the beach, putting the kids to bed, and playing “Scum” for a few hours. I’m good at “Scum.” Who wants to be the president in the game? Not me – Scum is good!
Saturday was Grandpa Brent’s birthday. For a birthday present, Bobby climbed up on his lap and they watched “Team Umizoomi” (or as Bobby calls it “Bot”) for over an hour together!
All the boys gave Grandpa Brent some birthday love …
We had a great dinner and Aunt Sheri brought some craft puzzles for the boys to create. They loved doing this and Billy would have kept going except the puzzles ran out!
And then I got a choice picture of Grandpa Brent “blowing” out the unlit birthday candles. (hee hee hee)
Kevin got a little love from Bobby, too.
We were planning to leave early in the morning, so we gave our hugs and said our good-byes before bed.
The drive home started out fabulous. We made great time and very few stops…and then we got to Vegas. From there it took us 11 hours to get home. We even avoided a big back up by taking a scenic route in Arizona. It was a beautiful way to go, but it wasn’t nearly long enough!
Again, the boys were great travelers and did EVENTUALLY fall asleep … you know, about 9 pm, after we’d already been driving for 12 hours!
It was a long drive, so much traffic, but I enjoyed visiting with Kevin and looking out the windows at how beautiful it is here. A big long date with Kevin is how I chose to look at it. But it was really, really, really nice to get home – about 12:30 in the morning, more than 15 hours after we left!
