The Ultimate Vacation {part 1}

It was finally time for our vacation!!!  We were all so excited.  A few weeks ago, when talking to my sister, I realized we were planning on driving down the weekend of the 4th of July. (I don’t know why this didn’t click before then…)    We decided to hopefully beat traffic, and heat, we would drive overnight.  We also figured it would help our kids, since they would be able to sleep the majority of the way.  Our kids got all snuggled in their pj’s, we got the car packed and were ready to go.  I made each of the kids a little travel bag with activities and a few treats for the road.  The girls were pretty excited!

I also made a “prize box”, something my mom always did with us on vacation.  Each hour the kids were good they earned a dollar and could spend it on little gifts I had bought.  It’s a nice way for them to be motivated to be good!!  haha!!  I did get constantly asked if it had been another hour yet. (In fact, yesterday, I was driving with my kids and Lily piped up with “has it been another hour yet mom?”  I had to explain the dollar system was a vacation-only thing!) 

Our drive was pretty good, except for the fact that I am pretty much a baby about getting my sleep, and did NOT drive well on so little.  Jason drove most of the way, and we even ended up stopping in Mesquite and getting a couple hours sleep for all of us.  We did had very little traffic, so that was nice.  EVENTUALLY, we made it to California, and saw….

 

THESE awesome people!!!

(don’t mind my scary eyes, remember—SLEEP deprived!)

We were so excited to finally be with Ashley and Luis.  We had so much fun.  They made us yummy food.

We swam in their “resort-like” pool!

Ash even brought the kids down some mid-swim snacks!  What a cute aunt!

We had a BBQ our first night.

Complete with s’mores after!!

Savannah loved helping Ashley with the cooking.

On the 4th of July, we woke up and had Blueberry pancakes!!  Yum!

Then our plan was to head to the beach.  On the drive there we saw hundreds of people riding their bikes to the beach.  I meant to take a picture, but never did.  ALL of the bikes were the awesome retro ones, and Jason and I pretty much LOVED them!  He now tells me daily that we need to buy some of these bikes! 

The beach was SUPER crowded and we ended up driving around for over an hour with no luck in finding a parking spot.  Finally, we decided to go home, and then a spot opened up!!  Hooray!  As crowded as the parking was, there was still plenty of beach for everyone!  Our kids had a great time playing in the sand and water.

Ashley brought her boogie boards and Jason and I took turns taking the older two girls out.  They both loved it! 

We of course had to bury someone, and make a sand castle too!

After heading home and taking baths, we changed into our “patriotic” clothing and ate KFC.  Then we went outside and did “snaps” and ate “firecracker” popsicles!  We didn’t stay up for any big fireworks cause we were pretty worn out from a fantastic day!

We stayed with Ash & Lu for two more days and had lots of fun!

Ashley took us to an awesome park.

(So, I bought this cheap-o spray bottle to “mist” us when we were hot.  Jason would “mist” himself until he was soaked!  I had to forbid him from using it because it was slightly embarrassing!  He is such a little kid sometimes!!)

The park was so fun, even we adults had to try everything out!!  (this contraption was a VERY good workout!)

We had many great naps,

and we swam in their pool lots more!

One night, they took us on a little walk…

to Baskin Robbins $1 scoop night!!  We LOVED this!!

I think the stores in Utah need to do this!!

And this random picture is for Ash….

We had so much fun on the first half of our trip.  Yup, that’s right, we still had more fun to go!!  Thanks Ashley & Luis for letting us stay with you and drive you crazy!!!  It was a blast!