spring break 2009, part IIa: we are family

The next few days of our trip were spent with family, so I'm combining them together. Friday we went up to visit Grandma Waterwheel in Mt. Baldy. She has had a bad cold the past couple of weeks and hasn't gotten out much, so we were happy she let us come up to see her. It was cloudy and cold, but the boys got outside to explore around while the girls visited inside.

The boys were obviously tired of me trying to position them around, but I love all the pictures I have of them growing up with Grandma. We love you Grandma!!

Later that afternoon we went to John's Incredible Pizza with Gma and Gpa Airplane. It's a pizza/salad/pasta/dessert bar, and then there are lots of games to play--kind of like Chuck E. Cheese's, but not really. The boys had a great time, and it was a good day to spend indoors.

(As a side note: Daren and I snuck away to a movie that night while Gma and Gpa stayed home with the boys to watch Madagascar 2. We saw Slumdog Millionaire and I LOVED it!! What a great movie, and now I know why it won best picture of 2008. Best movie I've seen in years!)

Saturday

Fortunately the next day was much more sunny and warmer, because we were going to meet my brother, Eric, his wife Jenny, and their kids at the beach--Crystal Cove, our favorite place. To me it still wasn't warm enough to get in the water, but the kids didn't seem to mind that it was only 62 degrees outside--they were getting in no matter what!

By the way, a HUGE thank you to Eric for sharing his camera with me that weekend. I went off and forgot my camera's battery charger at home, and my battery started to die at the end of Disneyland, so I saved it as much as I could for when we were going to be camping in the desert. I have to say, though, that it was nice to share camera duties and have all our pictures in one place.

Will and Marissa immediately set off to build some sandcastles, so they made many trips back and forth to the water.

Our group quickly settled in, probably because it was the middle of the afternoon by the time we got there!

This is my cute nephew, Andrew--yes, holding Flat Stanley for his cousin. He started running on his school's cross-country team last fall, and dang has he got wheels on him! He just ran that morning, and ran 11 miles in about an hour....and he's only 14 years old! Here he is in action with the skim board (at least I think that's what it's called).

There was a lot going on at Crystal Cove: kids running and playing while Daren and Will, in the background, are trying to get the kite up and going.

These four immediately set out together when we arrived--Spencer, Rebecca, Jake and Ben. I found them on top of these rocks that were covered in all these shells...ouch!

I think this is Ben and Jake

I love this picture of Rebecca on the skim board, and I had to zoom in on her face so you could see her expression!

A cute picture of Marissa

Daren spent a good chunk of his day trying to get this space shuttle kite up and going, but it was a little tough. But finally...

...SUCCESS!!

However, the day, and trip for that matter, was not without it's mishaps. It started with Jake at the beach scraping the side of his foot on a rock. It continued the next day with Ben running into the side of the garage and scraping his face, then Jake fell off the go-cart and scraped up his knee real good, and finally Will got in the act later that day by running into the side of the piano at Eric's and scraping up his cheek. What is it with these boys?!

Anyway, back to the beach. Spencer and Ben were thrilled with what seemed like a neverending assortment of chips to eat.

By the end of the afternoon Will was walking like this all the time. I don't know if his arms were hurting him or what, but he was cracking me up!

The final picture of the day was of Eric and Spencer playing a game in the foreground, while Gpa Airplane and Andrew are playing football or something in the background. It was a very fun day at the beach, and the party continued at Ruby's for dinner after that. Once again, pajamas and blankets helped the boys go immediately to sleep once they got in the car for the drive home.