Going-going... Back-back... to Cali-Cali

Our big summer vacation this year was a trip to California to visit our pals, the Papa's.  We've been friends for around 13 years and our kids are about the same age.  It had been a long time since we'd seen them or been to California, so we were very excited.

We drove there, which took around 12 hours, but it was not too difficult. We had movies, junk food, toys, and the anticipation of tons of fun to help us all stay cheerful.

Annie made her own angry birds neck pillow.

The first day we went to Legoland.  

First to the Aquarium, than the water park. We don't have any pictures of the water park, but here is Jack inside one of the aquariums.

It was a good time, although there were the usual frustrations, of course.  Over-priced food, griping at kids for not doing any fun rides, pooped shorts, and grumpy, tired kids.  Annie fell asleep in the stroller.  My kids are all terrible sleepers and this was a rare sleep-miracle.

We spent that night at a nearby hotel and went to the main Legoland park the next day.

All the kids liked the driving course.

Here they are on a fun, little plane ride.

This was Annie's first ride and it went pretty fast in the corners (see her little curls blowing and death grip on a cookie?) She loved it.

Back in Costa Mesa we did other fun stuff like swimming in their pool, playing around the house and re-connecting with our friends.  Here are Jared and Tyrus cuddling on the girls' air-bed in the living room.  Luckily they were looking at cars or something manly.

We went a few blocks away to the Orange County Fair.  This series of pictures cracks me up so much.  Jack and Gavin were posing on a horse, as you can see, Jack wanted to be in front.

There were lots of cute animals, including little, pink piglets.

Little pioneers.  I like Jared's eye peeking behind Jack.

 My favorite day was when we went to the beach.  Tyrus told me we were going to get some nachos on the way.  I interpreted this as going through a drive through, so I was just wearing my swimsuit. Turns out they were gourmet nachos in a nice restaurant.  Luckily it's California and no one really cared and I think I actually enjoyed it more, since I wish I could go wherever I wanted to while looking a little bit crazy, anyway.

The beach was beautiful, relaxing and fun.

 Here's the only full family picture we took.  We made the mistake of waiting until we were leaving the beach, so everyone is disheveled, tired and cranky.

Jared and the big kids went to the morning car show.  In this picture Jack's not blinking or almost sneezing.  That's his wacky half-closed eye face he makes which cracks me up like nothing else in the world.  He's awesome, and he knows it.

 The kid's favorite thing was our last morning there, when we went to the Papa's grandparent's awesome backyard pool.  They had been too afraid to go down any water-slides at Legoland, but they finally got enough guts to go down the little slide, which despite being short was pretty fast. They loved it.

 On our way home we were all too exhausted to drive straight through so we stopped in Las Vegas.  We stayed at the Stratosphere.  The kids have always been interested in sky-scrapers so they were very excited.  As you can see here, Annie was certainly not nervous.

 The kids liked it a lot.

We had a great trip and I can't wait to do it again.  Thanks Papa's!!!