San Diego

My sisters and I took all of our kids and headed down to Mission Beach for a week's vacation. None of us had been before, so we didn't really know what to expect. We somewhat randomly picked a beach house off of vacationrentals.com and hoped for the best. We were pleasantly surprised as the house was situated right between the bay and the beach. All of us have little kids, so the bay was perfect for the smaller ones. The beach house was pretty cool and kept up so that it didn't look like a rental. They had so many amenities- bikes, boogie boards, tents, sand toys, DVDs, games... it was great. We really didn't have to bring anything! This was also my first occasion to go to Sea World and it was great! No lines, you get splashed to keep you cool, neat animals... it was great. Dallin loved the dolphin show (we went twice) and stills talks about the fish jumping high out of the water! Overall, it was a real fun week!

The Sea World group... Chloe, Colin, Kobe, Ava, and DB

We loved taking the kids on bike rides. I honestly hadn't ridden a bike in forever and was nervous to get on, let alone take the kids on it behind me (don't worry, the trailer only came off once while I was riding leaving the kids stranded in the middle of the road! It was quite the sight!! You should have seen the look on Pistol and the Goose's face... priceless!)

Of course, we made many visits to the beach

Lots of eating...

Lots of baths!!
(The Goose, Dallin, and Chance. All born within two months of each other.)

Save the drama.......

As I mentioned before, Josh really wanted to see Barry Bonds hit the next homer. Wednesday, him and DB went to the game and sure enough, Thursday he called saying we just REALLY needed to go to that night's game. Now, he wasn't necessarily saying that Bonds was going to hit a home run, but we should be there just in case. In my head I'm thinking, "Gosh, both boys aren't really going to sit through the game. It is a lot of work..." blah, blah blah. The conversation went on in my head for a long time but I'll spare the details. In the end, I agree without much complaint that, yes, the whole family should be at Dodger Stadium. So we load up, fight the traffic to get to the game, and play the waiting game to get to the parking lot. Since things were taking a little longer than expected, I gave Porter a bottle while he was in his car seat. Well, somehow the nipple goes inside of the bottle and all the milk spills all over him leaving him a soppy mess and, not to mention, still hungry. When we get to the game, I peel his wet clothes off. Luckily his swim trunks (of all things) were in the car. So I put those on and leave him shirtless with the intent of buying him a new t-shirt inside. So here we finally go trudging into the stadium, half-naked baby and all. Yosh goes to pick up our tickets (including the two friends' we were there with) at will call.... only to find that they are not there. Pretty embarrassing especially when other people thought we had everything under control. Determined to make it inside the stadium, Yosh and Jon start scouring for tickets. It's funny the things you start seeing and hearing when you need tickets. Until this day, I was completely oblivious to the under ground world of ticket selling that takes place INSIDE the stadium. People are walking, looking straight ahead, yet still asking, "Tickets? Tickets?" I was amazed. Unfortunately, nothing was offered that suited our needs... until exactly 30 seconds after the boys bought tickets and the girls decided we were going home. It was insane, the timing. After all the effort, Anneli and I turned around and walked out of Dodger stadium with my still half-naked baby without seeing a single pitch while the boys watched Barry Bonds have another hitless night. Just one of those nights...

Here we are right before we went our separate ways... outside of the Stadium! So sad!

Witnesses to History... almost!

Yosh and Dallin were determined to be at the ball park when Barry Bonds hit the record-breaking homerun. They got suited up in their Dodger gear and went to the stadium to wait and witness. Barry Bonds got up to bat several times (I think three times). Each time the stadium roared to life- even though a lot of the noise was the crowd booing Barry Bonds- hoping that, despite the overall dislike they felt towards Bonds, they would be there when history was made. Unfortunately, last night was not the night. I know Yosh is still dying to get tickets to tonight's game- we'll see if it happens. The attitude out hear seems to be that he has no interest in breaking the record here in LA due to the rivalry. Who knows. You just have to ready. You never know when history is going to be made...