We're Ba-ack...

10 days sure flies when you're havin fun! But its so true, there's no place like HOME. We got to Newport on Wednesday night where we stayed with my BF from high school, Jenna and her familia. Who have been graciously inviting me to stay with them every year for the past 11 years. (even after I got married, good thing they like the rest of em!) Maybe they enjoy my company, or maybe they are just TOO nice to say NO! Anyhow, Sandy our "beach house mom" takes such great care of us, and cooks DELICIOUS food. We went to the beach pretty much every day and then Saturday came and Jer's family came up and we had the top floor of the beach house and the Hestands had the bottom floor. What a party! And of course Brayden and Kosty were excited to be with Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Zach and Aunt Cede.

On Tuesday we all made a trip to Sea World, after mucho convincing Brayden that Disneyland was "closed up" for the week (I hated lying to him, but TRUST me, it was the only way!) and then he was very excited for Sea World! Right when we got there, we rented a double stroller (the best $15 I ever spent) and we ate lunch and went to the dolphin show. It was so funny because every single time the animals did something cool, ALL of us would turn and look at Brayden and Koston to see their reactions. It is so much more fun to see the magic through their little eyes. The kids LOVED to read the map and point out where they wanted to go next. Kosty did surprisingly well too. I was nervous about a full day with no nap-- he is a definite "NEED-a-nap-kinda-kid." And he was soooo good until about 4:00 when he was officially exhausted. We were at the starfish area, and they were each holding a starfish, when Kosty decided it would be much more fun to slam it back into the water, after some disturbed looks, he giggled and wanted to do it "a-gin!" So I took him away and he threw a fit, then fell asleep. That poor helpless starfish. Ouch. I sure hope he will forgive Kosty someday! Anyways, we went to the sting ray exhibit and Brayden was too scared to pet one. I said, "Brayden, when we came to Sea World last time, you pet them. " He said, "Well, mama. There's 2 of me. That one was the brave one, and this one is NOT." I just love his explanations. We also decided to go all the way and hit up the 9:30 "Shamu Rocks" show at dark. It was sooooo awesome. It so rekindled my long-lost dream of becoming a Shamu trainer. How fun would that be! And Kosty was jammin out, out of control dancing the whole time. It was hilarious! After the show there were fireworks and we said our goodbyes to Sea World.

Pretty much every day after that we hit up the beach and had yummy food. I took Kosty on a walk down to the pier every morning, he sure loved it. We caught sand crabs, (My record was 56 of those lil guys in ONE handful, it was pretty gross.)We rode the beach cruisers, played night Frisbee with the glow in the dark Frisbee, (followed by the next day Kevin giving Brayden private Frisbee coaching after he declared he was the "stinkinist" player ever!) we played Apples to Apples, went to Jane's corndog for snacks and ice cream and of course all the fun shops. And we were pretty much all deliriously tired by the end of each day. Of course all the Figgins would tell you it was me! Everything makes me laugh really, really hard once I get past tired! Jer thinks he is so funny, but really he just always takes full advantage of my "delirious window." The last day we went over to Huntington Beach (about 10 min away) for the U.S. Open. It was crazy, there were millions of people. They had this Surfer Induction Hall Of Fame thing in the morning, and Jer got his surfboard autographed by Al Merrick. He was SO Happy! They had a ton of Pro-Surfers signing posters all day, and Brayden was so happy to get one!

Kosty had a couple of OBSESSIONS on this trip.

#1. Talking about Jenna's dad Jeff and how he growled at him, and it scared him. Seriously, poor Jenna and Kevin. That's all he would talk about for about 3 hours straight one night. He would point at the beach house, growl, and then tuck his hands up around his chest. We had to narrate for him. "At the beach house, Jeff growled at you, and it scared you. " He would say "yeah." and then repeat the motions over and over. He must have really thought it was therapy.

#2. Pushing the dang stroller!!!!!!! It was the most annoying thing ever. He wanted to push that thing everywhere. Notice the crazy look in his eye in the pic.

#3. The Sea World map. He would sit and and look at that thing over and over. And his favorite thing was to point at the flamingos and hear me say "pee-yoo! stinky!" For some reason that cracks him up.

#4. His fear moved on to Tyler (Zach's friend) and Dale (Cede's boyfriend) every morning before we went downstairs, he HAD to tell me about how he was scared of Tyler and Dale.

Ok. Enough! I am cutting myself off at this point. But this was a such fun trip and I want to remember all of it! :)