Newport beach. day two.

Brayden and I woke up (leaving a sleeping jer & kosty) and walked to the Starbucks by our hotel so I could make good on my promise that I would 'someday' buy him one of those overpriced chocolatey drinks he tried a sample of many months ago. He slurpped it down in about 10 seconds. It was fun to just be with Brayden for a bit.

then we got back to our hotel where we found kosty up and ready in his swimsuit, enjoying his comic book on the balcony.

Then we went back to the beach where we played lots of scoop ball (our favorite) and just played.

Kosty was cracking me up, he was making all sorts of fighting poses at the waves and he was getting SO into it. He had some intense facial expressions, and Brayden said it best when he said, "Kosty like thinks he's like the toughest and coolest guy on earth!"

Yes, yes he does.

Here we made good on our promise to Kosty for his favorite donut of all time from Seaside Donuts on the pier

I love this one, we were waiting in the hotel lobby forever....for Jer to finish a few work emails...

We met up with our friend Derek who also randomly was staying at our same hotel with his cute kiddos. We went to Red Robin on Fashion Island and then walked around the Koi pond till late. The kids had these plants and were pretending to fish. They LOVED it there.

Then we went back to our hotel and soaked in the hot tub. Did I mention the kids went to bed at 11ish every night and slept till 9:30? That was pretty cool. Thank heavens for those dark hotel rooms!

newport beach. day one.

(I can hardly handle his cuteness!)

We just got back from our annual Newport Beach trip. Our first time not in a beach house and our first time with our own little family. Different for sure, but it was so much fun and memorable as always.

Since jer is the only one trained in what he does at his new(ish) job, taking off was pretty difficult and this is what most of the first day consisted of. High stress. We had to pull over and find random WI-FI spots at certain times and he had strict time deadlines. He almost got left there at McDonalds in Indio on the ride up ;) yes, we sat at a different table.

Finally we arrived, checked into our hotel and went straight to the beach. All was happy again. It was a gorgeous evening and the water was freezing, but that didn't stop Brayden from getting all the way in.

First day beach pictures are always my favorite ever. The pure joy and excitement when the kids first get to the beach is unforgettable. You can just see how happy they are here. I felt extremely grateful this trip. The boys are at such fun (& easy) ages, they get along so well, and they had the best energy. They were so full of positivity, and they radiated with it!

4th of july

gramma, mindy, dave, and zoe

Father's Day 2010 (sorry, lots of catch up posts here)

Jer is not much of a breakfast person, but this time he requested waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, bacon, etc. I think he liked it.

Brayden read the whole Book of Mormon in about a week. We will just say that the $50 incentive from his Dad was the push he needed and lets also just say that I'm pretty sure he did some heavy skimming. But, he did it I guess ;)

Last night I had the best dream ever.

I had just given birth to a beautiful 8 lb baby girl. She had one of those teeny pink bows on her head that just stick on and she was wrapped in a pink blanket. We had told all of our family that we were having another boy and then surprised them all when they came in and saw her. I was sobbing hysterically because I was so grateful.

I so didn't want to wake up!

Did you know the Lego Store gives away free lego kits the first Tuesday of every month? well, neither did I but now I do- and so do you. Of course if you think a teeny thing like above is worth a 2 hour wait in line. They do something that correlates with the month so July was a watermelon, August is a pelican, January is a snowman, December a Christmas tree, etc, etc... Well besides Brayden sticking his foot through the hole on the 2nd level and dropping his flip flop onto the Banana Republic, we had a great time.

Thank you to the kind man in front of me for flagging down a maintenance worker. Thank you to the security guard who told the maintenance worker to try to get it down, and of course THANK YOU to the wonderful maintenance worker for bringing it to us.

I had smacked brayden & written that shoe off. Didn't realize the mall staff would be so helpful!