California Fun

These two pictures of Luke perfectly illustrate my love/hate relationship with camping. I HATE the dirt. And when we camp EVERYTHING is dirty!!! All that you have to do is make eye contact with the dirt and there is an invisible magnetic pull that binds every square inch of you to the dirt until you get home and shower. This absolutely drives me nuts. But look at what a little bit of dirt does to this little boy's face! A smile that only dirt can buy. I guess suffering with all the filth that camping brings is worth it after all!

In one of my many futile attempts to keep Luke clean, we got out this mini tent that Grandma D. had sent along. Luke LOVED it. But there was just one little glitch. He insisted that everyone had to be in the tent with him. So he grabbed Dad's hand and pulled him in first. Then he got out and went to find Grandma and he pulled her in. Here you can see he is trying to get out so that he could grab my hand and pull me in as well! It was so funny. So all 3 of us were on the ground trying to squeeze some part of our bodies in the tent. If one of us pulled out, he immediately went after us and brought us back in. Then he would just sit in the tent and smile with our 3 big heads poking in at him. He is so darn cute!!!

So it was off to the beach where Uncle Troy led off the sand burying festivities. Tyler was pleased as punch to be buried neck deep in the sand. He made it look so fun that Jake signed up to be next.

Nice work, Uncle Troy!

Bree's turn! Uhhh, could someone get the hair out of my eye? I have an itch!

Dad's turn! Just as we got Jer completely buried, Luke came over to help. He started dumping sand all over Jer's face. It was so funny. He just kept pouring it directly into Jer's eyes as if he knew it was just what Jer wanted.

Jer decided to see how Luke would like being up to his neck in sand. No surprise here! Aren't these two SO cute???Uncle Troy had this great idea to capture a seagull. So he dug a huge hole in the sand, and put a blanket over it. He put some food and trash on the blanket, then got under the blanket and waited for the seagulls. With some help from Aunt Tiffany, the seagulls were lured to the bait. And as soon as they stepped on the blanket, Uncle Troy grabbed them from underneath! He actually got a hold of one, but it got away! Jake tried to catch one in Troy's trap, but by then they were too smart!Time to hit the waves...let's boogie board! Actually Jake and Bree stayed pretty close to the shore, but Tyler who is 4 years old, was fearless. Grandpa and Mike took him out to the deep water and Tyler rode in wave after wave. He went under a few times and consistently just got right up with an enormous smile on his face. It was so awesome!!Here is Breanna with her ginormous Sand Crab. She and Jake spent a good amount of time finding these things. Definitely one of the highlights of Carp each year. They tried to get Luke interested in them, but I don't think Luke could really distinguish them from the sand. Probably next year!

Time for some adult games, so what to do with 3 babies who could inflict some serious injuries on themselves with any number of things at the campground? Easy! Put all 3 in a port-a-crib and play survival of the fittest. They actually did pretty good for a while. Jake convinced Makayla that she needed a hat and Kaylee chewed on some cards, but eventually all 3 were in tears. It was pretty funny to have them all crying together in the port-a-crib. So we went to plan B (hey, babies or not the games must go on!) We enlisted Jake's help who took the babies on stroller rides. He saved the game! Sadly for me, Tiffany won, but hey, I'm not competitive or anything, so I was really happy for her.
We had the coolest visitor in our campsite. This huge butterfly was with us almost the entire time we were there. It stayed in our little kitchen canopy. Jake of course could not resist the impulse to hold it. He was surprised at how easily the butterfly came to him. It even rested on Jake's head. Jake loves animals and creatures of any kind, so this was especially cool for him.

Well, after 2 days of roughing it, I was ready for civilization! We said good-bye to Carp and headed down to San Diego. We were so excited to see Erica and Jeff and their kids. They live in GA, so we rarely get to see them. We had fun playing games and just enjoyed catching up! Aren't Soren and Luke cute? We stayed at mom and dad's again but sadly they were in Idaho! Our timing was really off on this trip!

We spent Monday at SeaWorld with Nat and her kids. We had an awesome time and rode a ton of rides and saw some shows. As we were waiting in line for this ride, I looked ahead and noticed the woman right in front of us was wearing a spaghetti strap tank top and her entire bra (the wide part where it snaps together in the back) was completely hanging out of her shirt. So I discretely said to my nieces, "You better not ever let me catch you wearing that look!" They turned to see what I was talking about and just laughed. I guess Troy overheard because he stretched his arm out and pointed directly at the woman and said, "HER?" Apparently, Breanna was also listening because in her LOUDEST voice, she said, "Oh don't worry mom, that's not her underwear, it's just her swimsuit". The woman could not have been more that a foot away from Breanna, and we all almost died! But we were laughing so hard, it was all we could do to not pee our pants. That's my Bree...she calls it as she sees it!

Kyle, Troy and Jake. I can't believe Kyle is 16 and Troy will be a Freshman this year!!! They are such great kids and perfect examples to Jake. He loves hanging out with them!

Luke was reunited with his super cool cousin, Sawyer! These guys are going to be such good buddies!! What a great trip! There's really nothing better than being with family!!!