Cali!

We took our yearly vacation to the beach a little early this year, just had to get outta this heat! Just can't get enough of the California weather...it was absolutely gorgeous...we are still wondering why we live here?! :-)

***This post is long so I will break it up. First 3 days we spent in Oceanside, CA.***
Monday-We took our time driving, stopped in Yuma for lunch and then onto Oceanside where we got "the hookup" on our hotel stay. Thanks Brian! The kids did great on the ride thanks to DVD/DS's. Got there about 3:00, checked in and headed straight for the beach!! Had dinner at the Harbor fish market, yum!! Great referral from a friend,thanks. I dont even like fish, but I really actually liked this place!





Tuesday--We hit a great week to come to California as it was their first WARM week all year, and boy did the beaches reflect that. We slept in a little, ate a FREE hotel breakfast(yay!) and were on the road to find a store to buy some beach toys. We spent all day at the beach and had a blast, the kids had their first experience of burying each other and loved it! They also loved making sand castles and playing football with daddy. Afterwards, we walked to the pier and watched the surfers from above. Talan was amazed...so we sat and watched for quite awhile. At the end of the pier was a Ruby's diner that overlooked the ocean. How awesome!? We sat upstairs and had a spectacular view of the ocean and enjoyed some shakes as an early appetizer before our dinner! Gotta love vacations!





We headed back to the hotel, cleaned up and went to the harbor again for dinner. And of course another nightly walk on the beach, those are the best!






Wednesday-We surprised the kids when they woke up and secretly drove them to LEGOLAND!!(thanks to some great BOGO coupons we found!) They were so excited as we were driving in and Talan instantly spotted all the little legoman on the lightposts, etc! I had us all wear suits under our clothes and I'm so glad we did because it got pretty warm (for us, but HOT for the locals), so when we did get wet it was very refreshing. We spent the first part of the day in the park and the second half at the on-site waterpark, which the kids LOVED! Our favorite was the family sized tube that we could all fit on. Too bad I didn't have a waterproof camera...as I have no pics from the waterpark.












Afterwards, we were starving and headed to Outback for a free dinner from Chad's boss! Score! Talan was so stinkin tired, but thankfully was in a great mood. Chad had promised him all day that after we left the park we would go buy Lego Harry Potter for the Wii (yes, we tried to buy it at Legoland however, they were sold out). Talan has been saving his money for this game and would not let go of the subject. SO even being so exhausted after a LONG day, we found a Walmart!!! However, there is a side story to finding walmart--It only took us about 20 mins to arrive there after seeing it from the freeway, getting off and on again at the wrong exit and tried to find our way back through a neighborhood..geez! Along the way Talan passed out and we were like "great!" We knew if we just went back to the hotel he would wake up and freak out that we didn't stop for the game, mind you we don't have the Wii with us, it's back in AZ and he can't even play it until we get there. Oh, the things we do for our children. But as soon as we found the walmart and parked he perked right up and ran right in to find his game. Thank goodness we stopped, because I'm pretty sure he fell asleep with that stupid game! :)