Friday, July 10, 2009

"FYI I'm expecting a post tomorrow on ur vacation!!!"

That was the text I received from my Mom a few days ago. It was followed yesterday by ""Hope u put vacation pics on blog soon..." I was afraid I was going to start getting threatening phone calls soon so decided to finally sit down and get some pictures up. I was just so overwhelmed by the amount of pictures I had and as more time passed wasn't sure how to go about the post. Do I back date? Do I do a separate post for each day? Too complicated. So here goes.

Last week I took the 3 younger boys (Zach stayed home with Pete to play All Stars) down to Southern California to visit family. My mom flew up then drove down with me. Overall the boys did well, but there was still a fair amount of whining, especially when we hit horrible traffic in LA (at 2 in the afternoon! LA traffic sucks!) What is up with that? I am sure my sister and I didn't complain like that in the car and we did not have the gameboys, DS's, and DVD's that these kids have. Sheesh.


The first day we took the boys over to Balboa Island. We rode the little ferry back and forth.



There is a ferris wheel that we all rode. It wasn't crowded at all when we were there, so the operator let the ride go on for quite along time. There were beautiful views of the bay.

That night we went to the Pirate Dinner Adventure. The kids loved it! There was a live action show going on throughout dinner.

The kids were even part of the show for the last few minutes.

Here are the kids posing with our pirate. It seems this band of pirates gets fashion advice from the Chippendales dancers!


Vinnie didn't take off his pirate band for 2 days. He even put one on Larry the dolphin.



The next day we drove down to the San Diego area for my cousin's party. My family is spread all over SoCal from San Diego to Riverside, so this was a great chance to see everyone at once.



I rocked that limbo stick! Even with a mini skirt.



My mom wasn't too shabby either!

Christopher with his great-grandma Lil.


The entire family! A mixture of aunts, uncles, cousins. Can you figure out which one is my sister? (No guessing if you are a fmaily member! Or Suzie!)



We took one day to go to the Long Beach Aquarium. It wasn't quite the size of the Monteray Bay Aquarium, but was really wonderful.

Christopher actually pet a shark! No thank you!



My favorite part was the Lorakeet forest. Not quite sure what a bunch of birds was doing at an aquarium though. Anyway, you can purchase a little dish of nectar, then feed the birds.


The boy in the red shirt is my sisters, ex husbands, son from another marriage, Jason. Why was he with us? I guess I didn't think I had enough boys as it was! He was a cute kid and fun to have along.



We went to a couple of different beaches while there, Huntington Beach and Crystal Cove (in Newport Beach. Apparently this is where some of the scenes from Beaches was filmed.) These were my favorite days. The kids loved playing in the sand and water, and it was very relaxing for me (well, except the part about watching to make sure 3 kids running in and out of the ocean didn't drown!)


I love this picture of Joey's goofy smile! Get a load of those jacked-up teeth. We are currently accepting donations for his future orthodontics.


Can you guess who the sand sculpture is of? Answer to follow...






After a long day at the beach, the kids were totally wiped. Most peaceful drive of the trip.



Thanks for showing us a great time mom! Please give our apologies to the next door neighbor who complained about the loud boys!

And thank you Shannon (my moms trainer that I got to work out with 1 day), for the great work out!!

(The sand sculture was of Farrah Fawcett. Did anyone guess?)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You certainly hit all the points except the Rain Forest Cafe. Great job thank you. Miss you already and looking forward to next trip. Love Mom

Suzanne said...

Wow! That was great.

My favorite parts were looking at your family picture, seeing how much everyone has changed and marveling at how your your family has grown with all those little cousins, hearing you talk about your trip, and admiring the three sleeping boys. Surely that's the sign of a great day!

And I think you owe five bucks to the person who can find your sister in the crowd. :-) It was good to see her too.

Anonymous said...

Obivouslyyy Farrah!

And Rainforest Cafe isn't that great, all the aquariums and stuff are way better. Too bad you couldn't make it down to SD for the Birch Aquarium, it's really cute and I used to intern there.

Kelly is SO stoked to come up and visit you guys! My Mom is really thrilled that you found a cheaper ticket. (That child tax thing sucks.)

I leave for Italy on Tuesday, so keep you eyes peeled on my blog for updates!

Love,
Cynthia

Laura said...

your children are SO ADORABLE....

Unknown said...

I'm surprised no one took a stab at finding your sister.

I'm going with the chick on the right with the black T-shirt. Final answer.

I did not catch Farrah in the sand, I was looking at your cute kids.

And initially I thought the Chippendale pirate was your husband posing with your kids. And I was like, um, way to go on feeling the pirate spirit?

Now back to the important stuff...when are you going to reveal which one is your sister? I must know.

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