Vacation Recap

We're back from a week vacation and now that we're home, I feel ready to hit the ground running tomorrow.  Always nice to go and relax from the daily routine, always nice to come back home and get life back on schedule.  Brief summary of the week -

Saturday 27 April - Left at 12:30, Corey's cousin's wedding at the Manti Temple, then on the road for Las Vegas at 5, arrive in Vegas at 9:30.

Sunday 28 April - Happy birthday to me!  Continental breakfast in Vegas, then Church at the 9:00 Valley Verde Ward, it was their ward conference.  Good messages.  Drove to Yucaipa to visit a mission companion but there was no answer on her phone or at the door (found out later she'd lost her phone on a cruise they'd just returned from, so sad we didn't see each other again), so on to the Escondido Lawrence Welk Resort, kids think we are super lucky to be in such a nice place, and we are.  Brownie Jigglers for desserts and had a Sunday lesson as we watched Les Miserables with comments by Corey about life and choices.  Good stuff.

Monday 29 April - Kids enjoy the resort pool with Corey while I run errands to Walmart and Costco with Corey's parents.  He has them put sunblock on each other, and they all get sunburned.  Well, almost all of them, Corey sunblocked Mel and she got through day 1 of sun unsinged, and Lily escaped un burned as well.

Tuesday 30 April - Coronado Beach with the kids.  They were all crying no to go, they wanted to go swimming and didn't want to spend an hour in the car.  We forced them to go.  We got to the beach and it was overcast, windy, and cold.  And we didn't bring any jackets.  We said a prayer for sunshine and it came.  We spent the afternoon at the beach, the kids learned their lesson by getting burned the day before and they all make sure I lay it on thick, except for Mel who didn't learn by painful experience the day before.  I hadn't done her and ask: "Mel, did you get sunblock on?"  "Yeah"  Later that night ..."I guess I didn't, I thought Dad did it, but I guess I was thinking of yesterday..." followed by "ow, ow, ow..."  the rest of the night any time anything brushed her back.

Wednesday 1 May - We leave 6 kids with Corey's parents and take Joseph and Melodie to the San Diego Temple and do baptisms together - highlight of my week.  Melodie was in the smallest baptism suit they had (she does look like a 4th grader) and I looked totally fab in the jumpsuit with my pregnant belly.  We go to the cafeteria afterwards for some birthday cake, since we learned during the baptism devotional that the first ordinances there were performed 20 years ago.  Fun day to be there.

Thursday 2 May - Legoland, kids are in heaven, except poor Lily, who isn't allowed to ride on the ponies cause you have to be 36 inches AND 4 years old.  She was in tears and we remembered one of the reasons why Legoland doens't have Disneylands reputation.  She was okay after some licorice and they had fun.

Friday 3 May - Legoland Day 2 - I spent the day at Duplo Village with Lily and Sophia, don't know what everyone else did and didn't get pictures of it, but they had fun and got soaked.  Went to the Sea Life Aquarium.  Legoland was the highlight of the kids' week.

Saturday 4 May - Lazy morning packing up and then to the pool for one more time.  We headed out around 4 and arrived for another night in Vegas around 8:00

Sunday 5 May - Church at the Valley Verde Ward again, great testimony meeting that was perfect for our kids to hear, the first testimony and a recurring theme throughout the meeting was about attending church, the kids were all kindof amazed that it was just like what our morning was like, very cool, a meeting they won't soon forget.

Pictures and more details later, after I find where I put my camera...