Balboa Beach

Yesterday while we were at Six Flags, Corey's brother and his family took a trip south to San Diego and Mexico, to hit the San Diego Temple and the Tijuana Temple. While they were in the area, they went and had lunch with our favorite missionary! 

How fun is that? We had asked Hyrum if he wanted to see us, cause we would have gone down, but he said no... "No offense, it would just be too weird." And we were ok with that. So we're glad that Mark and Chalane were able to pass a hug from us on to him. 

We spent most of the afternoon out at Balboa Beach today. Mark and Chalane drove over with most of our kiddos, and Corey, Joseph, Ethan, Mel and I rode out on or bikes! We took the ferry across, which cut a bit of time from our ride, so we got there about the same time they did. It was all downhill, and it was good that we didn't haul the bikes all the way out here to California for nothing, so yay, checked that off. Corey's taken a few morning rides too, but I haven't. Today at the beach, I didn't take many pictures, cause I was playing in the waves. 

It was a fun steep shore, like Playa Conchal in Costa Rica - so the waves are big and hit hard, but are also brief. All the kids were out in the waves and got hit a few times. 

It looked fun so I joined in. By that time Mel and Ethan were done, but I swam a bit with Wes and Abi. Cousin Isaac was out there the whole day. Here's video of the little boys running away from the wave. 

Sometimes the waves were kinda big and scary and I was worried they would take a kid out. 

The bathroom was far away. Wesley and Peter looked cute walking over there. They are best friends.

My beautiful daughters on one of their walks back from the restrooms - 

I got clobbered a few times in the waves. When you could see a big one coming, it was scary! I usually tried to swim quickly straight for it so I could dive under it before it smacked me. But we all got hit plenty of times and got sand burns on our legs and saltwater up our noses, but it was great! Cold and refreshing and relaxing. Corey and the kids all took lots of pictures and videos. 

Everyone loves Katharine 💕

I didn't feed Katharine the whole time we were there, but she did get some licks of fruit leather and other things. When we were packing up, I could tell K was hungry and I tried to feed her, but I couldn't cause I was covered in sand, so I ended up not riding my bike back, cause I just had to get back quick to get clean up and nurse. Poor Abi had to ride my back for me. She wasn't thrilled about that. 

Ethan didn't want to ride again either, but Corey purposely did not take his car with the bike rack, so that no one would be able to bailout of riding it back. Back at the room - Katharine was clean and fed and happy. 

We had another movie night - the new Top Gun movie. That was fun. Corey made me laugh as he said "I think Tom cruise is damned. Him and Madonna. He’s stuck doing things on camera. Poor guy is 60 years old and still playing the tough guy on the beach..." Lol! Although we all admitted if we look that young at 60, we'll be pretty pleased with ourselves. So it's been a party, and we have a long drive home tomorrow. We hope to leave early and make it back by Wesley's 7:00 pm YMAD meeting. Goodnight!

Temple and Laguna Beach

Today I went to the temple with Abi and Lily to do baptisms. We went with Corey's brother Mark and his two boys Seth and Isaac. 

Their family has been doing a temple tour! So far they've gone to the Las Vegas and Redlands temples, and today they did Newport. San Diego and Tijuana are coming up tomorrow and Saturday.

It was fun to do baptisms with them today. Afterwards I took too many pictures of the flowers on the temple grounds.

If you want to see all of those, head over to my Glorious Earth blog. I try to put most of my plant pictures there, or else those pics could overrun the posts here.

After the temple, we came back and went to Laguna Beach! My favorite part there was probably beach soccer. I didn't take pictures of that, I'll see if I can get them from Corey. I focused more on playing than on documenting today, and that was good. Our fans in the stadium.

I did get these few of Corey and Wes playing frisbee - 

minus the frisbee part, but they were throwing it, I promise.

And Peter throwing sand! "I'm gonna get you mom!"

"I got you!"

Group photo:

It was a cloud covered day, but we still put on sunblock, cause I've been burnt before. Joseph, Mel, and Ethan were flying in today - 

Leaving Provo - 

They called to let us know that hey had arrived, but it was when we were at the beach. We would have gotten to get them, but they didn't specifically ask or arrange for that, so Corey thought he'd just let them figure it out. And they did. They took an Uber. We made it up to them with a nice BBQ ready for them after they got to the hotel.

Owen and Daniel enjoying their steak.

After they finished, the big kids took their spot - 

Mel missed her baby sister!

We are out here with Corey's brother and sister and their families. Corey's parents didn't make it out for this trip cause his mom has been a little sick. We're praying for her!

And they all finished the day off with swimming and now they're watching an Indiana Jones movie while I blog. Fun fun

More fun coming tomorrow at Six Flags!

Vegas to Newport

We are taking a quick "fall break" trip to Newport, California. The older kids will be missing one day of school, the younger kids will be missing three, cause their fall break isn't until next week. Corey and I took one "last" ride up the canyon this morning to enjoy the fall colors. We'll ride again after we get back, but we're assuming that the leaves will be gone. We're sad to miss the last of it. 

Lovely!

Yeah, I'm sorry to leave when the leaves are still at their peak! I'm also sad to leave 16 chrysalides... I'm hoping with the cooler temps they will not all come out while I'm gone. We had plans to leave right after school (at 4:00) on Tuesday, and we did pretty good - we were pulling out at 4:30. 💪That's the best we've ever done with planned departure and actual departure time! We even cleaned up the house before we left. I made dinner (turkey sandwiches and a bag of grapes and snacks) for Corey and each of the kids. We passed out dinner when we filled up the cars in Beaver, then kept on our way to Las Vegas. We got there around 10:30. We were so excited to bring back memories that we started playing the Flamingo album a little too early. The song that most triggers memories of drives to Nevada in years past is "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas". We started the song, thinking that we were almost there, but then we got through the whole song and still didn't see the city. So, note to future self - start it at mile marker 60, and then it will be at the perfect part doing the chorus for the first time right as you see the city at mile marker 59. Ok, good. We stayed at Springhill Suits on At the room, we all went to bed and the kids woke up refreshed. Peter showing us how to sleep peacefully...

Daniel demonstrating a position that will help you to not get a restful nights' sleep, as his body was half hanging off the bed.

Kids all wake and enjoying breakfast while I nursed Kathrine. 

Then we loaded up. Corey took ODP and they were heading straight to Newport, then to Costco, and would get us checked in and ready with food. 

I took WALSNK and we were going to head to Six Flags until they closed at 5. So we headed out. We listened to the whole Flamingo album on our way out of Vegas today. The chorus of Jilted Lovers and Broken Hearts always makes me think of Lily quickly kicking her feet to the beat as she was getting her frosty in 2012. 

Right after we got on CA-14, it started to rain. Hmm, let's check the weather in Santa Clara. Oh yay, looks like there's thunder and lightening for the rest of the day... Do we bail and head to Newport instead? Well I kept driving to Six Flags, despite Abi telling me it was going to be a fail. We arrived and the let us in at the parking gate. I guess that means that the park must still be open? Maybe it will rain and we'll only get in a few rides, but that's ok. We checked the weather. It said thunder and rain storms for the rest of the afternoon, but it looked ok at the present moment... Hm. I decided we should go for it. Some kids were excited, some were not...

So we walked in. We put K in the wagon facing backwards. 

She's so cute!

So we walked around the park, walked a bit more... The ground was a bit wet, and the rain was sprinkling, but not too bad. Took a bathroom break since most of them didn't on our drive. 

Wes trying to make K laugh - 

He got a few giggles out of her. And then it started to really rain. We took shelter in a food court. 

The girls stepped out to see if it was bad...

Ok, well, I guess we'll call it good! You guys ready to head to the hotel? I think they are, cause they linked arms and skipped toward the exit like they were Dorothy and her friends on the yellow brick road.

Yay for me, another 2 hour drive. Corey was with the little boys. The boys had fun as Corey checked into the hotel.... (wrestling on the lobby couch)

Getting excited about swimming!

Unloading the cars - room 2712 and 2734

When we got there, Corey had a roast chicken and pumpkin pie ready for dinner. Then we all went swimming.

Cute Katharine had fun her first time swimming!

Tomorrow Joseph, Mel, and Ethan will be flying in to join us. We're going to go to the Newport temple, and probably the beach too. Friday is Six Flags with everyone (the weather looks good the rest of the week) and yeah, should be fun!

Kids on Adventures

Abi and Lily got home today from a week up at Oakcrest. I picked them up at noon - Lily coming toward the car - 

Abi close behind her - 

Nice t-shirts! Lily loved it, Abi liked it. Abi said she could NOT become a counselor and do that all summer. Lily said she could. It was fun and busy. Their counselor was a lady named Lexi. Lily says her favorite song was "Bog in the Valley" - something like that. They were in the car on the whole drive some chanting different weird things like "Lonely tree on the mountain top! We love you so hop hop hop! Sah-LUUUUUUTE!" and singing songs. They were different than the songs from when I was a counselor, but the spirit of the silliness and fun of camp was the same. I asked Abi what her favorite song was, and she said "Some of the songs I might have liked, IF we didn't sing them 50 million times a day..." ha. They missed Katharine - 

(SHE IS SO PRETTY!!)

I picked them up after taking Katharine in to Primary Children's hospital for a follow up ultrasound for her kidney - something that they saw when she was inside me at 32 weeks. So, after that appointment at 9 I went to pick up Abi and Lily. I'm glad that they went and had fun, although it would have been nice to have them at the Hibbert get together on Monday. Oh well. Wesley has been gone rafting Desolation canyon. He'll should get back tomorrow I think. Joseph's been gone too - he's in Puerto Rico with some friends - 

Talmage and his wife are down there for the summer cause 1) it is a fun change and an adventure 2)  they can both work remotely, and cause 3) you don't need a passport to go to Puerto Rico!

They had fun running around the jungle... Looks like Costa Rica!

...playing at the beach...

Joseph is always looking for coconuts! - Just like the good ol' days.

and eating exotic foods

I'll try to come back someday before I get this printed to get Joseph to share some of the details of what went on in those pictures. Or I need to tell him to start his own blog!