California

Alright, I'm finally caught up to our California trip, which I've been excited to post about--it was so much fun! We'd been planning on this trip for over six months and couldn't wait to go. I love Florida, but I love my home in California, too, and my heart longs for it when I am away. I always miss my loving family and good friends and, of course, beaches with waves and places like Disneyland.

Of course the best thing about this trip was all of the people we got to see. I was so excited to see my family after having not seen many of them since Thanksgiving or even August! Even seeing Tanner at the airport after two weeks away from him made me so happy. So that was by far the best part: two weeks with my Dad and Debbie; Banks, Nan, and Max; Jocelyn, Jason, Ellie, and Zelda; my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. And one of my best friends, Candace.

The first big adventure we had was our week-long stay at the beach house. It was, in my dad's terms, "a kick"! It was a beautiful, two-story home, with big windows all along the second floor overlooking the beach, a pool room, and even a sauna that we made some good use of. The first thing we did was stock the house with treats from Costco, and we were good to go!

I'm not going to put captions on all these pics, but to sum this week up, the four cousins had a lot of fun playing with each other and were all really cute, we big people had a lot of fun eating out at places like Ruby's, hole-in-the-wall taco shops, BJ's, vegan pizza places, and fine Medditerranean cusine on Balboa Island, playing at the beach and at the tide pools, going on night walks looking for grunions and glow-in-the-dark plankton, taking long walks in the middle of the day in the blazing heat for no particular reason, celebrating Max's one-year birthday, and sweating ourselves to death in the sauna just because we could. It was fun, fun, fun.

So, after the first week, we left the beach house and spent two days at Disneyland! Best Disneyland trip ever. I practically lived at Disneyland and California Adventures as a teenager, but it was a totally different experience with my husband, not to mention my dad, Banks, and Jocelyn, and their families. Again, it was just so much fun to be together. 

Here are the pics! (As you can see from them, Ezra's two favorite parts of the park were the wooden railings in the Pinocchio restaurant and Grandpa. Both made him happy, and he kissed them a lot.)

Buzz Lightyear was our first and one of our favorite rides!

Ellie and Max loved the giant waterball in Tomorrowland. They were both totally wet after playing with it.

Tanner took all these Cars pictures for the Bodinies:

And lastly, we went to a Dodgers and an Angels game, and we went to the Irvine park and drove around on one of those four-people bike things! Ezra was supposed to wear a helmet but would not keep it on.

Last of all, 10 points for the first person to find Ezra:

Our trip was amazing! We can't wait to visit again!