California Trip: Part 3

Tuesday was our beach day. It was an absolutely gorgeous day in early May and we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. Emma discovered a deep and abiding love of all things beach: she loved digging and building in the sand, searching for shells, playing in the surf, running from the waves, and all the other fun to be had at the shore.Gavin on the other hand had about enough after about an hour or two playing in the sand. He couldn't really understand the attraction of the rest of it--but of course he couldn't hear anything any way!And Josiah, as previously mentioned, probably would have preferred to not hear. Between the waves crashing and the wind blowing and the sand everywhere, he had enough after just a few minutes and really was only content to just sit with mommy and sulk.Later that evening we went back to take family pictures. I never got a copy of the whole family pict, but here is my cute little crew.And here are my two beach buddies that played in the sand together for most of the day. What fun!The next morning (Wednesday) we came back for more pictures (see also the blog title picture), hoping for better lighting and happier kids. We did get better lighting, but...We discovered one of the reasons that Josiah was so grumpy--he was exhausted! Shortly after that picture above where Papa is trying to comfort him, he fell asleep on Papa's shoulder. (Here are our fabulous, generous benefactors--my mom and dad.)And Josiah stayed asleep when passed to Daddy. I don't remember exactly what Emma had said to Jason at this point, but I'm sure it was truly rascally and hilarious! This picture makes me laugh!Emma and Gavin got to go back to the beach house the easy way, thanks to a kind Uncle Barry that pulled them in the wagon. During the day at the beach, I wasn't the one who applied Emma's sunscreen and some how the area around her eyes were missed. She ended up looking like an inverted raccoon with bright red circles around her eyes.Also on Wednesday we went to the San Diego Zoo. We hadn't planned on this trip, but we also hadn't checked the schedule for where we had planned on going--Legoland was closed on Wednesday. So rather than sit around with all the cousins gone to the zoo and Nana and Papa at the San Diego temple, we went with them. It was a neat experience and I'm glad we went, but not one that I feel is worth the money to repeat any time too soon.Besides peacocks and flamingos, there were hundreds of animals, many of which I have never seen in real life before. There was also a double decker tour bus available and a "Sky-fari" tram ride where you could see the whole park from above.
We had dinner at Denny's in San Diego and happily went home a little bit early to bed. Because of the confusion with scheduling, we ended up going to Legoland on Thursday while everyone else stayed at the beach for a second day. But am I sure glad we did because we LOVED it. But that's enough for another entry....