A dozen

We spent out 12th anniversary on the road from Aaron's folk's house in South Jordan to Irvine, Ca, stopping in Vegas for the night. We made a pit stop in Beaver, Utah for a few hours to visit my brother Mark and his family at Melinda's family farm. When we arrived at the Yardley's this cute note was waiting for us. 

I have to say, I agree! We do make a pretty great team. There's no better way to celebrate an anniversary than on a road trip with the family we've built together. Ok.... never mind, a relaxing day at the beach would absolutely be a better way to celebrate together. We'll be sure to do that tomorrow.  Newport Beach or bust! Happy Anniversary, Aaron! 

By the way, Vegas is GROSS.  We didn't even drive down the strip and still there was porn everywhere. On the backs of trucks, on billboards, sides of buildings, everywhere. What a sad, disgusting place.  We stayed in a pretty nice Marriott with the kiddies and Sorens legs and feet were BLACK within minutes of crawling around on our hotel room carpet. McNasty! 

Day 13 (friday)

On our last day in town, the children made bead necklaces, crowns, and bracelets while the adults tried to decide what to do.  The beach water was still contaminated, so that option was out, so we finally decided to just leave it up to the kids.  Aaron gave them several choices, including a day in San Francisco, Carmel, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Happy Hollow, and the Oakland Zoo.  Not a bad selection. 

Guess what they chose? 
To go back to Gilroy Gardens!  The best part about this was that it was "bring a friend day" and enough of our family members that went had season passes, so it didn't cost us anything to get in. Score! 3 Cheers for a free day of extreme fun!

We decided to check out the other side of the park that we didn't make it to the week before, because the kids were too busy going on all the rides (since they had no lines).  They ran through the waterfall a bunch of times. This was Corbin's favorite activity of the day. There was no shortage of joy on this child's face as he ran laps around everyone to go through the falls again.

 The kids went through the rock wall maze. I took photos from the bridge above them.  Hey look, there's Paul and HolleeAnn...no making out, guys, this is a family place!

I don't know which of my children keeps playing with the new camera, but my sd card is full of these photo bombs of my dad. Hysterical.

 Quincy and Corbin took the sky tram while Reese and the boys hit the Quicksilver rollercoaster several times.

I love me a belly rubber.

The hot air balloon ride is one of my favorites. Quincy went on it twice. Once with Aaron and I and again with Auntie Amy.

 A cross section from a Giant Sequoia.  We really want to make a trip up to see the giant redwoods sometime.

And finally, cruising in the autopia cars.

For our last night in Ca we got more slurpees from 7-11 (ICEEs are just not the same thing) and hung out while the cousins soaked up every last minute that they could with each other. 

We let them stay up until almost 10pm (and regretted it the next day when the meltdowns of overtired kids kicked in while traveling) and they played games.  Reese learned how to play Farkle, and won her first game. She saved the score sheet for bragging rights (proof that she is totally my child) and asked me to post a picture of it, so Parker and Steven would never forget that she beat them. 

Quincy spent the evening in front of a pad of sketch paper at the table drawing pictures of dogs, mermaids, and dolphins. Corbin took up residence at the base of Uncle "Buddy" Paul's leg and requested to be dragged everywhere.  Paul clocked it as his workout for the day and obliged.

We brought back an extra suitcase of Ca goodness, a fat load of seashells and books, and many memories of a wonderful vacation in California.

Days 11 (wed) and 12 (thurs)

On Wednesday morning, the girls went outlet shopping and had lunch at Erik's deli (mmmm Pilgrim's Progress...) while the men took the kids to breakfast at Flapjacks and back to Casa de Fruita for more fun.
Carter's had a 70% off sale on their baby clothes.  I stood there, overwhelmed, staring at the giant wall of adorably soft and crazy cheap little newborn outfits and while Amy and my mom peppered me with questions about what clothes I need for the baby.

It hit me.

"Huh.  I have absolutely no idea. I have done nothing to prepare for this baby yet, except throw up!"

I don't have a clue what I need. I just assumed I pretty much already have everything I need, since it's our fourth kid, and I had a boy most recently.  Amy pointed out that the boys will be exact opposite in seasons for clothing, and that it was the heat of summer last time I had a newborn, while this time around it will be fall.  This thought never occurred to me, because my girls were almost exactly 2 years apart, so everything fit Quincy the same way it had fit Reese. 

Both my mom and Amy were in less of a freak out mode than I was, so they bought some long sleeved outfits, knowing there would be zero of those in my baby stash.  I bought a pair of tiny jeans that were probably the only thing in the entire store that weren't on sale, but I don't care because they were super soft and had a soft stretchy waistband and I know I don't already have any.  The prices for everything in the store were totally amazing and it killed me to not take advantage and pick up a few more things, but I really have no idea what's in storage from Corbin, so I passed.  I need to get the boy 0-6 clothes bin from storage this week and sort through it.

Anyway, we came home after lunch and hung out with the family for a bit, then the girls went over to Auntie HolleeAnn's for a fancy tea party (notice the fancy hats) and sleepover, and Corbin had a dinner date with Grandma and Grandpa.  The girls LOVED their tea party. HolleeAnn had made tiny tea sandwiches and shaped cheese and served pink raspberry lemonade with pink lemonade flavored cupcakes for dessert.  It was very pink and very fancy!

Aaron and I left around 5pm and drove to Santa Cruz for the night. 

We stayed at the Babbling Brook Inn...which is the same B&B where we honeymooned 11 years ago. It was fun to go back.  We relaxed, slept like 16 hours, and left all the windows open so the freezing ocean breeze would balance out the fireplace that we let crackle all night.  You'd never have known it was June.  We stuffed our faces with fancy cheeses and breads and flavored olive oils and balsamic vinegar.  Aaron's favorite was the blueberry vinegar, I couldn't get enough of the chipotle olive oil. 
The gardens at the inn are charming and serene.

Breakfast at the Inn was huge and fabulous.  They had an assortment of breads and croissants and jams and cheeses, yogurt, granola, fresh fruit, cereal, and delicious broccoli and mushroom quiches that I got the recipes for before I left :). 

We had planned to go to the beach, but there was a safety advisory issued that there was some kind of bacteria in the water from San Francisco all the way down to Big Sur, so it wasn't safe to get in the water.  We drove along the boardwalk, watched the surf for a bit, then walked around Pacific Ave and Ocean Drive for awhile, I'm pretty useless as far as walking goes, these days and get light headed easily so I have to sit down a lot or I feel like I'm about to pass out, so we didn't of places. Instead, we had lunch at Pizza My Heart and people watched.  Man, Santa Cruz has a lot of ugly people.  No one is allowed to judge Arkansas for homely looking people with missing teeth anymore.  We saw more methmouth in 2 hours in downtown Santa Cruz than you see in a month in Arkansas.

It just isn't a trip to Santa Cruz without at least one hippie junk car sighting.  The people watching was just classic that day and by the time lunch was over, we really missed our kids and just wanted to get home to them.  We loved our little romantic escape for the night.  Our room had a jetted tub and down mattresses that were just heaven for my always aching back and legs.  We had great time just being alone together and reminisced of our honeymoon.  It was the perfect little date.  I bought a pair if Roxy shoes and Aaron got a t-shirt, another chinaman hat and a fat parking ticket at the O'neil shop.
My parents and Paul and HolleeAnn had taken the children to the kid's summer dollar movie at the theater in the morning, and we were home before Corbin was even up from his nap.  The girls had gone back over to HolleeAnn's and were busy cooking us a fancy pretend dinner in the playroom. 

  That evening we went to dinner (more tacos, por favor!) then took the kids to the dollar store and told them they could have any (one) thing they wanted in the entire store. 
 "ANYthing??!"
They were on stimulation overload and we were there for like an hour while they made their selection.

Quincy picked out a set of two plastic mermaids within minutes and stuck with her decision.  Corbin ran from toy to toy and just played like a happy little maniac until it came time to leave, we just bought him the most recent thing he had in his chubby little hands, a red hot wheels car.  Reese was dissatisfied with everything because she knew that she couldn't possibly see everything in the entire store during her time allowance and the fear of missing out on something better caused her to resist making any decision at all.

 At the last minute, when she was about to "just settle" on something, she saw a talking play iphone. "Mom, can I uh, have a phone?"  I relied, "Sure, you know it's not a real phone, right?"  (I didn't want her to be disapointed when she got in the car and couldn't call up her bestie.)  She didn't care. She pulled a purple phone from the rack and ran to the counter, finally happy with her choice.  Many of her cousins already have cell phones and she loved the idea of fitting in with the big kids. She was attached to it like a freaking teenager the rest of the trip, and I gasped when I heard the threat, "you will lose your phone priveliges..." come from my mouth. Ahh!
That fake phone entertained her the entire way home from Ca, has been a prop in all of the dramatic play between Reese and Quincy this week, and is now serving as the ideal behavior consequence/reward.  $1 well spent.  I'm so glad my kids have good imaginations and can still be satisfied with cheap thrills.

Day 10 (tues)

We went to the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose.

I haven't been to this place since I was a little kid, and it was even better than I remembered.

The children's literature lover in me fell head over heels for the Clifford section of the museum.  They had the entire town set up, with props and costumes in each for the children to explore.  The sets were amazing and we felt like we were inside the pages of a Norman Bridwell book. This was my favorite part of the museum.

Reese loved all of the science exhibits.  She created electricity by turning cranks and spinning a windmill, she put on a dinosaur shadow puppet show, and got to look at her hair and her fingers under a giant microscope.

Quincy loved the water area but her favorite was the bubble room where you could create walls of rainbow bubbles to put your arms through.

 The best part about this place is that they had activities to entertain all ages.  I took Reese and Quincy to make corn husk dolls (I remember making one as a kid at this place) and Aaron took Corbin to play in the wing that was geared specifically for 2-4 yr old children.  Everyone always had an age appropriate activity to do.

But who had the most fun? Aaron!  They had a water section where streams of water would suspend plastic balls in the air, or send them through baskets and funnels.  It was crazy awesome. Aaron had a crowd of kids gathered around him to watch as he lined up the balls so they'd go up the streams through a cool marble maze type contraption. 

Day 9 (mon)

Monterey is one of our favorite places.
We went to the wharf, watched the boats and the sea otters, ate clam chowder in a bread bowl, ice cream, and watched gumballs drop at Gilberts, watched the taffy pull and got grape flavored (yum!) cotton candy at the candy shop, then walked over to Dennis the Menace Park.

The owner of the candy shop gave the children giant suckers on our way out of the store, because they weren't sugared up enough from lunch, ice cream, bubble gum, and cotton candy.

Dennis the Menace Park is awesome.  Sadly, the giant slides and the climbing train were closed off for construction/maintenence, but the kids still enjoyed the huge roller slide, hanging bridge, climbing wall, maze, twist slide, swings, tunnel, lion fountain, and playgrounds.

The children crashed on the way home. Too much fun in Monterey. We let Coco wake up Corbin and when he was barely awake he said, "Oh, hi doggie (pronounced doh-gie)! You're so cu-ute." then fell back asleep. After that, we couldn't stop calling Coco, "Dohgie".

The party really started when Aaron found the ping pong table in my parent's garage.  It was set up, and he challenged all of our nephews to a tournament...with a promise that he'd take anyone who beat him at ping pong to Foster's Freeze.

 Pretty soon, a bracket had been drafted, and refs were assigned.  I had NO idea how seriously Aaron takes his ping pong. I don't think I've ever even played ping pong with him before.  If I had, I probably would have already known that Aaron is a freaking awesome table tennis player.  No joke. Aunts and uncles were included on the bracket as well, and he schooled everyone.

Except for Parker!  Due to his own mistakes, Aaron lost the final game by 2 points and Parker was dubbed house champ.  They went to Foster's and celebrated Parker's victory a few nights later. 

Go Parker!

And seriously, Aaron, when did you get so good at ping pong? I was totally impressed.  

Days 7 and 8 (sat and sun)

Over the next couple days:

-I saw the worst movie ever made (Battleship) with Mark, Melinda, Amy, Josh, and my mom.  The first part was funny, and then they lost me at the arrival of aliens and it all went downhill from there.  Take my advice, save your dollar and don't even redbox this one.   Everyone else seemed to really like the movie. Maybe it's just me?  I did enjoy teasing Amy and Melinda for seeing it 3 times.

 -Aaron arrived (yay!)

-Corbin made the cutest little father's day craft in nursery in my parent's ward.

-We made s'mores in Paul and HolleeAnn's backyard, heard every Chuck Norris joke there is and watched the kids perform a bunch of skits they learned at cub scout day camp.

-Had a BBQ and impromptu talent show at Mark and Melinda's house.
-We went back over to USA Sport to hang out, watch Taylor tumble (incredible), and so the kids could jump in the whale and show Aaron their new gymnastics skillz.
-Jordan went to Ceres, Garret left for DC and Taylor came home from EFY.

-Taylor taught Corbin the art of the cell phone self portrait

it took him a minute to figure it out, but he caught on...

-Lots of playtime with family and Coco.

-More Super Taq, In-N-Out, It'sIts were eaten.