California!!!

California Vacation!  

We put our lives on hold for 8 glorious days and headed to much warmer weather and cleaner air.  The kids were amazing, and everything went as smooth as melted chocolate.

Here are some highlights:

We walked up the Oceanside Pier at dusk...spectacular! (and romantic!)

Sea World...

It wasn't a very busy day at Sea World, so we got to go on the rides multiple times.  Our dare devil daughter Ashlyn asked the guys that ran the "Manta", what the record was for people riding it in one day.  They said "26 times".  Ashlyn was determined to beat the record...she went on it 24 times...but we had to go.  

(she is in red on the 3rd row back)

Amazing girl!

Sea World again...at the whale show...so cool!

California Adventure.  

Some of our favorite rides were closed in Disneyland, so we chose to go to California Adventure instead...not cheap I'll tell ya!

Disney at night!

We took our family to the San Diego Temple where I went with my older kids to do baptisms for the dead and Karl hung out with the younger ones.  The temple president came and spoke to us and really made it special.

Ashlyn turned 10yrs. old on our vacation, so we celebrated at Uncle Milo's home with a dinner and yummy cake!

This was the view outside of our condo.  We stayed in luxury I'll tell ya!

My kids spent a morning playing tennis at our resort.  They haven't really played, so it was fun to just hit the ball back and forth.

We drove up the 101 coastal hwy and found a nice little beach to hang out on.  Being the end of January, it was cold, but as you can see...didn't stop the diehards in our family!

Karl spent a lot of time at the ocean as a kid, and couldn't resist buying a skip board for the kids to play on. (this Utah girl didn't even know what a skip board was!!)

  Connor practiced and practiced until he got it down.  The board now hangs on his bedroom wall...:)

Getting warm in the sand!

Our last day we went to Knotts Berry Farm.  I remember going when I was in High School, and thinking, "this is lame!"  But we had heard they built some awesome rides since then, so we decided to check it out.  SO WORTH IT!  If you like scary rides, this is it.  

My kids loved it!! 

This is the ride that you see above...it starts out catapulting you from 0-82mph in 2 sec!  

Such crazy fun!

C