More Fun

 More sea shell finding fun and exploring on the beach!

 I think Dylan counted 100+ sand dollars that they found! (including the broken ones that did not let him bring home)

 Cadence of course had to organize them and put them all in a long ordered row. :)

 Some friends from our church happened to be vacationing in San Diego the same week we were so they came down and hung out at our house for the afternoon. Dylan had fun finding sand crabs with Eric!

Every evening we would enjoy the sunset. Tonight Cadence joined dad on the balcony and they enjoyed their dessert of ice cream together.

Sea World!!

 We were able to go to Sea World! And on the cheap...our friends have a membership and Mark and I were able to get in for free with that and we only had to pay for 2 of the kids since Isabelle is still 2. I'll be honest and say that the day was even more enjoyable knowing we didn't have to pay a fortune to get in!

The kids did amazing...no meltdowns.

Made for such a great day!

 We rode the sky ride but we weren't all able to ride in one car, so the car to the right in the above picture is Mark and Dylan :). Our brave one...or I mean our not so brave one, Cadence was not thrilled about being in the air and her face clearly showed her unhappiness!

 I let her come over to my side and it helped some...but she never really relaxed while we were on it.

 Beluga whale swimming in front of aquarium.

 Mark and Dylan rode all the rides a few times and was very wet at the end of this one!

 Of course all the kids said their favorite of the whole day was the Shamu show. It was a great way to end our day at Sea World!

More Beach Time!

 We wrote in the sand a bunch while we were playing on the beach. :)

 More shell searching in the morning. I love this of all three...with sisters following behind their leader big brother. :)

 Cadence took this picture of us :)

 Dylan stayed out in the water all day. He honestly would never come in..would be out for hours at a time. I won't be surprised if when he grows up he moves to the West Coast because of his love of the ocean. He got to be really good on the boogie board by the end of day 1, he was able to paddle out while on the board and control what direction he was going.

 Isabelle still wasn't liking the water so she spent her time hanging out in the sand.

I love her little "cheeks" hanging out of her suit. :)

Day 2

 The morning started early with the kids waking up at 5:30...seriously we are on vacation!

So we headed out for some shell searching on the beach. The above picture is a picture of the house we stayed in, our unit was the top left.

 I love to search for "treasures" and so does Dylan so it was fun for us to be able to do that together. We found all kinds of shells and some sand dollars (which ended up that they were all over the place and by the time we left we had almost 100!!). Dylan was so excited, knowing that there were sand dollars out there, that on the 2nd morning he came in to wake me up frantically telling me we have to go down to the beach before all the other people find all the sand dollars! He was literally panicked and was afraid that there wouldn't be any left for him to find. :) I totally know that feeling because I have had it before...so we headed out to find some treasures which ended up being our every morning routine.

 "me and the girls"

 Mark found these shells to represent our family. :)

I love the pier in the background.

 one of a few crabs we found

 We were just a few doors down from the pier. So we went on a few walks down to the end and watched all the people catching fish.

 Just a big boy hanging out with his sisters :). Love it!

 Dylan doesn't know how to "fake" smile, he always looks likes he is mad and snarling in the picture. :) We were telling him that he needed to practice a fake smile, the above picture is him trying to move his cheeks and not just showing his teeth. :)

Love my family!!

Off to California

 For the last 9 days we have been on vacation at a beach home in Imperial Beach, CA and it was wonderful! We all fit snug into our car with no space to spare. I made a project book of coloring and number worksheets for Cadence to work on for entertainment on the car ride there (I surprised her and she loved it!)

 The kids messed with each other but never fought. I was very proud of them! :)

 We played lots of games to pass the time, "I spy" with things we saw outside, "I spy" shapes in clouds and I had printed out a alphabet scavenger hunt where Dylan had to find something with each letter of the alphabet. He got very creative. :)

 We finally arrived at our house (it was actually a 4 plex, simple but perfect for us). It was right on the beach which was amazing! It was sunny but pretty chilly out when we arrived in the afternoon. Right away the kids had their wet suits on and were ready for the water!

 They had so much fun and I was really proud of Cadence for getting in the water right away and not being scared of it.

Isabelle didn't have a wet suit and was a bit scared of the water so we hung out on the beach and played in the sand.

 After a bunch of play time we headed inside where the kids opened their cards from their Grandma R. She had given them each some money for a souvenir for the trip. They of course loved it! I love Isabelle giving the thumbs up (I didn't even ask them to do that! :)). The girls ended up buying necklaces and Dylan bought a key chain and a swirly straw/snow globe cup.

This is the amazing view from our balcony that Mark and I got to enjoy every night!