Vacation Day 2: Beach & Nancy

So for day #2 of our CA vacation we drove down to Grandma Kinsfather's house in Redondo Beach to get some beach time in while we were there.  Trek & his family stayed all day at the beach while I went to visit my friend, Nancy.  Nancy is our family's "fairy godmother" & has been since I was 17 years old when I met her on an airplane ride when I worked for Disney.  We became fast friends & the rest is history.  She has adopted our family as her own & so I was excited to spend an entire day alone with her shopping & having a great time.

The family had a great time at Grandma's house playing, dying eggs, doing genealogy, & playing on the beach.

Grandma Kinsfather loves her great-grandbabies SO much.  I wish we lived closer so we could see her more often.  I love her so much.  She likes to email me & I love emailing her back.  She is such a sweetheart.

It was the perfect day for the beach.  The sun was hidden behind clouds & it wasn't overly hot.  The water was warm, the sand was beautiful, & the beach was almost empty.  It was perfect.

There were several dolphins out & close to the beach too.  The kids had fun calling out to them & tried to get pictures of them when they'd pop their fins out of the water.

My girls have always been ocean lovers.  They absolutely LOVE jumping in the water & letting the waves crash on them.  They have NO FEAR. . . unlike me.

Opa even got Bladen to step into the water & play.  Bladen has had a harder time warming up to water.  Thanks to Opa, I think he really enjoyed himself this time.

Craiger stayed out of the water & hung out with his Auntie Carolyn the whole time.  I really miss living near family.  We don't get to see each other often enough.  This vacation is just what we needed right now.

And this little munchkin LOVED playing in the sand.  He was all giggles & smiles the entire day.

After enjoying some fun in the sun, the kids came inside to dye Easter Eggs.  Auntie Marc flew in right about this time & came to visit as well.  We lived SO close to Auntie when we were in Monterey.  Oh how we miss her!!!

Though I missed out on the beach fun, I had a blast with Nancy.  She is such an angel & wound up buying me an entire summer wardrobe with 6 pairs of pants, 9 shirts, & 3 pairs of shoes.  She always spoils me rotten.  We had a great time catching up & chatting about life.  I miss our visits.  But I am VERY happy I got to spend that full day with her.

After we were completely worn out, we headed home (2.5 hours in LA traffic, ugh) & picked up some Tito's Tacos on the way.  Titos is a hole in the wall Mexican joint under the freeway by LAX.  We've eaten there for years & it's now a Potter tradition.  We ate & ate & ate & ate & ate until we were all sick.  It was PERFECT.

Vacation: Day 1 - Movies & Play Places

When we arrived late that night Camp Potter was up & ready for us.

I love how Opa & Oma set up tents for each of the kids with welcome mats at the entrance & pillows, sleeping bags, & flashlights inside.  There's always a "present" when we first arrive & the kids loved their new t-shirts & jewelry.  We love 

CAMP POTTER.

We all slept like babies that first night.  The 3 hour time difference always takes a few days to get used to, but we did alright.  The first day of our trip we went out to see a movie as a family & then went to a fun bounce house to play.

We saw Rio 2 & the kids loved it.  We always love going to to the movie theater since we only go a couple times a year.  The kids LOVED watching a movie with their cousins & Opa & Oma.  Bladen played in the video arcade after the movie & was REALLY into the motorcycle game.  He's growing up so fast.  I just want him to stop!!!

After the movie we drove to a really fun bounce house place where both kids & adults get to play.  Bladen's favorite thing was this climbing game.  He is such a climber & made it almost to the very top.  None of his siblings could get as high as him & he even out climbed Trek.

Canyon spent most of his time exploring on his own.  He likes to crawl around & see things on his own these days.  He climbed into a few of the bouncy things, but didn't enjoy them as much as the big kids did.  But he still had a blast.

All of my kids loved the steep slides.  They would go up & down & up & down & up & down.  They convinced me to go a few times with them & holy cow. . . those slides are really up there & they go a lot faster than I thought they did.  I admit my heart may have raced a little bit my first time down.

Trek & I both LOVED challenging the kids to duels in the dueling rings.  Of course we show no mercy & totally win every time.  It was fun going up against each other too.  Trek always beat me, but it was fun making it a challenge for him.

We convinced Oma to take Ella up to the top of the big slide.  Once she got up there she realized she really didn't want to do it anymore. . . ha ha ha.

Trek blocked the way so she couldn't chicken out & go back down so she HAD to slide.

It was beyond HILARIOUS.  Ella liked it. . . Oma did not.

Canyon LOVED the slide.  My boys are just sliders.  They love slides & the bigger the slide is, the better it is.  They get that from their dad.

When we were tired of running, jumping, climbing, & sliding we checked out the quarter horse ride & let the kids have some fun.

And then we headed back home for a fabulous spaghetti dinner with homemade milkshakes.  Oh Opa, how I've missed your world famous chocolate-peanut butter milkshakes.  YUM.

And we're off on an adventure. . .

We've been waiting for Spring Break for months now.  We knew we were going to CA to visit Trek's family & the kids could hardly wait.  Of course we HAD to fly since we live on the complete opposite coast & the kids were SO excited to be on an airplane again.  This was Craiger & Canyon's first time on an airplane too.  It was SO fun.

Of course our first flight reminded me of why I despise flying so much. . . our flight was delayed 2 hours & 15 minutes.   We had a layover in Chicago that was supposed to last 2 hours & 30 minutes meaning that there was a possibility we would miss our connecting flight from Chicago to LAX.  Ugh.  The kids were bored after the first hour of delayed sitting at the airport time.

Our plane did finally arrive & it was tiny.  The boys were SO excited to hop on.

It was such a small plane that there was only 1 seat on the sides, meaning all the kids had to sit by themselves.  Yikes.  Luckily the plane ride was great & nobody had any issues

(other than Craiger & Bladen having to go potty in that tiny bathroom 6 times in 2 hours.)

We landed in Chicago 10 minutes before our next flight took off.  Our 2nd flight was all the way on the opposite side of the airport as well.  We knew for sure we weren't going to make it.  Luck was on our side though.  Even though the flight had already boarded, they knew our previous flight was late, but had arrived so they didn't shut the doors until we got on.  I was counting my blessings at that point.  We were running through that airport like crazy people.  It reminded me of the scene in Home Alone where the family almost misses their flight to Paris & they're sprinting through the airport.  HILARIOUS.

However, because we were so late, we didn't get to eat lunch/dinner during our layover as we had originally planned.  We ended up having to BUY food on the plane which is completely over priced & disgusting.  That's $60 we'll never see again.  ha ha ha.  But at least our bellies were full, we were happy, & we were on our way to Opa & Oma's house.

Princess Fairy Tea Party + A Few Pirates

My friend & I decided that we wanted to do a cute little princess fairy tea party for our girls the weekend spring break started just for the fun of it.  She brought her daughters & a few friends over & we set up an adorable little picnic outside in our backyard.  We had fairy wings & princess hats & little tea cups. . . it was so fun.

And of course we had a couple pirates invade while we ate.  A party just isn't a party without a few cute pirates.

Even Canyon got a mustache to show his pirate side.

We all had a great time. What a fun way to start Spring Break here in Virginia.

Taya's Easter Party

I absolutely LOVE being the room mom for Taya's Kindergarten class.  I get to plan all the class parties & have a blast with the kids.  I love it.

For Easter we had a great party with arts & crafts, egg coloring, games, snacks, & a big Easter egg hunt outside.  The kids were SO excited.

Taya loves egg hunts.  She couldn't wait to get outside & hunt for the candy & toy filled eggs.  She did very good at counting out her 20 eggs as she collected them.  She is such a cutie.