I'm almost exactly four months behind on documenting our life. So sad. So pathetic. But, I am determined to catch up. I'm hoping in January when our church time switches to early morning, I will have the afternoon to blog as the rest of my family naps, but we'll see. Life has just gotten so busy and hectic. Jason has been working a lot 55-70+ hour weeks. I was working a ton, but it tapered off just a bit. However, as that tapered off, I started doing other things I stopped doing that really needed to be done (i.e. cleaning my house) so life doesn't feel a whole lot less busy. I can work and I can be a single mom, but having to basically do both at the same time is hard. Currently, my role with one of my clients is in the process of changing and I think once I settle into that and get things caught up, I won't feel as busy.
Back to where we left off... the middle of Summer....
On July 13th, we headed to Ventura, California with two other families: the Fillmores and their five children and the Welches with their six children. It was such a fun week. We had access to two houses and we spent a fair amount of time at each house. One house was on the beach. The other was about 100 yards from the beach.
On the way over, we noticed for several miles, every overpass was covered in emergency personnel. After seeing the procession they were waiting for, we realized it was for one (or more?) of the 19 firefighters that lost their lives in the Yarnell fire. It made me cry. That situation is so sad and yet, to see the respect and support being paid to this fallen hero made me proud to be an American. Anyway, that was the only time I cried on the trip, thank goodness.
We arrived Saturday night and the kids played around, the adults visited and I took pictures (naturally). The wives also made a Costco run while the husbands stayed back with the kids. While down on the beach, some drunk guy tried to pick a fight with them. The thought of any one of these guys fighting is comical for so many reasons. We're glad nothing got out of control.
Sunday
Early morning tide pooling. We saw sea anenonmes and lots of starfish. I thought it was awesome. Some of the rocks were so covered that you couldn't even tell it had anything on it. Until you touched it and it moved.
After we got cleaned up, had breakfast, had lunch and got ready for church, we went to church. We showed up just in time for the Spanish Branch to start. Whoops. Luckily, the Spirit is universal. Also, the two speakers spoke in English and they had a translator for the Spanish speakers. We lucked out. After that, we took pictures by this tree in the church parking lot. The pictures don't do it justice. It was HUGE! And awesome.
After naps, we had dinner and then walked around on the beach. The sunset was amazing. We didn't see another sunset this beautiful the rest of the week and I'd like to think Heavenly Father was blessing us for keeping the Sabbath Day holy.
It was also that evening that I felt like I gave myself a good chance to qualify for the worst mother of the year award. We were all visiting down by the water. Hazel went and sat, by herself, in one of our chairs that was up closer to the road. I
Monday
I boogie boarded and was happy that I still knew what I was doing after two kids and all these years.
That evening, the dads created a giant sand hill for the kids to play on.
Tuesday
This was the pirate day in honor of Benjamin's birthday. The kids donned swords, gold, patches and mustaches.
After breakfast, we headed to the harbor. We rented boats and cruised around the neighborhood that backs up to water - every house gets a dock. That's convenient.
We went home, had lunch, played on the beach and then headed over to the other house. We had ribs and chicken for dinner and the kids went on a treasure hunt.
Wednesday
The Fillmores and the Welches went scuba diving all day (9 hours to be exact... not that I was counting) and Jason and I had offered to watch all the kids. So we watched 13 kids, 12 and under, including a 6-month old, for 9 hours. Jason preferred to let them watch movies all day, but I couldn't let that happen. They played pirates, we took them to the beach, fed them lunch, walked to the self-serve yogurt shop (not the best idea, but I didn't realize what I was getting myself into) and then let them watch a movie or two. It really wasn't that bad. The older kids were super helpful. There were two 2-year olds and a barely 3 year old that required the most attention, which wasn't always easy since I was holding the baby most of the time. But we had fun and decided we probably won't have 13 kids. But if we do, we'll have fun.
That night, everyone helped watch our kids and Jason and I got to go out. It was fun, but our meal wasn't great and I felt funny having people watch our kids. I like to do nice things for people because it makes me feel happy and because I want to, not because I expect them to do something nice for me. Ya know?
Thursday
The moms each took their youngest and we went shopping at the outlets while the dads took the rest of the kids to see a movie. I don't usually like outlet shopping, but I found some pretty great deals. We shopped most of the day and then went to the other house for dinner and a fire. That afternoon the Lindbloms arrived, all two and a half of them. That night Jason also tried sea fishing off the wall. He didn't have any luck, but enjoyed trying something different.
That night we had a fire on the back porch of one of the houses. Fires, the waves crashing and the cool ocean air make for a great setting to visit and sit and just think.
Friday
Our last day. It's always hard to really enjoy the last full day of vacation knowing that the inevitable is just around the corner. We packed a lot into this day. In the morning we went to the other house and played on the beach. I also tortured my girls and took pictures of them in their matching hats and sunglasses. Hazel was so exhausted and mostly not cooperative, but I guess that's life.
After that, we went to a shell shop and a candy/soda shop downtown with everyone but Jason. He stayed to fish. I loved the candy shop. It was the best one I've ever been to and their Taffy Town salt water taffy (the best brand) was reasonably priced. They also had all sorts of crazy sodas. I bought a few fun ones and then one as a total joke: bacon.
After that we dropped the kids off at our house and the Welches, Lindbloms and myself (Jason still at other beach house) went to grab lunch at In-N-Out. It was about 3:30pm, but we were eating breakfast around 9:30 and didn't eat dinner most nights until around 8:00pm, so a 3:30pm lunch seemed fitting. That night we went back to the house and just visited.
Saturday
We had to get ready to leave, which included cleaning the houses from top to bottom. We put a movie on for the kids and got to work. We had a nice trip home after we got off the congested freeways near LA. When we exited the 202 freeway, the Welches got stuck at a red light. The Fillmores pulled off to the side of the road, as did we, and we waited. Benjamin said we weren't going to get separated that close to our houses after we'd stayed right by each other all this time.
We had a fantastic week. The kids all played well together and these are the kinds of the things the best family vacations are made of. As I was going through our pictures, I was overcome with gratitude that we are blessed with such good friends.
Also noteworthy, I took hundreds of pictures. This is just a sample of what I took on my phone. I also had my small point and shoot and my DSLR. Someday, I may supplement this post with more great pictures. For now, I have to start somewhere to work towards getting more caught up on my blog posts.
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