Home Finally!

I never would have imagined that it would take us almost 10 hours to get home. We hit some serious traffic jams twice...about 2 hours in each. Nice! California is so pretty and GREEN and cool weather wise....it only in the high 80's. But the traffic and congestion stinks. We had a pretty pleasant trip. We decided to do Legoland the first day and get the stressful part over with. It was much more crowded than I remember last year and harder with Brandon. He was a trooper though. Poor kid had the raw end of the deal. I'm not really too impressed with Legoland. There was ONE ride that Kade could go on. We had the usual breakdowns but all in all they were good. Towards the end of the evening, we stumbled upon the water part. We didn't bring our swimsuits, but Kade stripped down (Kyle didn't think that far in advance) and they got sopping wet. Had a blast. I wish I had my camcorder because Kade was hilarious at the fountains. He was so expressive: running and jumping and looking at us for approval... and people were walking by watching and laughing at him because he's so gosh dern cute. That happened quite a bit. Whenever a stranger smiles at Kade, he gets this shy face and hides. I tell him that they are smiling at him because he's so cute. He says, "No, Brandon is cute!" I tell him that he's cute too. "OH" he says.

The second day, we went to Encinatas beach. That's where we went last year. Cute little beach where you can rent boogie boards and such. It was busy there. I did not get nearly the pictures I wanted. Brandon was miserable and I spent most of the time holding him. Missed getting pictures of Kyle in the ocean. He LOVED it. He would run and jump. We told him he could only go up to his waist. Cute boy kept checking the water level on his trunks. He really wants to be a surfer he says. Lauren was more cautious. It took some serious coaxing to get her in there. Steve had scared her by telling the story of Paul Gubler getting stung by a stingray. But once she took a turn on the board, there was no getting her out of there. The two older kids gathered seashells and found some good ones. Kade played in the sand and ran from the waves. He loved the birds and would run off chasing them. He was in heaven. Brandon was miserably hot and I didn't realize that the sun had shifted because it was a little overcast, and he got sunburned on his cheeks. I felt terrible. Actually we all got sunburned.

We decided that next year will be better. Brandon will not be nursing. He will be able to walk and play in the sand and water. We can stay longer and have more fun. And we will rent two boogie boards since the kids had such a blast. We say that every year though (that things will be better) but I mean it this time.