~San Clemente Beach~

One of the days while we were in California we decided that we were going to take a break from theme parks for the day so we went for a drive down the coast. What a beautiful drive. I really enjoyed going through all the little towns and seeing all the beautiful homes and the large boats. After a little while in the car the boys were getting a little restless so we decided to take a break at San Clemente Beach.Just after we parked our car I saw this little Volkswagen Thing in the parking lot. I just had to have a picture of it. I think it would be something fun to drive around in if I lived there. Anyway here are more pictures of our day. . . .

Kode and I taking a quick picture! Just before we walked the Beach we stopped at a really good restaurant there on the beach to have some lunch (some clam chowder soup. and man it was the best clam chowder soup I have ever had)

This is what the water looked like. You could see it for miles. It was so BEAUTIFUL!!

Shawn showed the boys these muscles that were attached to this pole. The boys were interested in how they got there and how they were still hanging on there!

Just the two of us!

Grams and Bry watching the water as it came up the beach

When we first got to the beach Bry didn't want to get wet nor did he want to take off his shoes. He said he just wanted to walk around just for a few! Ha Ha! It was only about 5 minutes into walking the beach when he asked if he could take off his shoes and play in the water. This picture was taken just after he took off his shoes and felt the sand on his feet for the first time! It was so fun watching him play in the water and on the beach!

Kode just wanted to play on the beach. He had no interest in playing out in the water. He said he really wanted to build a sand castle but this kind of sand you could not build anything. So he just dug in the sand and made little puddles!

Bry taking a break from wading in the ocean and came to see what Kode was doing. He figured that Kode needed some help!

just another picture of them playing!

As Shawn and Roger were walking the beach Roger found this crab. They hooted for us to come over to take a look at it. This was the first time that the boys had ever seen a real crab, so it was pretty cool that they talked Kode into picking it up and of course I had to have a picture! Awesome braveness Kode!

Grams and Bry wading in the ocean. Bry just made me laugh cause he said he just was not going to get wet and he was doing everything to try to prevent it like holding his rolled up pants as high as he could but no matter what he did he still got pretty wet. It was fine cause he had lots of fun!

Just walking the beach

We had a great time roaming the beach. It was so nice cause there was hardly any people there. It was a little chilly out but still a nice day to enjoy ourselves at the beach. It makes me want to live a little closer to a beach so we could visit more often!

California Adventures!!

California Adventures was a very fun place. There is not a lot of rides there yet but the stuff that is there is lots of fun, and the lines were perfect. Not to long not to short! this picture of Bry was taken at Grizzly Rapids by their beautiful waterfall! (I couldn't get Kode to take a picture with Bry so all you get to see is Bry)

and then here is Shawn and I

and of course I had to get a picture of all 4 of us

It was a pretty chilly day so the boys and I didn't want to go on this ride and get all wet and be cold for the rest of the day. So we opted to stay and watch for them on the ride!

and here they are. Actually they really didn't get very wet!

Ooh my goodness!!

While we were in California Adventures Fenious and Ferb were there and Bry just loved watching them. He still talks about seeing them today!! Actually they were really cute and I think that we all enjoyed watching them!

I took this picture just before we went and saw the 4D Movie of "Its a bugs life" That movie was the cutest 4D movie I have ever seen.

This picture was from when the boys (Shawn, Bry, Kode, and Roger) went on the Tower of Terror. They said that they really liked that ride! (I don't like those kind of rides that drop you from way up high so I let them go and I stayed behind!)

While we were in California Adventures the boys and my mom wanted to ride the Screamin ride. After seeing how the ride starts I did not want to ride it so I just hung out with Roger and took some photo's. this is at the entrance of the Screamin ride. It just looked so cool at night so I had to take a picture!

here they are just lining up to take off

and this is what their faces looked like while they were on the ride! Crazy!! I was so surprised that Kode rode the ride. He didn't used to be a daredevil but he sure had a great time on this ride. They all loved going on the ride and said if we went back to California Adventure they would ride it again!

This is just a picture of California Adventure at night. It is so pretty with all of the lights!!

So there is a story behind this!! We rented a house in Huntington Beach (only about 20 minutes away from Disneyland) and each morning before we left the house Shawn would make all of us breakfast. Well the first morning we got up he made hash browns and eggs. Well we all wanted some ketchup or hot sauce to put on our hash browns but did not have any. So while we were in California Adventures Shawn saw a stand that had these small packets of ketchup so he grabbed a handful of them and told me to hang on to them. I didn't have much room in my jacket pockets so I stashed them in my fanny pack! (well the story gets better) So later on that day we decided to go back on over to Disneyland. Well each time you cross from one park to another they ask that you open your purse/bags so that they can check for weapons or glass or whatever. Anyway, I didn't think much of it and opened up my fanny pack and showed the lady the inside of it. The look on her face was priceless and when I realized that those packets of ketchup were still in my fanny pack my face went bright red. (now I am not the type of person to steal anything but we figured that we needed a few packets of ketchup at the house and for how much we spent on tickets to Disneyland we figured it would not be a problem if we took a few) Anyway, the lady looked at me with a very strange face and said "OK mam you may go on your way" Once I realized it I just wanted to crawl under the table and hide. I was so embarrassed. All of us had a good laugh on this one!!

Anyway, our visit to California Adventures was a great one! We defiantly would go back there again!

Disneyland!!

On our way to Disneyland!! We are all so excited and couldn't wait to ride some rides!! We ended up going to Disneyland 2 days and California Adventure 1 day! (I will post more about California Adventure later) We had such a blast at Disneyland. Even though the lines were long both days and it rained one day we still made the best of our vacation!!

here we are riding the tram from the parking lot to the entrance of Disneyland!!

Wow how Disneyland has changed a lot since we have been there 13 years ago!!

The 4 of us taking a quick picture just as we walked into Disneyland for the first time. The boys were really excited for Disneyland but they were a little nervous to. They did great. They were great troopers the hole time!! We even closed down the park 2 different times. Midnight comes very fast when you are having lots of fun.

Bry wanted his picture taken by the Christmas Tree with Grandpa Roger. Wow this tree was HUGE!!

This boat ride is the very first ride we went on when we got to Disneyland. (sorry I can not think of the name of this ride) We figured we better take it slow with the boys and get them used to the rides and then take them on the more extreme ones as the day went on. (Shawn wanted to take them on space mountain first thing when we got to Disney. I thought that would scare the pants of of them and then that would be the last of them riding any rides) and our plan worked out great. They went on all of the rides. Even ones I didn't think they would go on. They did WONDERFUL!!

Indiana Jones was a favorite ride with most of the family. (I think we ended up going on this ride 7 or 8 time while we were in Disneyland) There was always a long line that we had to wait in to ride this ride but it sure was a fun one!! Our first time on this ride Bry was the lucky one to sit in the drivers seat and drive us. Ooh boy he is a crazy driver.

Buzz Lightyear!!

This was Kode's most favorite ride in Disneyland. He loved that you could use the little laser gun to shoot at targets and for every target you hit you scored points. So at the end of the ride we would all compare to see who had the most points. And of course Shawn and Roger would kick all of our butts!!

while we were in Disneyland I wanted the 4 of us to take some family pictures and since it was Christmas time I wanted to take some for my Christmas cards. They turned out OK.

(My boys are so over the camera in their face but they got over it cause I like to take pictures)

Shawn acting like he was scared as we were going through the Haunted Mansion!

silly guy!

We decided to go into Mickey's Toontown to see what was there. It was kind of a fun place to explore and a great place to take lots of fun pictures. The boys had a great time!

silly Shawn wearing Goofy's hat!

this car was the boys favorite one cause it was Goofy's car!

Kode, Bry and Grams!

Grams and Grandpa Roger

Disneyland was a blast. Even though the weather was a little chilly we still had a great time!! Just as we were leaving the park for our 3 time the boys asked when we had plans to go back cause they had a great time!!

Medieval Times!!

While we were in California we thought it would be fun to take the boys to Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament!! It was a fun way to spend the night. It was something the boys had never seen before and they seemed to really enjoy it!just as we received our crowns of course I needed a family picture.

(we were rooting for the blue horse and knight and unfortunately our knight did not win)

just before the show started we had a little time to burn so we all got a specialty drink. (they really were strawberry smoothies with extra whip cream on them and they tasted pretty darn good. ooh and our drinks were in fun little souvenir cups)

Bry couldn't get over how much whip cream was on his smoothie!

all 6 of us just before the show started.

We had great seats for the show, they were in the front row. We didn't miss a thing!

The food was OK but the boys couldn't get over that there were no forks to eat with. (they were not to thrilled about the food anyway. not their cup of tea)

Anyway, we really enjoyed ourselves that night!