CA Beach Trip 2014- part 2

We arrived home from the beach house on Aunt Sarah's 40th birthday!  And the festivities were just beginning....

Birthday dinner with the family at Shogun Japanese Restaurant

(Sam cracks me up in this shot :)

 

The kids were excited to try using chopsticks!

Birthday girl with silly birthday hat :)

Jackson had no issues digging in to Aunt Sarah's birthday treat- green tea ice cream!

Lily climbing Grandpa's jacaranda tree

The next day was Aunt Sarah's birthday party.  They rented a bounce house/water slide for the event and the kids were in it ALL day!  Huge hit and great fun for all.

Grandma, taking a much needed break from the party set up!

snack break with cousins Jake & Sam, and friend Olivia

once more kids arrived, we were taking bets on when there would be an injury.
thankfully, we survived without a trip to the ER! :)

We spent Sunday in Indio at Rich & Judy's place.  Nice and relaxing day in the pool!

Uncle Mark came home for a visit on Monday.  It was great to see him as well as visit his new home which he will be moving to in the next couple of weeks.

 On Tuesday, we walked a couple of blocks down from Grandma's to Liz's new place!  We had fun playing with Brooklynne, Cameron, and Dyllin.

Being silly 3-year-olds :)

can't believe they are 2nd graders!

I love this picture...for so many reasons.  This reminds me of Liz and I as kids.  And it's funny too because Liz was always taller than me, up until high school :)  These girls are fast friends every time we go out to visit and I hope they continue to be.  

Drive-in night with the fam!  We saw Planes: Fire and Rescue
Lots of fun!

Our last day was spent at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.  I love this place.  So much for the kids to touch and explore and so much to see!  Wish we spent more time there to experience it all...but there were bus loads of camp kids so it was a mad house.  Another time...:)

 I wish I was good enough to say which twin this is! :)  I think the top is Ethan and Grandma is with Charlie

trying to touch the sand sharks and sting ray

silly squid head!

Aunt Lauren treated all the kids to cups of nectar for the birds to drink.  They all had fun watching the birds land on them.

This was totally unplanned and a little freaky.  I was holding my phone out to take a picture of the kids when this bird landed on me!  Thankful for the reverse camera option on the iPhone, I was able to capture him.  I did not have any food, so he didn't stay on me long :)

J-man playing it cool... :)

checking out the penguins

 What a fun week and fun trip to CA!  We can't wait to go back and if Jackson had his way, he'd be living right now in Grandma's "Route 66" room (or "96" room, as he calls it).  So thankful for all the memories!