California Trip...Part 2

On our way to the beach...On Wednesday we went back to the beach for awhile in the morning and that's when the big catastrophe of the trip happened. We'd been there for awhile and I was just standing around watching the boys and taking pictures of them playing in the sand and the water. Ashton was out in the water and Lars was pretty close to him and Gunnar was actually way up on the beach in the sand. So I took this picture of him... ...and the next thing I knew...a HUGE wave came up as far as Gunnar and me were and knocked him over and covered him, so with my camera in my hand (turned on) I reached in to pull him out as fast as I could. Luckily he was fine, but unfortunately my camera wasn't. Poor little Gunnar...it scared him to death! But after he got all dried off, we moved up further on the beach and he got right back to playing in the sand.
In the meantime Lars tried to dry out my camera. He immediately took the media card out of it, but I was still so worried that the 260 or so pictures I had already taken of our trip were gone! The camera obviously wouldn't even turn on. So we stayed awhile longer, then walked back to our condo. After we got Gunnar down for a nap I talked Lars into taking the media card to the nearby Albertson's and trying it out in their little photo kiosk. I was just sick waiting for him worrying that all my pictures were gone. To me the camera was easily replaceable, but I was going to be so sad if I'd lost ALL of the pictures I'd taken. I crossed my fingers and prayed and when he got back, luckily he told me that it pulled them all up and he printed a few to prove it!!! Thank goodness! But then I was without a camera for the rest of our trip. So on Thursday he and Ashton went and picked me out a lovely disposable for the next 2 days. Ashton had already gone through 2 of his own. (I think he's inheriting my picture taking addiction). He had so much fun going around taking pictures of everything with his very own camera.

Some of them even turned out pretty good! He's learning!Anyway that night we decided to make our own dinner and eat at the condo, then just let the boys run around there. To me those were some of the most fun times of the whole trip. They played SO good together. They laughed and chased eachother and hid from eachother in the big closet and wrestled forever on this mattress they pulled out. Here they are playing on the boogie boards that our place came equipped with...It's so fun to see Gunnar follow Ashton all around and try to copy everything he does and Ashton was just so cute with him the whole trip. They ran up an down the sidewalk outside of our front door, both laughing their identical sneaky little laugh! They had their moments of course, but for the most part they were just little buddies and it was so fun for us to see. They had started to play together some at home, but lots of times Ashton is playing with his friends, so it was nice that there were no friends around so that Gunnar could be his friend for the week.

(eating our homemade popsicles)..And since we've been home I've noticed them playing together more too.

Anyway Wednesday we were trying to decide what to do on Thursday (our last full day there) and in the meantime all Ashton did was keep pulling out his Legoland map and staring at it, pointing to all of the fun things he did and the ones that we didn't have time to do. So we started to think about going back for our last day. Lars called and asked how much it would be to bounce back and it was only $10 each for us and $5 for Ashton! That made it an easy decision (especially with it so close by) and Ashton was SO excited when we told him we'd be going back for another day. So that's where we went on Thursday. We got there by a little after 10:00 and stayed all day till after 4:00.

We got to do all of the stuff that we hadn't on the first day...

Like this Pharoah ride that Ashton and I went on where you get to shoot these little laser guns at targets all through the big tunnel it takes you through... And of course what he was most excited about...the RoLLeR CoAsTeRs!

That night we got smoothies and sandwiches and ate them in the condo, then started packing up for our trip home the next day.

Here are a few pictures we took with the disposable...

The boys in front of the condo...The boys and me...Friday we got up and got ready and had to be out of there by 10:00, but our flight wasn't till about 3:30, so we stopped back by the Outlet stores on our way, then got to the airport in plenty of time to grab some lunch and wait about an hour for our plane.

On that flight we actually lucked out and got an extra seat so we could take Gunnar's carseat on and he slept the whole way.

All in all everything went really smoothly and it was such a fun trip! Vacation always just goes by way too fast! When we got back to the truck at the airport it seemed like we had just left the day before...but I'm so glad we decided to go and I was so proud of how well the boys traveled.

Sometimes I think we don't give them enough credit.