I'll mostly let the pictures tell the story...and there are lots of them.
We drove. and drove. and drove. and drove. From our doorstep to Mom & Dad's in Acampo, CA it took us from 5:30 a.m. (hour stop at Walmart on the way out, so really like 6:30 a.m.) to 4:00 p.m. The girls did GREAT and it really wasn't that bad. Aspen had 1 screaming fit but other than that it was smooth sailing!
We celebrated Christmas in January but none of us cared. I didn't take any pictures of anyone opening presents except this one: Harper opening her play kitchen from Grammy & Papi. I was so excited about this for her. And she has played with it everyday since. Papi was great enough to put it all together (I was really thinking on that one!) and Chase managed to fit it in our 4Runner for the trip home and we couldn't be happier. (Her favorite thing to do with it is to play with playdoh and make me pizzas and cookies. You can see she got Chase's palate.)
Aspen & Madden sharing toys. They may not appreciate it yet, but I think they'll love having a cousin only 10 days older/younger than them. I know I'll love it!
One day Mom, Chase, the girls, and I drove to Santa Cruz. It was about 2 hours but a fast drive since the girls fell asleep and we chatted the whole way. We had a list of about 5 things we wanted to do and I think 3 of them worked out. But it didn't feel like a bust at all!
First we went to The Mystery Spot. Go here to get an idea of what it is. Basically it's a place with some weird gravitational pull and in the center of the mystery spot you can try and try and try to stand up straight (vertical) and you might feel like you are but when you look around at everyone else you can see that you're all slanted. And you can feel a serious pull on your body. It's crazy. It was a lot of fun!
Then we wanted to get find yummy seafood, which we did on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.
We attempted to find this butterfly migration point and we did find the point, but unlike what the website and lady on the phone said, there were no butterflies. It was too cold and a little too late in the season. Bummer. We had fun on the nature walk anyway...saw some ducks. ha ha
We also wanted to go whale-watching. Again we were told that despite what the internet said (it said it was peak whale-watching season in Santa Cruz) we were not likely to see any whales. So we bagged that idea and just hit up the beach. (I'm just realizing my mom has those pictures. I'll have to add them later.) Harper LOVED the "jungle beach" as she called it. She loved splashing in the little pools of sea water and running from the waves. One got a little too close too fast and she didn't think that was very cool. But it was a GORGEOUS day and my mom and I loved watching Chase and Harper splash around. Love the beach.
The funnest activity we did as a whole family was shoot clay pigeons. Chase, Braiden, and Dad all brought their shotguns and some guy in my parents' ward let us go onto his land and use his fancy thrower. I think we shot over 400 clay pigeons. It was a blast! Again, the weather was AMAZING. (It was perfect the whole trip, actually.)
Watch out for the Williams girls
The carnage
Taking a snack break
Aspen got worn out!
Afterwards we went to Red Robin for (a late) lunch to celebrate our awesome shooting.
We did something fun everyday and still had plenty of time to hang out as a fam at the house.
Harper loved wearing her new dress to church
Much of the boys' time was spent trying to perfect their skills with their new remote-controlled helicopters. Harder than it looks, apparently. But Braiden did finally land on the fan blade which won him the top prize of $10.
Again, the besties
Oh how the kiddos love their Grammy!
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