Quickie Trip

Last week, Jarom had some contract work to do in California, so we used that as an excuse to all take a quick little road trip down to California. We had less than a day's notice to make all our plans, but I was able to take a few days off work and rearrange my schedule for a few days, got everyone's things packed, and left!

The kids did great on the drive down. We made one stop in St. George for gas and a quick bite to eat. Emilie thoroughly enjoyed her pizza and I thoroughly enjoyed watching her eat! From there we make our way to California and Isaac was thrilled to stay in a hotel. He didn't even mind sleeping in the pull-out bed. On Thursday while Jarom was at work, we kept busy by visiting Grandma and Aunt Chris. Emilie had fun coloring with Grandma. If she gets any artistic skills when she's older, we know who to thank for them.Chris made sure that Isaac was plenty spoiled and had a goodie bag full of all kinds of neat toys for him to "earn." We had a nice lunch at McDonald's and Isaac made friends with all the cute little girls playing in the play area. I had a few moms comment to me what a nice boy Isaac was as they were leaving and it just made me laugh how quickly he makes friends and goes out of his way to make people happy. What a good kid. After eating, I think the long night of driving caught up with the kids because they both needed a good rest.Jarom was done working Thursday night, so Friday morning we went back to Grandma's house and picked some avocados off her tree. Isaac loved picking them and worked hard to grab as many as were in his reach.After warming up to her, Emilie was so happy to just jabber away at Grandma and had to tell her all about everything. She loved visiting "Pa Ma!"
Way too soon, it was time to go home, but we wanted to do at least one exciting thing before we left, so we took the kids to one of our favorite places, the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. I think Emilie's favorite part was the shark tank. Her hands and face were plastered to the window and she just laughed and talked to the sharks as they swam past.Watching the sea lions swim around.They have a really neat Lorikeet exhibit that for some reason we've never been inside before until this year. If you get their special nectar, the Lorikeets fly right up to you and drink out of the little cup.
After we finished up at the aquarium, we got on the freeway, got stuck in some lovely California traffic, and drove home. We arrived home at about 3:30am and my bed has never felt so good.