Newport Beach!

I realized this morning that of the 18 days of April, I have only been home for six of them! The latest whirlwind trip was to one of my favorite places, Newport Beach. My husband's family has vacationed there for years and now I've come to LOVE it there. Here are some of the highlights, and low points from our trip.

Highlights:
Food
All of my health conscious ideas and calorie counting goes out the window when I am in Newport. We ate Balboa Bars, Ruby's diner, Bristol Farms bakery, gelato, Sprinkles cupcakes, more Balboa bars and the list goes on. And it was worth each and every bite!


Time with Steve
It is good for me to get out of mommy mode and get back to being myself and being a wife. This was our first kid-free vacation since Tyler was born. Steve and I were able to go on walks along Balboa island every night. We went to Crystal Cove and went tide pooling. Drove a couple of hours, without kids interrupting our conversation, to Six Flags Magic Mountain. Time with my husband is usually minimal, so it really was great for us to have a few days to remember why we fell in love with each other in the first place!

At Magic Mountain, they have some pretty intense rides. Their X2 roller coaster is the most intense and insane thing I have ever experienced. No joke, I had to have Steve help me out of the chair my knees were shaking so bad. I truthfully almost wanted to cry...not because I was scared, but because I didn't know how else to digest the experience of the ride. And Steve's reaction? I have never seen him laugh that hard in our nine years together. He had tears streaming down his cheeks. He had the time of his life.


Shopping
Pretty much every store is better in California. You might think I spent a lot of money on cute clothes for myself. You'd be wrong. All I could think of was cute things for my kids. I couldn't help but miss Tyler and Hannah when I see things like this. Both of these came home with us!

And now for the low points:

Vertigo
I had my first ever case of vertigo...the day we were leaving. It was awful. I got motion sick at Six Flags the day before but this was worse. It took two Dramamine and four extra strength Tylenol to touch the dizziness and headache. Not my favorite.

Leaving
Just like any vacation, it was hard to leave the sun and beach to come home to laundry and rain clouds. But I will gladly come home to my kids and housework if it meant I had a wonderful long weekend with my best friend!

A very big thank you to Steve's parents for providing a place to stay and for the great company!

A whirlwind of weeks

I swear the past month has flown by. To make a long story short, we've had a funeral, house guests for a week, a week long road trip to Phoenix, and Easter. That is all in addition to preschool, the gym, grocery shopping, church meetings and all the daily doings. I feel like I haven't really had a chance to exhale!

Over Spring Break I went down with the kids to Phoenix to see my sister and meet my new sweetest niece. My mom was nice enough to drive down with me. It was great for the cousins to be together. I LOVED snuggling Sophie. And of course the weather was simply splendid! We ate good food, sat around and chatted, watched good shows, and relaxed.

I was all set to drive home myself with the kids on Friday morning. I was sort of dreading the long drive, but was geared to go. However, Thursday night Steve surprised me by walking into Jay & Kristin's house. No joke, I cried for two minutes straight. I believe I asked him "are you serious?" to which he replied, "No, I'm just kidding!" So we stayed an extra day and played at the park, ate AMAZING pizza at Grimaldi's and laughed so hard we cried. A true vacation!

We got home late the night before Easter. Like I said, a whirlwind! The kids actually let us take pictures of them. I think because we told them they couldn't find their Easter baskets until they gave us a good picture! Tyler must have a homing device on him, because he found his basket pretty easily the first place he looked. Hannah found hers the second place. Both kids loved their candy...of course!

After a wonderful day at church, we found Easter eggs outside at Grandma's house, dyed eggs for the first time and ate a delicious dinner. It was the perfect way to relax and unwind from the past few weeks. We were able to spend time together remembering our Savior. It was a very Happy Easter!