Here we go again.....

With all of the excitement surrounding our trip to Florida, I somehow managed to totally forget that Cole had Spring Break a week after we got home and that we had absolutely nothing planned for the kids to do. After asking around it seemed like the majority of our friends already had plans or were taking trips somewhere else so I decided to pack up the kids and head down south to spend some time with our families. Because of Jim's work schedule, he couldn't come down with us, which meant that I had the pleasure of doing the 10 hour drive with the kids all by myself :-) Lucky me, huh? I decided to break up the drive into two days, and stop in the lovely city of Bakersfield. It was perfect!! There was a "John's Incredible Pizza" directly across from the hotel so the kids and I had dinner there and played some games for about an hour and then we headed back to the hotel for a swim. We all slept great and had breakfast there in the morning and then headed to SD to see my family.
We were greeted at my dad's house by my sister and her kids and took the kids all out for dinner that night at Liberty Station.

The kids were so excited to see be together and this is them jumping up and down as the airplanes were flying overhead.
 
 
Hanging out with Grandpa at my sisters house
 

We decided to take our four "animals" to go see the other real "animals" at the San Diego Zoo. Kind of a crazy busy day with 4 kids, but we had alot of fun!
 
 
 

Cole (4 1/2), Alec (3), Olivia (2 1/2) and Liam (7 months)
 

The animals :-)
See the turtle at the top (#5) - they estimate that one to be a mere 150 years old!! How about that!

 
 
 
 

So after spending three days in San Diego, we were off to Lake Arrowhead to spend the easter weekend up there, with a stop off at Ontario airport to pick up Daddy.

The Village had their annual easter egg hunt that the kids got to participate in. For some reason I didn't get any pictures of Cole, but both the kids did one for their age group.
 
Cole and Olivia with Aunt Michelle and Uncle Eric
 
On Friday, we also celebrated my Grandpa's 86th birthday. He recently moved to California and this was the first time he had ever met Olivia. So here is Grandpa with all of his Great Granchildren
 
And here he is with Grandchildren:-)
 
Time to dye easter eggs!
 


 

Easter morning (kinda looks like Christmas,huh?)
 
The kids racing up the stairs to see if the Easter Bunny came 
 
Look Mom, "Megamind"
 
And Olivia got "Tangled"
 
After the kids went through their baskets, the easter Bunny let us know that he hid all of their eggs at our good family friends house, the Drozds. They have a perfect backyard for the kids to run around in and here they are searching for the 75+ eggs as well as the special "golden egg" that the EB left for each of them. They had so much fun.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

My mom put an amazing meal of honey baked ham and lamb with all of the fixins for a mere 12 adults and 3 kids, so the kids got booted from the dining room table to the kids table. That's okay though, kids tables are usually much more fun!!
 
Things got a little crazy after dinner when Alec and Olivia thought it would be a great idea to take all of the grass out of the Easter baskets and start throwing it around. Ahhh what a mess they made in all of about 5 minutes, but they thought it was hilarious!
 
 
 

So after a fun filled weekend up in the mountains with my family, we headed down to Orange County to see Jim's family and celebrate his Mom's 71st birthday!! We went to Balboa Park at Newport Beach and it was serioulsy the most incredibly beautiful day. Absolute perfection - really made Jim and I miss living in Southern California. We took the ferry over the island, walked around the island to check out the mega million dollar homes and had a great lunch.

Cole in front of the ferris wheel in Newport Beach
 

Aunty Lisa and Cole on the ferry to Balboa Island
 

Jim's family
 

I couldn't get over the flowers on some of these houses and since we were about to do some major gardening of our own, I had to snap some pictures.
 

I found this little cuttie walking along the sand :-)
 
 
There's that choke hold again
 
 
This house was adorable and the pictures don't do it justice but apparantly they go all out for every holiday. They even had their dock covered in Easter decorations.
 
 

The kids had a blast playing in the sand and Cole was practicing writing his name.
 
 

My little photo shoot with Mr. Cole Meyer. He is growing up into a handsome little dude :-)
 
 
 
Do you think Cole was having fun??
 
 
The view from the ferry ride
 
COle with his one and only Nanna!
 
Happy Birthday Millie!!
 
 

Thank you to both of our families for an amazing week! We love you guys. xoxo