Adam and I were in Reno during Mother's Day the first year we were married. We called Janet to talk to her, and she said she was in California celebrating with some friends - which I thought was pretty awesome. Fast forward 5 years and I have been bugging Adam to go to Southern California for all of them and he refuses because of 'the traffic.' Since Britt is pregnant and I desperately wanted a non-St. George vacation, and after Deena suggested that I "road trip it" instead of fly, I asked Adam if I could take the kids to California for Mother's Day. So off we went!
5 hours to St. George the first day, and the second day we left for Irvine - 7.5 hours, about 1.5 out of the car. I had grand ideas of stopping at all of the old stops of my high school days: Krispy Kreme runs with Vickie to Mesquite; milkshakes in Baker where the world's largest thermometer is; shopping at the strip mall in Barstow. Well Mesquite doesn't have those donuts anymore, and since Lily said she needed to go pee in Vegas we stopped and had our yearly allotment of McDonald's, which the pidgeons got 1/2 of anyways. Then the kids slept for about 4 hours and we were in the valley by then. What great travelers! I am thinking of lots more trips to go on with them.
My kids got so much sugar. Have to go crazy every once in a while, right?
We went to the beach pretty soon after we unloaded the car at Britt's. We waited in line for about 1 1/2 hours to get a table on top of Ruby's Diner at the end of a pier. The kids seemed happy - they all were sticking their heads through the slats to look at the water, totally freaking me out as Jackson is quite the risk taker. I was beginning to get a vague suspicion that my Southern California vacation would be similar to visiting Nathan and Alicia in San Francisco, where you EXPECT it to be cold. Luckily Britt had extra coats for everyone - I refused to believe that I would need them on the beach in May! (I was wrong).
Not that the beach wasn't awesome. Just cold. Lily screamed bloody murder when I tried to walk with her in the water. She wouldn't have anymore of that but loved the sand.
Jackson of course was much more willing and even laughed when the tide rushed up and almost knocked him over.
Free kid attractions: escalators and fountains. The kids loved this place.
As soon as Jack felt comfortable enough (i.e. after dragging me back and forth like 10 times) he tried out the stone path at the koi pond by himself. And yes, he fell in one of the cracks up to his thigh. He and Lily thought being able to see the fish so close was soooo cool.
Sprinkles cupcakes in Newport Beach. The vanilla were definitely better than the chocolate that day. So good. We also made it to Trader Joe's where I spent a ton of money on treats and specialty foods - later I told Kurt we couldn't go to Disneyland because I spent my budget on groceries.
Here we are right before I left. Along with Eleanor's arm.
Mother's Day itself was interesting. Lily went up to the front in Sacrament meeting to sing with the Primary, and she came back and peed on my purse. So although I had planned to attend the rest of church, I spent the last two meetings calming myself down (I was so. ticked) outside with Jackson. Which was super nice as there is honeysuckle and birds of paradise everywhere and the Newport Beach temple was across the street of the chapel. And along with some always appreciated, practical, important, and desperately needed at the time advice from
my mom, got the motivation to get over it and move on, trying to be better.
Because my goodness. I am so grateful for my two babies.
...who taught me you can procrastinate blogging. I have such a back load of things to post, I'll start out with where I left off.
