Right after school let out in June, we left our youngest in trusted hands & set off for a family vacation! We spent the night with my parents, then went on to St. George the next day. We had a BBQ with old & new friends, did a little shopping, and played in the pool. We flew with our friend to Santa Monica on Monday. We stayed in his home right on the beach. It really was a dream come true! We visited the Promanade, the Pier, the Beach, an aquarium, met a celebrity!, and drove around Hollywood & Beverly Hills. We drove a fancy sports car & ate sushi. We went to Disneyland for a couple days to the kids' utter joy! We had a blast and a full vacation of "firsts". We are so grateful to our dear friends who have shared so much with our family and provided us with opportunities we'd never otherwise have in a lifetime! How did we get so lucky????

Our California Vacation!

This how we started out our vacation. Evan got hit in the head by Avery's follow thru playing tennis. He got a big gash in his head & Jeremy & I rushed him to the Emergency Room at Dixie Regional Medical Center. Ouch. He was so brave while the nurse gave him two layers of stitches. He got a yummy popsicle when he was all done.

Our friend has this juicer at his house in Santa Monica. The kids loved making fresh-squeezed orange juice. They just had to go outside to the orange tree to pick their orange.

My sweet Beach Babe enjoying the one day it wasn't cloudy. We had a fun afternoon at the beach!

Our amazing friend let Jeremy & I drive the Lamborghini to Malibu on the Pacific Coast Highway! We went to an awesome Sushi Restaurant where our friend treated us to our first taste of sushi. I loved it. Jeremy couldn't get past the funky texture.

We took the kids to Long Beach to the Aquarium. It was so awesome. We loved it! We had our friend's daughter with us. They had a blast touching all the sharks & sting rays.

Here they are posing in a fun play area at the aquarium.

On to Disneyland!! We surprised the kids & took them to Disneyland. What a fun couple of days! We made them ride a few scary ones, and don't know if they will ever forgive us, but that's what they get for making me go on the teacups!!

The classic family pose at the entrance to Disneyland! We had such a great time! The kids got to meet a lot of the princesses & Disney characters.