Gualala, CA

Our first week of our vacation was spent in Gualala, California where all of my family met at a beach house.
The first morning there we went to the beach right after breakfast to see ocean creatures while it was low tide.
The first thing we found was this huge starfish!

 

 

 

We wrote B+M in a heart because Mackenna LOVES her cousin Benson.  The whole week we were making fun of them, that Benson was her boyfriend. She loves babies in general!

 

 Lydia, Bridget & Hudson

 Bridget wrote her name in sand

 And Dad's name!

Pretty much every afternoon was spent at the beach

Bridget LOVED the beach this year! Last year she didn't like the cold water, and didn't like getting dirty with the sand. This trip she had sand in every inch of her body!

Mary Anne, Lydia and Bridget buried in the sand!

Benson surfing!

 

 Josh helping dig the huge hole!

 Josh & Logan started building a "boat" out of driftwood and seaweed.

 I started to get legitimately worried when I saw how far out he was getting, but thankfully the waves were getting pretty big and they started pushing him back to shore!

The next day they made the boat even stronger and the waves weren't as big, this time Logan joined him. They got all the way out, past where the waves form. Maggie and I were yelling at them to come back, and they jumped ship to swim back to us! Crazy boys!

 

While the other cousins are content walking on the sand, Bridget starts climbing the first rocks she sees! She is our little rock climber!

We had a great time seeing my side of the family, Bridget and Mackenna had a blast with their cousins!

 

Road trip

Last month we drove through Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada all the way to California! The girls did great and stayed busy by painting, playing with big balloons and lots of movies!

 

 

The girls loved sleeping in the big hotel beds!

We found a great children's park that the girls were able to run around at, and the best part was it was FREE!

 There was a Tepee

 A bridge to cross

 A xylophone

 Building blocks

 A puppet show

 A waterfall with paint brushes. Kinda strange, but Mackenna loved it!

Who knew Cheyenne Wyoming had such a great kids park?!

Josh did lots of push ups at rest stops to help stay awake!

 When we finally made it to Salt Lake City, Bridget wanted me to take her picture in front of everything!

 

One of our last stops of the road trip was touring the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, CA. It was fun taking the girls to a place where Josh and I had come to as a kid.

4th of July

We started our day out with the girls last day of swim lessons. Josh was able to come and do Mackenna's lesson with her.

After class, their teachers took them on the big water slides that they would normally be too small to go on

I had been promising Bridget that on her last day of class, we would stay and swim longer.

 

We came home for the girls to take their naps, we had to wake them both up to go to our friends BBQ

 Mackenna really was not interested in standing still for a picture!

 Then they got to do a piñata!

Watching fireworks!

We had a great 4th of July with our family and friends!

 

*Waffles

So I meant to put this at the end of the last post. Remember how I said Josh was making waffles when Mackenna hurt her finger?

That's not a chocolate waffle, that's the result of a waffle cooking for 8 hours! Whoops, glad we didn't come home to our house on fire. That would have really put a damper on the day!