Spring Break-The Last Installment

...and aren't you grateful? In fact be prepared for an overload of photos and these aren't even half of them. I have to begin by saying that I bought a brand new camera just to go down to California. I knew I wanted beautiful photos of our trip. It was a good thing I did because my point and shoot is now broken.
So we headed to LA and stayed in Studio City, near Burbank. The reason for this trip to California was for the sole purpose of meeting our birth mom. Yes, we are adopting! (more story later) Anyhoo...we decided to take the kids down to Venice beach. As soon as we saw that ocean we knew that was the first thing on our agenda. Take in the waves. We had to pick the perfect site. So after wandering the beach a little and picking up little treasures along the way, we found the perfect spot...

...right here...

...where we were all alone...

...taking in the waves...

...with a few passerby's (some who should never be seen in a bikini).

Here in our perfect spot I taught the kids how to use the boogie board (sooo wasn't going to put in my picture...some of us shouldn't be seen in a one piece bathing suit either no matter how sexy our husbands think we are!).

After a about an hour or so some of the kiddos got a little tired and decided to take a breather...like my handsome son Wyatt who gets taller than me every week...

...and Nyah, whose cute little face just begs to have her picture taken (okay maybe I should clarify, she doesn't beg, I just can't resist cuz she'd so darn cute and photogenic)...

...especially after making her into a mermaid.

So after finally convincing our two fish (Israel and Te'alani) to get out of the water (plus we were told by the lifeguard that there was a nice little undertow where we were so we needed to move down the beach a ways...which we did but then it got a little too crowded for our liking), we decided to take a walk along the boardwalk...

Once again the kids were not excited about "walking" the boardwalk but mom overruled them.
Let's just say that it really wasn't worth it because of all those silly people who do such weird things like try and legalize Mary Jane and ask to get paid so you can watch someone vomit in their mouths...Okay that just made me wanna...nevermind. It was a great eye opener for all of us. That's when we tried to pull the old "better get an education" speech to all the kids or you just might...well who knows what. Anyway, this was a cool thing we saw. After I took a picture, I noticed that the sign underneath said you had to donate a buck to take a picture. Too bad I didn't carry any change with me.


So Tuesday, we met with our birth mom. Let me just give a little background. So we have been trying to adopt for quite some time with the state and finally LDS services which can be read here. She had been looking over profiles of families and she said she just kept coming back to ours. She contacted us in February and wanted to meet us-the entire family! John and I were elated! I was even more so when I found out she was from California and we could take the kids there for spring break. Could things get any better? Yes they could! We absolutely fell in love with her and her family. (her pic is blurred just to protect her privacy) She is the greatest and I'm not saying that just because she chose us, but because she has such a great spirit about her and we have soooo many things in common it's almost eerie. She wanted her baby (it's a boy) to come to a family with lots of siblings. From what she said, she LOVED the kids and really felt a connection to John. She said he looked like he would be the best father-and that was only after looking at his picture online. It was the best meeting and we are so excited to have had the opportunity to meet her and get to know her. Words just cannot express how we feel about her. Anyway, after chatting for a couple of hours we embraced and then left for San Diego.

In San Diego we stayed with some awesome friends Uale and Leanna, from our BYU-Hawaii days. It was such a blast hanging out with them and their kids. Thanks Uale and Leanna for boarding us for a couple of days! Well, while there we took in the sites at the temple, which unfortunately had scaffolding around it...

...so I got the one view where it couldn't be seen...

...and four kids looking not-so-happy to be taking another picture. Then it was down to Old Town San Diego where we checked out the Mormon Battalion visitors center. The kids had a great time there panning for gold...

...and sitting in the covered wagon after a 30 minute presentation by the missionaries.

Then it was off to La Jolla to see the cove or whatever it was called. The kids had a great time exploring...

...posing for pictures with cheeseball daddy in the background...

...watching the seals...

...posing for more pics...

...watching the beautiful waves come to shore...

...posing for pics with mom...

...and kids just one more photo "PLEASE?!"

Since it had gotten so cold Tuesday and Wednesday the kids didn't get to go in the water too much so Thursday when it warmed up slightly, Leanna and I took the kids to the beach to play.

Leanna and I thought it would be pretty cold still so we told the kids not to get their swim suits on...it seems we were a bit wrong and the kids ended up in the water anyway...

...while others were just happy to be playing in the sand.

Here's the brood...Faryn, Te'alani, Ethan, Wyatt, Nyah, Micah, Israel, and Caleb.

Thursday afternoon we headed out to Vegas so we could see John's dad on Friday before we headed up to Utah. We stayed at the Rio and had this as our view. It's so pretty from far away where you can't see all that goes on.

Here we are visiting with Tuti and Pops. Pops makes the best breakfast ever. He's a great cook. John ended up with a few "new" golf clubs from his dad. Great! Now he thinks he needs to actually use them.

While in Utah we stayed with Andrea (my Sis-in-law) one night and Maile and Cliff the next. We got together and had a YUMMY BBQ with Maile's homemade hamburger and hot dog buns (overachiever if I may so myself ha ha).

It was so great to see the kids all together and having a ball!

Later that night we dyed Easter eggs with the little ones.

My precious nephew Maika-He and Israel should have been twins. When we are together they are basically joined at the hip.
And last but not least an Easter egg hunt. Of course we had to switch it to the indoors because Utah just decided they needed a little SNOW that weekend.

It was a great vacation overall, but a week of driving makes me NEVER want to drive again! Plus I think it's taken at least two weeks to recover from our "vacation". Now, let's bring on SUMMER!!!!!