CALIFORNIA TRIP!

My parents organize a week long family trip every other summer and this year they booked a beach house in Newport! The kids have been to the beach but never stayed at a beach house for a week so we were stoked! We drove down Friday evening stayed in Nevada, and drove to Newport Beach early on Saturday.

With Andrew's family and Nathan's family both living out of Utah, it's always a treat to have everyone together! The cousins line up perfectly in age (couldn't have planned it any better) and it was a week long party! After we got situated at the beach house, we went to explore along the pier.

And before we knew it, the kids were all in swim suits ready to go play at the beach! :)

Brennan especially couldn't stay away from the ocean - he wanted to play and swim and jump over the waves all week long.  I loved watching him be in his element.

The sunset that first night was gorgeous and each night all week was equally as beautiful. There's nothing like watching the sunset with palm trees all around!

Sunday was July 4th and boy does Newport know how to party! Our beach house was right on the boardwalk so people rode by with music and decked out for the 4th. These boys watched the National Hot Dog eating contest and then tried to recreate it...it was pretty entertaining!

My parents put on FHE for all of us. It was all about how we're on each other's teams and we have people that love us cheering us on. We played a game about each other too which was fun. After that we spent the rest of the day at the beach all together. 

Just a little sandy ;)

We were in the sun A LOT the first few days and this was the result:

Aiden told me I'm "fired" for ever putting sunscreen on him again! ;) This is what happens when you rush to put sunscreen on everybody...

On Monday we woke up early and headed down to San Diego. We stopped at Side Car Donuts and had some of the best donuts of my life! So yummy! Then we went to La Jolla Cove and loved walking around and seeing all of the seals. The seals were fascinating to watch! Especially the baby seals. 

We all went to the Mormon Battalion site in Old Town and it was interesting learning about the history of that. The kids loved panning for gold but we're a little bummed they had to put all of the "gold" back :)

Then we spent the next few hours touring the USS Midway. It's pretty fascinating to learn all about it.

Tuesday and Wednesday we hung out at the beach, rode this fun surrey around the boardwalk, played pickleball, ordered the best street tacos from a local shop, souvenir shopped, went on a boat ride with G&G, boogie boarded, "buried" people in the sand, played aerobie, and had a blast spending time all together. 

Tuesday night we took family pictures. It was such a beautiful night and the kids did awesome smiling for a million pictures :) I'll post the official pictures in another post.

My parents had just celebrated their 40th anniversary and we took pictures by the life guard station #40 which was pretty ironic. My parents are so amazing and giving and we're all so blessed to have them! This trip was all in thanks to them!

Another beautiful sunset:

We split into teams and did a photo scavenger hunt one night. We had to sing happy birthday to random people, build a sand castle, run on the pier, and lots of random things. My parents made us these Curtis crossword puzzle shirts with all of our names so as we walked around it was clear we were together :)

You can't go to California and not go to a theme park! Steve is a HUGE fan of Six Flags Magic Mountain so our family, Andrew's family, Becca, Steve's family, and my dad to Magic Mountain. We had a blast for the first few hours and rode on some crazy rides like Full Throttle and Twisted Colossus and Scream. But around lunchtime the temperature was close to 100 and we were DYING! The older kids and dads and Becca were in line (in the crazy heat) for over an hour so Melanie and I just took the little kids on the only indoor ride over and over again! We were almost tempted to put our faces on the cold cement floor inside because we were so hot! ;) We were all drinking TONS of soda and water but the sun still wiped us out! So we bailed early and went to a late lunch at McDonalds. We have never ordered so much ice cream and soda and slushies in my life! They tasted amazing. Most of us had no energy to fight the crowds and the heat so we called it a day. Steve took Aiden and his family back for a couple more hours but the lines were so long they only got on one ride. It was quite the memorable day! Not sure I can do a theme park in that kind of heat ever again!

On Friday, our last full day, we borrowed my parent's ebikes and rode out to the Wedge to watch some body surfing. Their bikes are so fun! 

 

We spent one last day at the beach soaking it all in! I love that my parents do these trips so we can make amazing memories! I have the best parents and siblings and we loved spending a week altogether!