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beach days - 5-7

so....on the last ride in knotsberry farm my phone got stolen out of the stroller.  out of the stroller!!  apparently there are robbers out there who haven't been informed of stroller-law:  you just don't mess with other people's strollers at theme parks.  we all have to park them in a big jumble together to get on the rides and....we have to be able to trust that our sippys, and snacks and wipeys and PHONES will be there when we get back. not cool.

THEN, my camera got lost.  for an extended period of time.  twice.  which is probably ok since i'd already taken more pictures in the past 4 days than i've taken in the past 4 weeks combined. and the pressure to continue was wearing me down.

but between those two occurances, combined with my baby who doesn't want to fall asleep and miss a moment of the beach trip - even during the night - that pretty much ended my travelogue. 

all in all we had mucho-fun. levi is still saying to me everyday, "mommy, go go beach?!"  we returned home safely, my camera was found during the unpacking of my dad's truck, and sprint kindly replaced my phone. so all is well once again.

beach days - 5

today the grossmans all went to disneyland, and grandma and grandpa took the rest of to camp snoopy inside knotsberry farm!

 

 

levi tried his hand at the "strong-man" game....he won a little monkey

 

gracie and levi got matching hats because it was SO SUNNY!

 

we rode in what we insisted was "lightning mcqueen" with uncle paul,

 

and trains by ourself,

 

and, much to grandma's chagrin, got our own weapon of choice.

 

  

piper was upset because she missed the height cut-off for going on any of the rides ... just barely! -- 2 more feet and she'd have been good :)

 

beach days - 4

this morning, after my daily waffle i finally took a picture of "the girls" in their jammies that robyn made for them out of the hand-me-down material from great-grandma stewart's material stash.  we all agreed that they were too cute to actually be jammies -- that they should be actual outfits.

 

then, we used heidi's navigation for the powers of goodness. yes, we had to pass 18 other donut shops to get there, but i'd do it again for winchells.

 

slit was a lazy morning, so gramps tried to entertain levi with books,

 

until it was finally time to go to the beach again.

 

 

we spent more time building sand castles.  some of us were the "architects",

 

some of us were the "serfs" assigned to manual labor only.

 

 

more sunbathing,

 

followed by a rinse-off in the pool,

 

and time for dinner again. april's enchiladas.  let me just notate from april's progeny since i know she won't:  everything april makes is incredible. seriously. i wish she would open her own restaurant.  and when we say she makes everything from scratch, that means EVERYTHING.  her enchiladas:  she couldn't just buy some nice corn tortillas from ralphs.  no, she had to MAKE them herself. she would have made her own cheese and sour cream if we'd let her have the time.  sadly, for my kids, it's this effort that she puts in that makes her food so good -- it really makes the diference.

 

we celebrated stewart's, jeff's, and grossman-cousin shelby's birthdays,

 

and we headed out for grandma's next great adventure: the grunion run.  grandma researched online and found out the we would be at the beach on the exact night that thousands and thousands of fish wash up with the tide, the females bury their bums in some sand lay some eggs, and the males wiggle around the sand and fertilize the eggs.  exciting stuff.  if you're under 16 you are allowed to try to catch these poor reproducing fish and you can actually cook and eat them.  the only downside is that they don't start washing up until almost 11pm.  so we built a fire, made some smores, and waited....

 

levi trepidatiously looking out into the black ocean awaiting the arrival of the grunions.  he was very nervous about they actually were.  alas, they never made it to shore before the surf patrol kicked us off the beach :(

beach days - 3

this morning while we were waiting for the clouds to burn off, gracie gave piper, aka "baby pyder" 1000 kisses. literally.

we made many many flowers for our hair

and we taught our men folk how to make flowers for our hair

grandma and grandpa headed out to scout the "perfect" beach spot,

once we made the transfer to the beach (when did going to the beach get so hard??)  we set up a canopy and a tent and were ready for the afternoon.  we enjoyed the shade and a refreshing cup of formula,

we tested out the 52-degree water,

and ran from the waves....for what seemed like hours. levi couldn't even be bribed away from the "waves" with the promise of a treat.  that's serious.

 

we made sand castles,

our final masterpiece:

we boogie-boarded,

we flew kites,

and we sunbathed.

we dipped our delicious sleeping baby into the ocean,

and buried her in sand.

once we had our fill of the beach for the day, we came home and washed away the sand from every nook and cranny of our bodies.  heidi made us some super-yummy chicken alfredo, and stuffed us to the gills with eclairs.  the we had family home evening,

we could BARELY keep our eyes open to climb the stairs to bed!

aaaahhhh..... day 3

beach days - 2

we started out the day excellent-ly -- april's HOMEMADE syrup on her FROM SCRATCH waffles.  this never happens at our house so it made it onto the day's highlights.

it was sunday so we had a lazy, hang-around type day.  some of us went to church. some of us took naps.

andrew wore one of his great-grandpa's hand-me-down cowboy shirts. so we all felt a little nostalgic.

dad and april made baked apples

the boys had a fuze-ball tournament

we puzzled,

we had the yummiest burritos and nachos, ala robyn

we showed love to each other

one of us pooped through her onsie and onto her skirt

one of us paid tribute to michael jackson

we went for a walk down the pier

 

and wished our moms would let us go down to the beach

too soon it got dark. so we ate our yummy baked apples,

we wrestled with andrew,

we facebooked,

and we finished our puzzle.

it was a good day 2.

beach days - 1

we've made our annual trek to the beach. the last few years we've been lucky enough to score a 4th of july weekend!  it's my FAVORITE holiday and i l-o-v-e fireworks on the beach.

we started the day with a parade that went right past the door of our house - front row seats!

we went for many wagon rides around the neighborhood -- the "beechies" really know how to celebrate. at one point during one of our wagon rides i said to heidi, "remember when we came with our parents and our 2 year olds to spring break?"

we scouted our our "spot" for watching fireworks

and struggled to stay awake waiting for them to start

piper, clearly, loves fireworks too. i can tell because this is her "i like this" crying face.