July!

It's hard to believe that summer is almost over! Wow. It's been a good week since we've returned from our great vacation in San Diego - what a great time we had! It was so wonderful to have time as a family and very very long overdue. Things started a little rocky as when we got up to leave, Avery did not feel well. Seems to happen every time we plan a trip! Fortunately, he made it through the long trip and with some Tylenol, started feeling better. We just hung out that day and the next day we hit the beach...one problem though - it was really cold! You can see here we are wearing sweatshirts! Avery and Joe both got soaked despite the cold weather and then we went on to lunch, outlets and strawberry picking!

The next day, we got up and surprised the kids with a trip to Sea World! They were so excited. It was another chilly & overcast day but it warmed up a little more and everyone had a blast. Mayci liked the penguins a lot and kept wanting to go through and the boys were most interested in the whales & dolphins. We saw a couple shows...one being the new show called "Believe" that was excellent! It was funny to sit there and think back to 5 years ago when we were there right before our wedding and it was reallllly hot! I remember getting really sunburnt. Not this day..it was the perfect temperature! They also have a little Sesame Street area there now that I didn't remember from the past. Mayci went crazy over it! She got to see Elmo & Zoe and have her picture taken and later in the day she saw Bert & Ernie although they were kind of running off so we didn't get a good picture. She kept saying "where they running to?" She was so excited that Zoe was dressed like a princess and she even called the girl in the show a princess and gave her a high five! Avery has decided he's dolphin boy, who was the other character.

We were planning to leave on Thursday after lunch but it was the best beach day weather wise. We went out to Coronado Island and ended up staying til about 5pm! The kids had a blast finding shells, swimming and playing in the sand. They made cookies and sandcastles and would have stayed for hours longer. Oh, how I wish we lived by the beach. Needless to say it was a great vacation and we feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to take it.

I've also posted some 4th of July pics of the kids - I scored the girls dresses for $5 at the Oshkosh outlet in Carlsbad (they were actually shirts that I altered to be dresses) and I thought they were really cute matching.

Maddi is getting really big. We've started giving her cereal and fruit a little more consistently now although she still isn't sure what to do with it. She also has a cup that she kind of plays around with. While eating lunch one day in San Diego, Maddi aggressively grabbed a piece of Avery's bread! It was hilarious. We let her have a small piece and she did fine with it. Since then, we've given her a couple cheerios but she is not really sure she wants anything to do with them and that's fine. We just aren't rushing it.

Hope that everyone is having a great summer! Enjoy the pics! They are somewhat out of order and I didn't really tag them.