Days 5-7

Lennox thought you were supposed to "use your head" on the tether ball.









Lennox scored his major prize for the trip at Disney - a bubble gun that lights up. He made sure it was by his side through the next 3 days and all the way home and into bed.


Dad and Oliver and Ride Makerz building Lightning McQueen RC car.




Lennox after we made it home at the SL airport.


Oliver the traveling champion. Notice the self decoration stickers he entertained himself with.



MMMM Ice CREAM!
The Entrance to Kobe Bryant's hood.


Cars from Safeway in Newport Coast. Bentley .


Ferrari who just got pulled over by the fuzz.


Aston Martin Rapide - Base Price $195,950. Things are a little different in Newport.


Balboa Pier.

Oliver loved his new car just a little.


Oliver enjoying Dad's favorite - wetzels pretzel cheese dog.



Since we had Disney out of the way - the rest of our vacation was supposed to be the relaxing part. But we forgot we were traveling with a two and three year old, so the relaxing time was minimal. We did do quite a few fun things however. Downtown Disney for Wetzel's and Cookies. Building Oliver's Lightning McQueen car at "Ride Makerz." The The Pool. Balboa Island and Balboa Pier (we rode in our car on the car ferry between the peninsula and the island.) Chocolate bananas on a stick. The putting green. The pool (again.) Ice cream for breakfast. Johnny Rockets for Burgers and Shakes. A little window shopping at Fashion Island. Counting gazillion dollar cars. Stalking Kobe Bryant's gated entry and neighborhood. Mom and Dad even got a one hour break for dinner at a fun spot on Highway 1 called "The Summer House."

We made it home to snowy Utah tonight, truly grateful to be home. We are enjoying looking back at our pictures and video while two little boys are sleeping soundly in their beds worn out from our travels. Thanks guys for a fun family vacation.

Day 4 - Disneyland

Well... back to the big D. This year we were greeted by smaller crowds (although by human standards, still a huge crowd) fewer strollers, and big fun.

We made it in the gate by 11:00 am and stayed until closing at 8:00 pm, quite a day for a two and a three year old, but you know... "you have to get your money's worth."

We had great luck not waiting more than a couple of minutes for anything the boys could ride or that we could all ride as a family. We couldn't quite talk Oliver into riding the Matterhorn, but we did take them both on the Pirates of Caribbean. Having Callie with us was quite a help in taking turns with napping boys while mom and dad snuck in the roller coaster & tower of terror.

The boys were all smiles on the carousel, the storybook land ride, the zephyr, the bugs life rides, and dad and Oliver had a great duet on the teacups. We ate corndogs, bengal bbq, some delicious "loaded baked potato soup."

Disney is really something else. That many people, thousands of people, and they crank out good time after good time. We lost a bag at the end of the night and had to go back the next day to check the lost and found. No chance, right? Wrong, it was right there waiting for us.

Anyway - A couple of pics, with video to follow..









This is not a mistake, this is Oliver sticking it to us when we say "smile!"

Day 3 - Crystal Cove Beach - The Video

Day 3, The Beach

In an effort to minimize the risk of needing to call the laundry ladies downstairs yet again, we decided to hit the beach Tuesday while we let any lingering nausea run through our systems.


Just across the road from where we are staying is the Crystal Cove State Park, which is a protected and all natural beach. The nice thing about it is there are hardly any people there, the natural thing about it is that it is quite a hike to get down to the actual beach. Sometimes you have to pass by wild cougars on the way down. Not older single ladies often found here in the O.C., but actual cougars.


As many of our photos will prove, Oliver has developed a real hobby of not looking at or smiling for the camera. The moment he senses he is on film, he closes his eyes or turns away, here he is posing by his name in the sand.

Lennox was determined to beat back the sea. I think he did in fact make the tide recede quite a bit.

Here is the before mentioned "cougar". Look close right in the middle and you can see his rear end and tail. On our way down to the beach, a surfer was on his way up to the parking lot and stopped us and said "don't be alarmed, but there is a good size bobcat just down the path walking around." Sure, not to be alarmed. We walked down cautiously with another guy who determined on seeing it that it had a long tail, so that made it a cougar. O.K. Anyway, the cat crossed down into the ravine and away from us, but it was pretty exciting.


Mom and Ollie shooting foul shots near our villa. The best thing about this court is the ocean view.


Oliver dribbling coast to coast. So to speak.



Lex on his way down to the playground. Get out the way.


Oliver has been doing a lot of running on this trip. I think he has pretty good form. We spent about a half hour just running up and down the beach yesterday. We got some video of that we'll put on later.

Anyway, another easy day a little beach and fun. After the beach we hit Ruby's diner for a Bacon Cheese Burger and their yummy fries. Our friend and neighbor Callie also arrived to help us wrangle Lex a little bit for a couple of days. We are glad to have an extra set of hands.

Day 2

Well, it happened again, and I can't believe it. Barf. You may or may not remember that when we took this trip a year ago, we all had the flu just before, and for the first 24 hours of our trip. It was quite a time, and one I never wanted to experience again. But, we did.

Just about an hour after getting the boys to sleep last night, our first night here, Lennox got the heaves and took care of our linens on the hide a bed the boys were using. Not fun. About 3 hours later, Oliver woke up and took care of the other bed for us. So we have become pretty good friends (enemies) with the laundry service folks here at the Marriott. Though they may resent us, I am sure grateful for them.

So, that slowed things down for us today, but I am happy to report that as of right now, the boys are both o.k. Just seemed to have a stomach bug, maybe something we ate in the way of too many treats on the plane ride.

Our big adventures today were limited to walking the grounds, hitting the playground and basketball court (with an ocean view) and taking a short drive for some pizza. We slept, watched some good pixar flicks, and cleaned up a lot.

I promise the pictures will improve. As will our activities.

Back to California, Day 1

It's our favorite time of year, the time we get away to Newport Beach and enjoy the air of Southern California on our skin.

We'll try and keep a daily account of our adventures this week, and post photos that may help tell our little stories.

Today we just used up on the journey from Oak Circle in Sandy to back here at the Marriott on the Newport Coast. It's always so nice to see the ocean.

We had a pretty good and tragedy-free (of the toddler variety) trip this morning. We hitched a ride with Pa to the airport, got help from a friendly sky cap with the three checked bags, two car seats, 3 carry-ons, and one stroller.

Once through the check in we made our way up to the terminal where we found our flight was 30 minutes late. We were banking on very minimal wait, time so we had to come up with 40 minutes of "keep the boys entertained." This is where we insert our two photos from the day:





Lennox and the green apple sucker that he held on to with an iron fist through the 40 minute wait and the ENTIRE 1 hour and 40 minute flight. He licked it once in a while, but mostly he just waived it around like a scepter. He was pretty good on the plane, for Lennox, but he did kick the chair in front of him enough to get the guy sitting in said chair to turn around and give him a bit of a talking to. Finally Lex moved over and say on Dad's lap for the majority of the flight. But no real tantrums or flip outs.

Oliver is there spotting planes out the window. Both boys love anything with wheels or that goes in the sky. The airport has many of those things. Baggage carts, helicopters, planes, etc. Oliver was as good as gold for the entire journey to our villa. He told the folks on the plane we were going up in the sky, to Califonia, and to the Ocean and to Disneyland. I had a nice couple from Ogden comment how well Oliver was behaving when we were standing in line for a short eternity for our rental car.

We got in the car, headed to pop-eyes chicken and mcdonalds for a healthy start to our holiday, and made it toward the coast. Our only real mishap was that we left one bag on the carousel so dad had to make a trip back to the airport to pick it up later, but fortunately they had it waiting for us.

Tonight the boys fell asleep on mom watching Disney's Rob Hood. Man, they are beautiful when they are asleep.

So we are all geared up for the big week. We have very little planned other than Wednesday at D-land, so we will see where we end up.