Los Angeles

Well, Dallin, the girls, and I made an adventure to Los Angeles, CA. For those of you who don't know my mom and Dale are on a mission there. The whole time we were planning the trip I was adamant on flying because there was no way I was going to pack all that energy into two car seats for 14 hours when we can hardly make it to Idaho Falls without going insane. But, somehow, Dallin talked me into driving. Don't ask me how he did it, but he did. We made quite a lot of stops at city parks along the way. When we got to Las Vegas we thought it would be fun to stop at the Bellagio to show the girls the fountains and the garden. They are both my favorite things about Vegas.

The above pictures are of Claire watching the fountains. She kept saying, "Wow! That one was so big!" When we left Las Vegas she said, "Las Vegas is sure a beautiful place!"

The girls and I at the Bellagio Gardens. There is a cute green frog in the background.

Claire loved the carousel.

We went to the place where the movie stars put their hand and foot prints in front of the old Acadamy Award Center. I can't remember what it is called. This is Claire next to Shrek in the background. She was excited to see him! We saw a lot of people dressed up on the street and Claire kept saying, "It looks like a halloween circus!" She loved that night.

Our first full day in L.A. was a Sunday, so we went to church with my mom and Dale. The people there were so nice. It was all in Spanish so that was fun. And the funny thing was it seemed to go by a lot more quicker even though we didn't know what they were saying. We did a lot of smiling and nodding because we didn't know what they were saying to us most of the time. We went to the temple and walked around the visitors center which was a lot of fun. They had a lot of fun things for kids to do. We walked around the temple grounds. The flowers there were so beautiful! The above picture is the Christus. Kate kept touching his toe.

The next day we went to the aquarium at Long Beach. That was so much fun. It is so fun to witness your children seeing something for the first time! The above picture is of the sting ray pool. You could touch them. Claire was a little scared of them so she didn't want to touch them. After touching the jellyfish at the end of the day she got braver but by then they were closing and we didn't have enough time to go back.

 
The above four pictures is of the rivers locally. And it shows how it rains and then it runs to the ocean. They had so much fun playing in this!

Watching the Sea Lions

Kate had so much fun chasing pigeons!

Eating the yummy lunch that Grandma Connie made for us.

My little Kate tuckered out at the place with the beautiful birds. I felt bad because I think she would have loved them.

There was a place with these beautiful birds. You could buy a cup of nectar and feed them. They would jump up right onto your hand to eat. Claire was too scared of them and thought they were too noisy.

Our last day we went to Dana Point to the beach. So much fun! Isn't my Claire just beautiful in the sand. She looks like a true Californian with her long blond hair.

My wonderful outdoor husband who is not scared of very many things. He loved the waves. He tried to get me to go out farther to where the "waves pounded you." I was too scared to go that far. I only ventured out to where it barely went over my hair. We saw some dolphins here too. That was pretty cool!

Claire and Kate getting buried in the sand by Grandpa Dale. When they got out they looked like sugar donuts!

My beautiful Kate

We had so much fun on this trip! So many memories. The kids ended up being really good in the car, thanks to our new DVD players. I am officially sick of Dumbo! Thank you mom and Dale for the fun presents for the kids (seals, octupus, penguin, and jelly fish stuffed animals), for giving up your privacy and bed for us, and for all the good food! We miss you!