After eating dinner Tuesday evening, we headed out for Las Vegas where we spent the night with our good friends Amy and Ryan (thanks again!). It was so fun to visit them, especially since we don't see them often.
On Wednesday we finished our drive to California where we stayed with Nate's sister Melissa and her family. Most of our time there was spent hanging out at their house. We did do a few fun things while we were there though. Wednesday evening we watched some fireworks. However, we weren't very close to the shows we were watching. From our vantage point, the fireworks weren't all that spectacular, especially in comparison to the excellent seats we normally have a Murray's firework show.
Thursday evening (after the worst heat of the day was fading), we headed to the Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park. This place's claim to fame is that the rocks there are a popular spot for the filming scenes in a number of movies such as Star Trek, Holes, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, and many more. We hiked a loop around the famous rocks and enjoyed climbing up some of them with some of our nephews. |
| Max climbing up one of the rocks |
 |
| Simon, Nate, Austin, and Scott on the rocks |
 |
| Max, Simon, Rebecca, and Scott on some of the rocks |
Friday was particularly fun because we went out to the beach. It was a bit cool there that day, but fortunately it warmed up a bit as the afternoon went on. After eating our picnic lunch there, we all had fun playing in the sand and water. Austin absolutely loved the sand. He loved sifting it through his fingers and piling it on himself. (Unfortunately, I don't know if this new concept was a great one for him to learn. Yesterday while working in our yard that had been neglected during our trip, he decided he no longer wanted to just sit and play in the grass as he normally does. While I had my back turned briefly, he made a beeline for a nice muddy patch in our flower bed and set about piling the dirt on himself and mushing it between his fingers. After all, that is what the stuff is for, right?) 
Austin was a lot less enthusiastic about the water at the beach. He seemed somewhat interested in watching it come in and out as we held him, but mostly he didn't like it.
His cousins had fun in the water though. And playing in the sand. Their efforts to protect their work with their "water protection bucket" just made us laugh.
 |
| Zach playing in the sand |
The youngest of the nephews, Zach, was also happy to play in the sand, but was a lot less sure about the water. So, he used his sand sieve as a protection against the waves.
On the other hand, I loved the waves. It was almost mesmerizing to watch them come rolling and crashing in.
So, despite the cooler weather, Nate and I had some fun playing in the cold water.
Friday evening we went out on a double date with Melissa and Seth to dinner. Then Saturday we started our drive back home. We spent the night in Cedar City with another one of Nate's cousins Cathy and her husband Bryce. They had a little playground in their backyard, so we tried introducing Austin to the swing and the slide. He didn't like the swing much, but he had a lot of fun on the slide.
After church Sunday morning we headed out on the final leg of the trip. After reaching Utah Valley we stopped by for a wonderful but short visit to our good friend Lori before stopping at my parent's to eat dinner and pick up Zipper. We finally got home later that evening feeling pretty exhausted.
It was a good trip to take, but I am really glad we are back home. Austin didn't seem to enjoy our travels much. He especially had a hard time in the car, and he seemed pretty overwhelmed amid his rambunctious cousins in California. He woke us up early every morning and never really seemed to get as much sleep as he needed during our trip.
1 comment:
So much fun!! I can't wait till we get back to some good hiking!!
Post a Comment