Catching up - Tanner meets the Beach

(Just a warning - this is kind of a long post with LOTS of pictures. I'm posting this mostly for Grandmas' benefit!)

Sometime last summer Nate commented on the fact that Tanner has never been to the beach, so we decided to go visit his brother and sister-in-law who live near San Diego over fall break in October. (Fall break is new to me to, but for whatever reason kids get a week off of school for Spring Break in March, and a week off for Fall Break in October.) It's so weird having to plan our trips around school breaks (both Nate's and Kiersten's!) and not being able to just pick up and go whenever we wanted.

We had so much fun with Michael, Julia and Maiya and Mira. Our first day we headed out to the beach - Tanner was in heaven! He loved the beach from the minute he got out of the car. Kiersten, on the other hand, wasn't so sure - it has been almost 3 years since she'd been to the beach and apparently we had to remind her that she liked it, too. She did ok as long as she could wear her flip flops and didn't have to actually get in the water! Both kids had a great time making sandcastles with Maiya and Mira while Dad (he's the mound under the BYU sweatshirt and animal towel) and Uncle Mike (he's the mound under the had and pink stripe towel) tried to sleep.

I have several friends who have kids close to Kiersten and Tanner's ages who told me that their kids LOVED the zoo, so we bought tickets and hoped ours would too! Our first stop was the snakes and reptiles, a stop I could have done without. However, Tanner was fascinated - we quickly fell behind everyone else because he wanted to stop and watch at each case. The snakes were really active and interesting, but not interesting enough to "open the windows" like Tanner wanted to do! After that was the turtles, which cracked Tanner up. If one turtle was walking and then just stopped (which they frequently did), any turtles behind him would just stop and wait for the first one to start moving again. Tanner thought it was so funny that the turtles wouldn't go around each other. When we finally managed to drag him away from the turtles, it was off to the petting zoo. A couple of times I caught Kiersten giving the animals a sideways look that seemed to say, "If I don't come near you, then you don't need to come near me either."

We were so busy all day that Tanner didn't get his normal afternoon nap, so as soon as we sat down on the bus Tanner fell asleep. Luckily Nate noticed and I could catch him before he fell off the seat and hit his head!

Our last day of fun found us at the Temecula Children's Museum, which was AWESOME!!! It isn't huge, but there had to be some sort of experiment the kids - and adults! - could do relating to every single law of physical science. Kiersten and Tanner are already asking when we can go back.












It's always sad when it is time to head home, although a week of Tanner not napping (there was too much to do and see each day!) made it not quite as sad as usual! We haven't planned our next trip to California yet, but I'm sure it won't be too far away - I think the only place we go more than California is Utah!