Back from vacation...and I need a vacation!

Ok so California was a blast!!! 

But....there were a few road bumps along the way. 

Our vacation started at 4 in the morning (It's so hard to get up that early...I hate it!). We get up early like that so we have a full day in California to play before we check in to our condo. The drive there was really not that bad (probably because we all slept)  we got there so fast, no traffic and the weather was perfect. We always stop in Barstow to eat at McDonald's and fill up, kinda a tradition I guess even though we don't love the food. 

This was the first time we filled up...so expensive!

We always go to the same beach the first day because it is seriously like 2 minutes away from our condo. It is one of the best beaches the sand and waves are perfect! 

This was Jaxon's second trip to California and I was so excited because he loved the water this time around. It was also my nieces first time to the ocean and she loved it as well, especially the sand. I didn't realize how dirty the kids would get and how dirty I got because of them! I am a little ocd about Jax being dirty but you really can't do anything about it on the beach, I just gave up and let him enjoy being a boy. 

My sweet niece Amiah...just love her to death!

She got sand in her mouth!

So when we went to check in to our condo we were going to clean up and go out to a nice dinner. You know the kind where you dress up because you are on vacation and want to get all cute! Ya...well it didn't work out that way. We arrived at the condo and were told that the power was out in most of California, Arizona, some parts of Utah, and New Mexico. We had no idea because we were outside in the daylight. So we got to the condo and got ready in the dark..no blow dryers or light to put on make up! ya I looked pretty. So we had not gone grocery shopping yet which meant no food for dinner and almost no restaurants were open. So we just drove down the streets to find any gas stations or burger joints that might be open. We were lucky to find a burger place that worked off of gas stoves and we were lucky to have cash on hand. After our yummy (not really) burgers. 

We found a store that was open and OMG! it was like the world was ending! People were packing their baskets full of ice, water, candles, and food. The power was out in the store which made it kinda fun to shop, me my mom and sister just laughed the whole time because we couldn't see anything! 

It was a relaxing night at the condo, we just sat around and talked. 

(These pics were taken in the dark, my flash was really bright)

The power finally came on later that night and we laughed at all the people that were going crazy in the store, but I guess it's better to be safe than sorry. 

The next day we decided to do some exploring down at Cabrilmo tide pools. It was really fun to see all the tiny creatures roaming around on the rocks and shore. The views were so beautiful, I could just sit and stare out at the ocean all day long. 

After Dana point we headed down to San Diego (Big Bay) and went sight seeing. It was so cool to see all of the big ships out there on the harbor. I really wanted to tour one but it was like $20 a person plus we had two babies in strollers which might have been hard to do. So we just admired from a distance. We also were laughing at some of the "entertainers" on the way. There was this guy who was dressed in all silver and he was so bad, I mean it was just funny. So I dared my sister to go up and just stare at him in which she did ( I know we are mean, but we needed a laugh) 

Naughty boys!

We decided to try a different beach this time around and went to Dana Point, not my favorite beach. First thing I noticed when we went to this beach was all the Tsunami warning signs, which freaked me out because I have been having a lot of dreams about tsunami's! Second this was a perfect day for boogie boarding the waves were good and the weather was perfect. As we were getting ready to get in we noticed a guy who walked out like 4 feet and then dropped in the ocean meaning there was a drop off that was about 9 feet deep. You had to swim out a little ways to get to ground again...um ya I was not about to do that with the waves being the way they were. I have never gone far enough in the ocean to not touch. It freaks me out, and so we didn't get to boogie board :( But it was a good lay out day. 

We ended the week the wrong way by driving 2 hours to Hollywood and then driving to Santa Monica pier in one day and it was the day before we went home. It was a lot of fun to see all the sites and views, but it was so exhausting! We did a lot of walking, shopping, and more walking ;)
The last day we went to our favorite pizza place, did a little souvenir shopping and then said goodbye to the ocean...so sad to say goodbye.

um...ya this was a picture my dad took as you can see my husband is a little to happy! if you can tell why...right behind him!

We left Oceanside at 2:30 and ended up hitting a ton of traffic, we made a few stops to eat and fill up. By the time we made it to Las Vegas it was like 11:00, we were so exhausted but only had a couple more hours to go to get back home. As we left Vegas we hit stand still traffic, we sat at a stand still for about 30 minutes while watching a movie (2012 very intense movie). Then we saw people getting out of their cars and tons of cop cars driving by us on the emergency lane. So we got out to see what was happening. I guess a man got stopped for a drug bust and ran out of his truck and got hit by a semi, it was a fatal accident. We had to wait for over 2 hours and their was probably close to 100 cops in the area looking for more people in the hills and couldn't let any of us leave. It was so hard with 2 little babies screaming because they were exhausted. The cops finally made it so some of the cars could leave and as we were passing we saw the guy laying on the ground with nothing over him. It was a very strange thing to see, and I don't think I will ever forget that.
It was kinda funny that we had a power outage when we got to California and standstill traffic as we were leaving.  So we got home around 2:30 in the morning and we all crashed.
The trip was so fun, exhausting, strange, and memorable. So happy I got a chance to get away for awhile but I feel like I need another vacation just to do nothing!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures (I know there was a lot, but that was not even half that I took).
Hope to be back up and blogging and getting my Etsy shop up and running very very soon!