School is cool!

Another summer has faded to a close. We have two little girls that had difficulty sleeping last night because they couldn't contain their excitement. Allie was ready to go back to school and see her friends and meet a new teacher. Hadley was ready to go to a new preschool and get down to some serious learning. They got all dressed up and posed for some pictures before the first day.

Allie picked out her own outfit and made sure she looked extra cute for day number one.

With all the pictures, Miles needed to get in on some of the action. He has a ways to go before school but was excited due to all the commotion.

Hadley was ready to make some friends of her own at school this year. She got all decked out in her best threads to show off her personal style.

They both looked great and we are certain they will have a fantastic year. 

Hooray for learning!

I wish they all could be California...

Since it is summer break, we decided to live it up this year and go for a third vacation! This was a real summer vacation (complete with beaches, sand castles, and craziness). We headed over to San Diego for a fun family expedition. This is the first time we have taken he kids to California so we decided to try a few of the classic California things. When we arrived the first stop was the beach. We went to Coronado beach first thing int he morning before all the other people got there, and it was beautiful.

Miles liked playing in the sand. He realized this could be his favorite spot ever.

The beach was shimmering with gold! At least that is what it looks like there. As the waves roll back into the ocean it shimmers with flecks of something that was golden. It was pretty cool to see.

We spent the morning at the beach and made some castles, dug some holes, and soaked up some rays.

The girls liked the idea of the water and kept trying to jump over the waves.

They did a pretty good job when they were only in up to their ankles. We were not adventurous enough to go much past that though since they couldn't see (an I didn't want to because it was freezing water!).

Miles liked to eat on the chairs while we all played. He really likes food.

Our first effort at a sand castle. We used the buckets and learned the basics of sand castling.

Allie was great at the getting dirty part.

Look Rach came to the beach too (not as many shots of her since she likes to take all the pictures).

The beach session ended with the girls making some nice little drip castles.

After we cleaned up, had lunch, and napped the beast we went out to the pier. The kids liked to look down on all the surfers and try to see the fisherman catch something (which didn't happen too much that day).

I got to carry some little people that wanted to climb a little too high on the railing.

Ans some that just didn't want to walk anymore.

They even sat with each other to take a happy looking picture! This doesn't happen very much for Hadley and Miles. They always want to play with each other but have not figured out the nice balance of helping and doing too much for the other one. This was a great picture to end the day with.

Day 2 we decided to go to the the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. We thought the kids could use some time off the beach for  a little bit. We had a lot of fun seeing all the animals and walking around.

The train ride through the savannah was the high light. We took turns wrestling Miles but the girls liked seeing all the animals. We apparently did not take any other pictures from the whole day. But we did do some fun things, like visit the Mormon Battalion Museum, eat some great tacos, and visit a different beach (more people, less beach, more seaweed = not as nice as the rich people beach of Coronado).

Day 3 started with a trip to the beach again. We took a family bike ride (not pictured, oops) around Coronado Island. The kids liked the ride (mostly fighting over who got to sit where) and we only had to go back once for the dropped gator. After that we went to the beach and made Mermaid fins.

We built about the best sand castle ever made! We spent quite a bit of time working on this one. We put all of ours new skills to use with molded castles and drip castles.

The finished product with all the happy little builders.

Allie wanted to get the moat filled, so she made the tunnel to the waves and we watched it fill up slowly.

By the time we left, it was melting away into the ocean to prepare a clean slate for the next person.

Day 4 was early church, a stop by the Temple, and a long ride home.

The kids liked walking around the Temple (mostly because it looks like the castle in Frozen).

They mostly behaved, and we only had to chase Miles down  few times to keep him from running into the road or off the side of the hill. They even posed for this great picture.

It was great to spend time with our forever family this weekend.

The girls had a great time with the weekend and the pictures.

Sedona

Since we moved to Arizona we have wanted to go visit Sedona. We figured it has to be beautiful since all the calendars and screen savers of Arizona are shot in Sedona. We finally decided to be adventurous enough to go (and it was still nice and warm outside to allow for the fun stuff). Our first stop was Slide Rock state park, which is a little canyon where the creek has smoothed the rock over and formed a natural slide. IT was a lot of fun to go down the slides, but the water was COLD!!

Just getting our feet in for the first time. It took quite a bit of coaxing to get the children in the water since it is all snow run off from the mountains.

Hadley was the bravest and tried to go down some little slide portions. Neither girl really liked the sliding part since it was cold and they kept falling over from slipping on the rocks.

Miles was less sure of the water temperature. I got him to do a few slips down he shallow portion.

Allie liked to sit on the sides and see the water. She had the first big fall when we got in the water and after that was not so sure about the whole thing.

We had a lot of fun though.

The Canyon is all red rock and makes for pretty scenery around for the day.

The kids were kind of cute scenery too.

Especially when they get a long and play well together.

Rachel got a chance to go down the big rapid portion, and it was awesome.

She even convinced Miles to go down it with her (which is much more difficult since you have to hold him up through the deep parts).

A nice view looking up the canyon. We spend the whole afternoon there and only left once the storm clouds came in further up the canyon (we decided it would not be good to have a bunch of little kids in a canyon with extra rough water).

That night we found a portion of the same creek down in town. We wandered down behind some shops to look at the water and try to skip some stones.

Allie was trying to skip stones, but had no luck. So the next best option was to through really big rocks in the water to make a splash (Miles liked that idea better too).

After a long night int he hotel (where the kids kept jumping on beds and causing complete trouble instead of sleeping) we went hiking the next day. We did one hike up in the mountains close to town and did pretty good for having so many little legs.

At the halfway point we stopped to rest and have a snack (which was Hadley's favorite part of hiking).

Miles liked to play in rocks, dirt, leaves, or anything else he could finds along the way. 

It was a long, short hike.

After hiking we went to a lookout point in the middle of town to get a better glimpse of all the mountains.

Hadley found the one telescope that didn't need quarters and got some extra close up views.

Allie wanted to get and take pictures, so here is one of her (but none that she took of the mountains, sorry).

The whole family on the mountain top.

Miles found the fence and decided this was a good look for him.

Our last stop on the way out of town was the Church in the rock. It is a chapel built into the rock and looks out over the valley away from town.

It was good scenery, smooth hiking, slick swimming, and fun trip! After it was all done, we found out the girl's favorite part was the hotel (at least we tried)!