Welcome to Sunny California!

We woke up Easter Sunday, with the puking kiddos and everything, and decided to begin our very first trip further west than Ely, NV. Olivia was the only one to get "sick" in the car. We drove through Utah and into Nevada stopping in Primm, NV to spend the night. FABULOUS hotel prices here. Seriously, if you're heading to California....look up Buffalo Bill's on the net and look for the deals!
The next morning we headed out to sunny California! Olivia thought everything we saw was AWWWWE.SOME! We loved looking at the Joshua trees and the desert landscape. We decided to head straight for the beach and check into our hotel later in the day. About lunch time we rolled into Laguna Beach...

Olivia loves to "bask in the sun"...so the beach was perfect for her. She loved to run through the water and then go dry off. She even attempted a "sand angel". Olivia also enjoyed poking around in the tide pools on this beach.

Sam...he was terrified of the water at first. Stayed on the towel and played in the sand. Pretty soon he was saying "I wanna go step in the beach"...meaning the ocean, but I thought it was pretty cute! By the end of the afternoon he was running through "the beach" like the madman that he is!

Emerson is definitely adventurous. She's hard to stop when she gets an idea in her head. At first, she let me hold her hands as the waves got her toes...too soon she wouldn't let us touch her as the waves came up and Aaron ended up grabbing her just as a wave knocked her over. Unfortunately, she thought it was great!

This day is probably the best day, for me, of the trip. Watching the kids run and play and squeal with delight running to and from the waves. No lines to stand in, to time table to follow. Just relaxing and playing. The only thing that hinder my complete enjoyment was the fear that my kids would be swept out to sea. The beach is a scary place for overly paranoid mommas.
I also had my deepest thought on this beach. I watched my kids nervously take their first steps into a big unknown for them. They ran back to the safety of the towels the first few times. Gradually they started going further and further into the ocean playing and laughing...until a big wave would knock them over and then back to the towels. It's similar to life, really. I'm just going to get my feet wet. No big deal, I can run to the towel at any time. Maybe I'll get in a little deeper, I'm still standing. Deeper still. A wave knocks you over...can you get out?

Sorry, I'm no good at deep thoughts.