road trip

With a 4 day weekend upon us, we decided to take a little road trip up to San Francisco. We are staying in Oakland and when we got here Thursday night, we found out that the bay bridge was closed for the weekend, so that meant we got to take a trip on the ferry.

Our first stop was Pier 39 to see the Sea Lions. They sure do stink, but they were fun to see.

Jake thought that guy's hat was cool, so he wanted to take a closer look

If you haven't noticed, he is getting into having his picture taken with things he sees that he likes.

He LOVED this shark jaw. For a while he wanted to be a shark for Halloween.

Our last stop was the Aquarium. It wasn't that great of an aquarium, but there were a few cool things.

We are getting ready to go explore the city some more. It looks to be a nice day!

disney delight!

Monday, Brooke had the day off, so we decided to head over to Downtown Disney. It is free to get in and we figured it would be fun to walk around. To start things off, we decided to take the kids to Rainforest Cafe for lunch. Walking thru the gift shop and to our table, they were in awe of all the animals and different stuff there was to look at. We got seated right by a gorilla and i thought "great! Jake loves gorillas" but then we leaned that every 10 minutes the gorilla comes to life, making noises and moving. not so great. Neither of the kids liked it and we asked to move to a different table.

Here is Jake when we were first seated.

And here is Jake after the gorilla show.

Lunch was fun and yummy. Next we wandered thru the stores, let the kids play and look at different stuff. We decided to bring our hopper passes from Disneyworld (we were there in January) and see if we could get into Disneyland with the 1 day left on the pass. We weren't holding out too much hope, but why not try, right? Well, it turns out that they did work at Disneyland, so we got to spend the rest of the day hanging out there. I was totally excited (more so than either of the kids).

Our first stop was to ride the train that went around the park.

Next a photo-op with Pluto. (Grace did NOT want to wait in line, she was excited to see him and when she wants something, she wants it and will let you know if she isn't happy about waiting for it.)

Jake loves the movie Sword In The Stone and was excited to try and pull out the sword in the stone. He couldn't understand why it wouldn't come out.

A fun ride on the Teacups.......

and on Astro Orbiter. Grace didn't like this one.

We only spent 5 hours in the park, but it was a nice surprise that we were able to use our leftover passes. We will be going back again next week when Grandma and Grandpa Hanson and Brandi come for a visit. We can't wait!

the beach...again!

We hit the beach again on Thursday. We had just as much fun as last time. Only a few more weeks left here, so we are going to keep finding fun stuff to do.

Jake dumped buckets full of sand on himself. He was COVERED in sand by the time we were done.

Brooke rented a boogie board...it was fun watching him have fun in the ocean. I tried it once, but the waves were kindof strong and I lost my nerve, so i ended up just jumping in the waves.

Grace loves to take charge of our shoes. When we are getting ready to go somewhere, she will go get everyones shoes and give them to them. Last night, she was playing around with Brookes shoes and walking around (as best as she could) in them.

the beach

Yesterday we went to the beach. The weather was perfect and we all had a great time. The kids were content to play in the sand and water. We will definitely go again before we are done here in CA.

catch up

We have been having fun here in California. Here is a quick look at what we have been up to. Last weekend we went to SLC for a family reunion. Before our flight left on Sunday, we had some time to spare, so we went to Temple square. Jake asked if he could take some pictures, so we let him. It was pretty fun watching him, he would take the picture, look to see how it turned out and then bust up laughing. here are a few of his shot.

Here is Jake outside of Bubba Gumps Restaurant.

Grace eating Jello

And Grace after we took the Jello away. we are so mean.

A fun trip to the aquarium

And some time at the Lake.

We hope you are enjoying your summer as much as we are enjoying ours!

Happy Birthday Jake!

Saturday was Jakes 4th Birthday. It is so hard to believe he is already 4...I have a feeling I'm going to be saying that every year on his birthday. He is growing up way too fast.

We decided to take him to the San Diego Zoo and we all had such a great time.

That was one BIG zoo. We did alot of walking, but Jake was a trooper. At the end of the day, Grace was sick of being in her stroller and Jake was sick of walking, so they did a switcharoo.

There was a little childrens petting zoo and they both loved that.

Grace gave a kiss to the tiger on Jakes straw.

Grace tried to climb in with the Flamingos. I think she might have made it if I wasn't holding her down.

There were tons of different statues all thru the zoo. They loved to climb around on them all.

We had a great time and look forward to our next CA outing.

Happy Birthday Jake!