Spring Break Trip to South Cali.: Better Late Than Never...Maybe

Sunday 22 Mar 2009 (Written on this date by Troy, but not posted by Rachel til now. Sorry.)

California Trip – March 2009

Friday was spent travelling. Troy fried his laptop’s power input, so we were only able to watch half of Beverly Hills Chihuahua before the battery ran out. [Blogger's Note: This was not a huge loss...] We stopped in Blythe for lunch, as is usual. The kids spotted a Carl’s Jr. restaurant with a playland. Very good for getting the wiggles out. Katie gets kind of carsick sometimes, so we let her sit in front for the last part of the trip and she was much happier. Our splurge that night was going to Black Angus for dinner. We even got out with enough time for the kids to splash in the pool before bed.
[Making our regular stop at Cabazon for the GIANT dinosaurs. Zach REALLY liked them!]

[RUN, KIDS, RUN!!!]

Grammy and Papa Willes and Grant and Jason drove down from Lodi that same day.

Saturday ended up being cool and cloudy, but that was our one day that we had to play at the beach. We started down at the Huntington Beach pier shops and then ended up on the beach watching the surfers. The air temp was only about 65 and the water temp was only about 55 that day. Regardless of the temps, the girls were excited to see the waves and the beach and couldn’t resist getting wet. After a bit of playing in the water, they came back and huddled under towels. Finally we made them change into dry clothes and then they were plenty warm. Zach was content playing in the sand with shovels and sand toys that Anna brought.

[We all thought that Zach looked like he belonged on that California beach.]

[It was really cold! Emma and Claire got wet and then huddled in their towel cocoons.
Somehow they managed to eat lunch in there too. Hmmmm.]

After the beach we all met over at the Damitz’ house for pizza party dinner. The kids enjoyed playing with the Damitz kids on the trampoline and with their toys.

Sunday we all of the relatives attended Todd and Anna’s ward. John and Grant did a piano-violin duet and then all of the singers did a hymn arrangement with John accompanying again. The Willes-Lassig-Damitz choir was bigger, and dare I say better, than the Ray 1st ward Choir is!

After church we met at the Damitz’ house again for a big Sunday lunch. We even had cake, ice cream and presents, and played Uno with all of the kids. Anna, Sue Lassig and Tiffany Damitz worked hard to feed everyone and take care of all of the details of the parties -- and the baptism.

[The whole gang at the baptism.]

Later that day we all went back to the church for Kevin’s baptism. The baptism went well. Even the kids stayed fairly reverent. Kevin’s cousins sang “If the Savior Stood beside me” and did a fine job. The Willes girls had sung that one before, so they did fine. Anna arranged to have cookies and cake as refreshments at the baptism. Even though the kids just had cake and ice cream, Katie put some cookies on a plate and then declared to Troy “I already had dessert, so this is all I’m having.” Troy expected there to be one or two cookies on her plate but turned around to find her holding a whole plate full! There were just too many yummy looking cookies to limit herself to only one or two!

After the baptism we all went our separate ways. Our family took a few minutes to drive down to the Newport Beach Temple. We didn’t get out and walk around it, but the temple and the grounds were pretty.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped at a Subway for subs and at a Japanese restaurant for Sushi. Katie had been requesting sushi since we started the trip – and she talked Troy into getting some for their late night snack.

Finally that night, Zach was comfortable with his surroundings and went to sleep fairly quickly.

Monday we partied it up at Sea World! We left the hotel around 8:30am and took the scenic drive down the coast to San Diego. We don’t go to a theme park every time we go to California, but we decided that since it had been a few years, it was probably time. Grant had never been to Sea World and we convinced him to stay an extra day by planning the trip to Sea World. Anna and Todd decided to Join us there as well, so there was a total of 7 adults and 8 kids in the party. It’s always a challenge to keep everyone together and happy with that many in the party, but I think everyone had a fun visit. We didn’t get to see all of the shows because of the limited number that were available, but we saw Shamu, and the pet show, both of which the kids enjoyed. They also liked the penguins and the manatees and sharks. The park wasn’t extremely busy that day, which was also nice.

[Katie making friends with the Manta Rays.]

After spending $65 for chicken nuggets at lunch time we weren’t sure we wanted to go very nice at dinnertime. Todd and Anna suggested the Islands burgers across the freeway from the San Diego Temple. This one is special for them because it where they ate the night before they were married. And now it is special to us because as we drove up to it we noticed a sign that said “Free Kids Meals”! We had a good meal there. Everyone was pretty hungry after walking around all day. Rachel wolfed down her bacon cheeseburger and the kids slurped down shakes. [Blogger's note: We got out of there for under $25 with tip. And for a family of 6 that just plain rocks!]

After all of that crazy fun, the kids were content to sleep in a little and lay around the hotel for a bit on Tuesday morning. They made sure they got a good hour of swimming time before we headed back to Arizona. Anna came over with Adam and Cole and she and Troy had a good chat while the kids splashed in the pool. After that it was time to pack in the van and drive back.

As noted earlier, the computer was broken, so we passed the time driving home by listening to Rachel’s 80’s hits CD’s. The girls’ favorites included “Move Out” and “Let’s Go”. Troy should put those as the background music for the trip slideshow.

We had a great time in Southern California. It was so much fun to see the Willes side of the family and there are always so many great things to do in California. It'll be our big trip of the year so we'll have to find fun things to do around the Valley this summer. Wish us luck!