Our Trip to California

This past week we went on our first real family vacation. We went to Oceanside California, where Wes' parents have a condo right on the beach. They have this condo every year at this time, and we've been once before, but this time was really fun because we got to relax, and just have fun on the beach the whole time.

We left last sunday and drove to Las Vegas. We were a little worried how Oakley would do with the long drive, so we broke it up into two days. I also found a great deal at the Stratosphere for $24 a night, which was great, I thought. The best part was that we didn't have to pay extra to go up in the stratosphere, so we took advantage of that, even though Oakley threw a fit because we had to stand in line, and the people there didn't know what they were doing, but that's another annoying story.

Once we got to the top it was great. Oakley went right over to the window and climbed up on the little ledge to look out. The only problem was that it tilts outward so he was kind of stuck. This picture looks like Wes is pushing him, but he's just making sure he didn't fall.

Oakley loved it up there. He ran around and around. He also loved sitting on the edge. He would walk over and just sit down on the edge, or on some metal box, or whatever he could find. It was pretty funny. It was nice cause it let us get some good pictures of him actually sitting still for once.

On Monday morning, we left Las Vegas and drove straight through to California. Oakley slept for almost 3 hours in the car so we didn't dare stop, we just kept driving. It was nice. We got there around 1:00.

This was the first of many beatiful sunsets from our balcony at the condo.

Every afternoon we went out and spent a while on the beach. Oakley loved digging in the sand for the first 10 or 15 minutes, and then he got bored and wanted to walk back to the condo and into the street. Why is it that kids only want to play with things that they can't, like walking in the middle of the street? Anyway, it was still fun.

The weather was beautiful every day. As you can see by the blue blue sky in the background of this picture. That's our condo in the back also.

So this picture makes me laugh so hard. Somehow Oakley got sand just above his upper lip, so it looks like he has a 'Hitler' mustache, if you know what I mean.

Oakley and I have been watching these "Signing Time" videos for quite a while that teach you easy sign language, and the only signs he would ever do were 'more' and 'please', but for some reason on this trip he started do way more signs. This is a picture of him signing airplane. He would do this every time he heard an airplane or helicopter fly by, which was often because there's a military base just up the coast.

Aunt Margo always has to burry someone in the sand, so this year it was Oakley. He wouldn't hold still long enough for her to do the whole body, so his legs had to do.

This is our attempt at making a sand castle. I dug a big whole and made a drip castle, which you can sort of see at the bottom of the picture, and Oakley just liked destroying the castle and sitting in the hole.

This is a pelican that was "guarding" the garbage can on the pier. It scared me, but almost bit a lady who was throwing away her trash. Too bad I didn't get a picture of that.

We are pretty lucky, cause our Condo is the closest one to the Oceanside pier on the south side, so we got to walk down it many times, and see it from our balcony. Here are our adventures down the pier.

Our condo is the big white one right in the middle.

This was pretty fun. Notice the letters 'K' and 'O' on the beach. Well I guess they put those there so that the surfers can see when they are gettting too close to the pier or not. If it says 'OK' then you're ok, but if it says 'KO' then you're too close. Well, Oakley's initials are KO, so I thought it was cool, and I took a picture.

Oak, meandering down the pier.

Oak, throwing a fit on the pier. He sat down and frowned, and then just layed down right in the middle of the pier. It was kind of funny, cause he wasn't crying, he just layed there.

We had many walks along the beach. One night after the tide had gone out we found some cool stuff in the sand. I found a whole bunch of whole shells, and we found a live sand dollar, which Oakley is holding in his right hand. It's little tenticle things were still moving. This is another funny sign. If you can't read it, it says 'Tsunami Evacuation Route'. Well, we were walking east, away from the ocean, and we just thought it was funny that they had to post a sign to let people know that they needed to go east, away from the ocean, instead of west towards the water. Hopefully it saves someone's life some day. :)

Wes' sister April and her kids came on thursday, and Oakley enjoyed having someone to play with in the sand. This is his cousin Scooter.

Another funny thing that happened, was that Oakley was sitting on the beach, and he leaned forward to get something and totally face planted into the sand. It was all over his face and hair. It was pretty funny.

One afternoon a few of us went on a bikeride down the beach. It was fun cause we got to use those old bikes that have the handle bars that come way up, and the brakes are the backwards pettle ones. It was fun.

Oakley and his cousins chowing down on some popcorn in the condo.

It's a tradition on the last night that we're there to go out on the pier and eat at Ruby's Diner which is at the very end of the pier. We had to wait a little for a table, so Oakley took a seat on the stairs out front and showed us his touchdown skills.

We had a wonderful vacation and got to relax a bunch. It was well needed and well deserved. We can't wait to go back next year.