First day of Christmas adventure 2016! California

I wanted to focus on making memories for Christmas and didn't like the thought of doing another Christmas without family at home so I started looking at things we could do. We're driving distance (6 hrs) from California and haven't been to visit before, so we started planning away. To make things affordable and adventurous, we took our pop up tent trailer so we could camp out right on the beach at South Carlsbad State Park.

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 I did a long run with Steph in the morning, showered up, got everyone up and hopped in our car ready for California! The forecast had shown rain 3 out of the 4 nights we were supposed to be there camping. A few of my clients who had lived there assured me that it hardly ever rains, and if it did it'd probably be a drizzle. With our sights set on listening to waves at night and being on the beach, we kept our plans of camping. Traffic wasn't bad on the way down and went pretty smooth besides a tire popping on our trailer and a kind family behind us helping us change it.

 We arrived in late afternoon and set up our site with light rain coming down. I loved listening to the waves and light rain on our tent that evening. It was damp, but we were enjoying exploring around the beach.

We set up a canopy over our site to protect us from rain. (TAKE NOTE- this picture will come in handy with the visual later on in this trip.)

 The park is set on cliffs overlooking the ocean. It was beautiful! A few flights down and there we were in the sand.

Aaron had us all festive and decorated for Christmas!

 The next morning was great. It was overcast but not raining yet. The boys quickly went down to play in the sand, I went on a run with Miles in the stroller while Aaron enjoyed some more sleep.

 It was a little below 60 degrees, the water was 58 degrees and I teased the boys saying, "Ready to hop in?" and sure enough, they didn't even think twice. Everyone else walking by stopped to watch our crazy boys playing around in the water, totally unphased by the coldness.

 One of my clients had asked me if we wanted to borrow her boys wetsuits and boogie boards. Because of the weather forecast, we figured we wouldn't be crazy enough to get in the water, but I wanted to bring them just in case (can't pass up a good adventure opportunity!). I'm SO glad we did. The boys loved it!

I love this picture! I love how fun, adventurous and bold the boys are! They really know how to play!

Love him!!

 

 After playing in the waves, we came up to shower off. Jaylen walked by, and you'd never believe it, HE FOUND A NOTE FROM SANTA. We had talked about trusting Santa to know what we'd want to do while we were there since we'd never been and he delivered! First day, was a trip to Sea World!

There was a map of Sea World with the letter. The boys couldn't believe that Santa found us all the way in California!!

 We showered up (which was quite the experience- coin based so we all showered in 2 minutes and streaked to our campsite- haha) and headed down to San Diego!

As soon as we got in the park Gavin wanted to ride the Manta, a roller coaster. We didn't get a good peek before we got on. WOW, that roller coaster was no joke. It went 0-100 mph in mere seconds, twisted and flipped. Gavin was STUNNED, but LOVED it. I was amazed at how brave and willing he was to just jump in to do it. We couldn't talk Jaylen into going.  We finally convinced him into riding at the VERY end of the day (with the help of a promised ice cream) and he nervously went off with Aaron and Gavin. As we expected, Jaylen had a BLAST. He came off, talking a million MPH about it. It was pretty cute and funny.

 The shows were amazing! We did the Christmas Miracle show first with the killer whales. It's so amazing what they are trained to do! We sat in the splash zone and the suspense of being soaked was exciting for the boys.

Jaylen was so cute on this ride. It was a little out of his comfort zone, but loved the thrill once we were up and going.

 This part of the park was amazing! Miles was the best in here! He kept going all over the glass pointing and looking at everything in the tank. It was definitely his favorite part!

The dolphin and sea lion shows were super fun!! It's amazing what those trainers and animals can do! The boys loved when the dolphins gave the trainers a ride around the pool.

 Miles loved this toddler play area. He was all about making some noise.

The very last ride we let the boys go on a water ride (it was cold, and we didn't want the boys to be miserable earlier in the day). They were all about it!

We finished off the night by going to Sweet Tomatoes, a place we loved in New Mexico. It was so YUMMY and we sat there for another hour after the rest of us finished, feeding Miles. That kid can EAT!

The stockings are hung! We got back to our campsite before the rain really started and happily drifted off to sleep.

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas 2016

The holiday season is SO fun with kids- and our kid's ages are absolutely magical! Any chance the boys can dress up in the elf costume, they take. So much excitement and joy- I love it!

We've played SO much Monopoly since Thanksgiving! The boys are crazy about it!

The tree is up and the boys are in heaven!

It's always a special time when we pull up the Christmas station on Pandora, put on the seasonal candles, bring out the Christmas decor and decorate for the holidays.

 Jaylen has been doing our family home evening lessons lately, and this one was particularly cute. It took him and Gavin all afternoon to come up with their idea and it was pretty adorable. It looks like it's the nativity from pictures, but it was actually about the creation. Jaylen and Gavin were Jesus and God and went through the 7 days of creation from "heaven." It was pretty cute.

This is the program Jaylen handed out for his play on the creation

 

Gavin was pretty stoked about this HUGE donut I brought home.

We went to the Washington City tree lighting. Jaylen's school choir sang and we ran into the Grinch. (Who the boys were mildly freaked out about)

 One of our favorite things is watching this boy eat. When he's hungry he means business!!!

 Miles has this puppy pillow that he's SOOOOO cute with. He snuggles this puppy and stares at it like they've been buddies for ever. It's so sweet.

The boys love to string up their own Christmas lights on their bunk bed. It's so cozy.

Bless Aaron's heart, he's coaching another season of 3rd grade basketball. Jaylen is improving- still not aggressive at all, but at least getting the hang of the game much better.

Jaylen's Santa letter

Gingerbread house decorating (and mostly eating).

Jaylen wrote his own book series for him

 Jaylen has been doing secret Santa in school. I've loved seeing what he comes up with for his person. It's pretty dang funny.

A taped on rock

He's accepted to Hogwarts? Ha!

Gavin's list (assisted by Jaylen)

Final draft of Jaylen's Santa list

Oh gosh, we laughed so hard this night. We went to the tri party and made it out of there with 2 full trays of Cafe Rio enchiladas, and a full platter of chips and salsa. Best party ever!

 Baker's Dozen half marathon with Stephanie! It's a fun, untimed race where you do 4 loops and have to eat a donut, cookie, cupcake, or brownie each lap to get your medal. It's always fun to see the costumes and of course, eat some yummy food!

Cory Reese is a local ultramarathoner who is the race director. He just came out with his own book and always takes amazing jumping photos. He gave us a few tips on how to score the right jumping picture. It resulted in me ripping my pants, but so worth it! Ha.

 

Jaylen is SO tall compared to most kids out there!

I'm the Wolves den leader, so we have quite the wild time with these lively boys.

Jaylen spent a couple days making his own game. It was pretty fun to play together. A note about the robes, Jaylen's been begging for one for a while now, so I finally got them both robes. They wear them any chance they can around the house. Aaron busted up laughing when I came home with them. It's like the playboy mansion around here! Haha.

Socks don't stand a chance around here!!!

Jaylen came up with this cute coupon book for me.

 We love visiting Tuachan for the Nativity. It was really fun to go with the Lovealls this year. Joe and Aaron played basketball together back at SVU and they recently moved to the area.

Cute friends, only a couple days apart in age!

We went to the rec while Aaron was coaching Jaylen's team. Gavin has been wanting to do the Baker's Dozen with me (so he can eat treats) and I told him if he trained for it next year, he'd be able to do the relay. He ran 3 miles with me on the track- it CRACKED me up. Every lap he'd make some mention of being one step closer to all the donuts he wanted! I found the motivation for that child!

Aaron's so fun with the young men in our ward. He was ballin' it up with one of the teachers.

Our tree was awesome this year. We definitely have a baby around! It looked pretty beat up from Miles height down but was good on the top!

Jaylen's Christmas choir concert

 Our ward had the best Christmas party! They did a Feliz Navidad theme with tamales and tacos. The YM helped with a mariachi band, the kids sang some songs in English and Chinese, and the bishopric dressed up like the wise men and handed out gifts for the kids. It was really fun!

Miles ate Carne Asada by the fistful!

The annual height picture with Stephanie. 8 year old Jaylen is SO close!

Aaron's basketball team at the rec center was runner up for the championship.

 I volunteered in Gavin's classroom for their Christmas party. It's always fun to see Gavin with his peers. He's super silly and fun. He was reading to his best friend, Dieter.

Gavin lost his first tooth after weeks of it being wobbly! He wasn't too happy about the process of ripping it out, but he'd been struggling with eating and chewing lately, so it had to go!

We built a fort and called for the Candy Cane man. HE CAME! It was pretty amazing to find out he visited our pillows and left some outside on the front porch as well.

Jaylen's secret Santa letter. He's getting pretty funny about girls lately.

Santa's letter found the boys!

Aaron had the boys all wrapped up in story time

Our neighborhood party was pretty dang funny. Stephanie got this pillow in the white elephant gift exchange. It was pretty dang funny!

 We love our neighborhood! Our neighbor had an ugly sweater party (this was actually AFTER Christmas). It was a great time!

A cute story I had in my notes that I wasn't sure if I'd recorded yet- 

I asked Gavin as we pulled into Summit, "Gavin do you know that I love you so so much??" He replied, "Mom, we all need you so much!" It was so tender!