California Livin'

It was off to San Diego to enjoy our family vacation this past week! We arrived last Saturday and after checking into Dad's hotel, headed over to Jen and Tom's.  The girls had a great time playing outside with Andrew and Justin, taking advantage of the glorious weather to ride bikes and play with bubbles on the patio.  Ahhh... this is the life. 

Ellie loved Aunty Jen's stylish hat and was not shy about jumping on the rocking horse to wave her hat like a cowgirl.  I'm not quite sure where she picked that up...

The next day was a glorious beach day and we hit Coronado with the Paul family.  Everyone had a blast playing in the sand and jumping in the waves. Evie and Andrew were great at practicing their surfing stances in the waves.   

Everyone was a little tired after a couple of hours, but gathered up the energy for ice cream, of course! We headed out to MooTime Creamery. 

The kids got up close and personal with the cow, and amused everyone in line by milking its udders...

...and picking its nose/cleaning out its ear wax.  

Later that night, we had dinner with Tanja, Jimmy and Audrey.  Ellie slept in the stroller the whole time but Evie was able to make it through most of the dinner, and some of that delicious mac n' cheese. 

On Monday we headed over to the New Children's Museum where the kids donned their smocks to do some painting and sculptures with clay.  Evie demonstrates the proper brush stroke here.  It seems as if Ellie was not paying attention as later she would dip her two hands completely into the paint.  She looked like a green-handed leprechaun!

The girls had a blast swinging on these wacky ropes.

Ellie checks out the rain house before the girls explored the bouncehouse made out of fruit.

Ellie gets a closer look at some orange segments in the fruit bowl soft playroom.  She found out that a slide of cantaloupe makes a great rocker!

Evie makes some giant bubbles outside with the help of some pipecleaners.

At the sound kitchen, the girls let loose on their pots and pans.  

Ellie particularly loved standing on stage and singing into the whisk microphone!  No stage fright for this little girl.  More pictures from Tuesday-Friday to come shortly...