Myrtle Beach

We took the girls to the beach for a couple days and had such a good time. I found a good deal and we went right in the middle of the week. The hotel was amazing...super nice! We've been there before but they did some remodeling since last time. They have a great waterpark for the kids to play in and our room had an ocean view. We went for 2 nights and 3 days. Dane and Nokie came with us for the first night. We drove up and as soon as we got there, the girls wanted to hit the waterpark. Nokie loved it! My girls were old enough this year to not need us with them every second so Shane and I got lounge chairs in the shade and relaxed while they played! Then we walked over to the beach and let the girls play for hours. Shane got Heidi to go in the ocean with him. She was diving under the waves  and loving every minute of it! By the next day he had her body surfing with him. :) Natalie had fun building sandcastles and letting me take her picture. (Heidi hates it when I take her picture!) That's pretty much how we spent the whole trip. At the beach, waterpark or grabbing food somewhere. I did happen to take a ton of pictures. I feel like that is my purpose at the beach. Shane and Heidi swim in the ocean, Natalie makes sandcastles and finds shells and I make sure all the memories are captured on film! 

Heading to the beach...YAY!!

 All the girls loved the water slide. Even me!

 Seriously....I love this picture. This kid is getting way too old though and I do NOT like it!! 

 This is as far as Natalie and Nokie would go. :)

 Heidi loved swimming in the ocean after we got her these goofy looking goggles. The salt water didn't get in her eyes or her nose and she just turned into a fish!

 I love this

Cousins :)

 Shane trying to get Natalie to go in the ocean...didn't work!

 Look at that cute girl! 

 Our last morning we took our breakfast out to the beach. It was so nice! 

 The girls like to play a game where they run from the wave before it gets them. 

 I think Natalie pushed Heidi out of the way to get away from the wave. I'm just glad I got a picture...too funny!

 Then Natalie tripped. :)

 The waves washed a ton of baby clams onto the shore. Natalie loved collecting them all until she realized they were still alive and trying to burry themselves in her hand! Then she threw them down on the sand! 

  

 Shane teaching Heidi how to body surf and Heidi cheering because she figured it out! 

 Sushi at the beach...talk about fresh fish!! So good!

 Natalie's sandcastle

 The view from our room

 Love these freckles!!

Heading home....they were exhausted! :)

Summer Days

I have to say that I LOVE Natalie being out of school! It is so so nice! There are no schedules, no homework, no nothing. :) We go swimming pretty much every day. It's awesome. Both the girls have turned into fish in just the few weeks that the pool has been warm enough to swim in. They are both swimming to the bottom of the deep end and Shane is in the process of teaching them to dive off of the diving board.  It's gonna be a good summer! :)

The Girls' Room

I spent all weekend painting and decorating the girls' room. We tried putting them in the same room last year and it didn't work. While we were in California, they slept together every night and did great so we thought we'd give it a try again. It turned out perfect!! I absolutely love it! 

I painted the walls Sherwin Williams Cooled Blue. I found an old wood headboard at a yard sale for $5 and then I found another old headboard at a thrift store for $15. I spray painted them yellow. I used Universal Rustoleum white satin spray paint as a primer so I didn't have to sand it or anything. Then I spray painted it yellow with Valspar House Golden Maize spray paint. They turned out perfect! I went to Hobby Lobby this weekend and they were having a huge sale. I pretty much got everything at least half off! I've been collecting stuff to put behind their beds for a while and I honestly love every single piece in their room. I used a lot of things that they already had...just in different ways. Gracie helped me a ton and so did my Mom. There are still a couple things left to do but it's basically done. I just love it. :)

  

The Last Days of our Vacation

Friday we definitely needed to recover from our crazy pace! We took the kids to Hollyann's Mom's pool to swim. The water was so nice! She heated the pool for us and it was like bath water...my favorite! It was actually warmer in the pool than outside. :) I swam for a little bit and then Hollyann and I tried to take a little nap in the sun. Shane, Gracie and all the girls played and played in the water! They had a blast! I know they are super ready for summer to get here. 

Then that night, Erik and Hollyann took Shane and me to the Magic Castle. So so fun! First we had dinner in Westlake...right next door to wear Shane and I took our parents after we got engaged. Memories...*sigh.* :) Dinner was amazing...probably the best lobster bisque I have ever had! Then we headed into LA to go see some magic. The whole place is so cool. It's a maze of rooms with different magicians and different bars. Two of the shows were really fun. One of them was a guy from Austria. His magic wasn't super great but he was really funny. Plus...he called Shane up to the front and tried to get him to do a strip  tease with his suit jacket. He kept telling Shane how to do it right. We were all laughing hysterically and poor Shane was sweating like crazy! But really the best were these two guys called David and Leeman. Seriously...if you ever have a chance to see them you have to go. They were super funny, fast paced and their magic was insane. I couldn't figure out anything they did! They called on Shane too. :) Nothing embarrassing! It was a really great night!

The next morning was our last full day in California. We had saved our beach day for last and the girls were so excited. The only problem was it was freezing cold and overcast! The only day of our whole trip that wasn't sunny and beautiful. :( So we didn't get to go to the beach on this trip but we still had fun. We ended up going to the Camarillo Outlets. Hollyann had never been and she loved it! Since we weren't able to get Disney stuff at Disneyland, we went to the Disney store at the outlets instead. It was perfect! I got the girls a ton of cute shirts for pretty much $5 each, they each picked out a toy, I got a cute shirt for myself and we got them princess cups to drink out of. Score!! Since we were back in Camarillo, we met Steve and Melissa for lunch. After lunch we grabbed coffe and then took the girls to the park. It was such a cool park. We actually all had fun playing on all the toys, even though it was still freezing!

  

 I wanted to make sure we got in as much as possible while we were gone. Mitzi said she could meet us for dinner so we met her at Chi Chi's in Simi. When I was a little kid we would eat here all the time! I always got cheese ravioli, Colie always got spaghetti and meatballs and I think everyone else got pizza. And their rolls are so so good! It was great catching up with Mitzi and her daughter Megan has grown so much! She was almost as tall as Gracie! Afterwards we all got some Thrifty ice cream cones...I sure miss that ice cream!

 Natalie colored on her placemat while we waited for food. I thought it was adorable. :)

That night our plan had been to go to Mastro's for dinner but we couldn't get reservations. Erik decided to order food to go instead. He and Hollyann got dinner and Shane and I shared their warm butter cake for dessert. It was really nice. All the kids were in bed and we just hung out together in their kitchen eating amazing food. 

 This was the biggest steak I have ever seen!

And the best dessert I've ever had.

This whole trip was seriously perfect. I am so thankful that we were able to take our girls and have this amazing family time together. It was great having Gracie with us and we were able to do so much. See family and friends. There are always more people we could have seen and more things we could have done and we will probably try to get all that in next time. :)