Laguna

Trip #2. After returning from Utah and having a week to rewash and repack, I loaded up the kids and joined some friends in Laguna Beach. We left on Monday morning and met them at the beach that afternoon. I had a wonderful, relaxing time! Because the plan was to do nothing but sit on the beach. There are so many things to do in CA that I find myself fitting in errands and shopping when we visit. But this time- No. And as a result we enjoyed lazy conversations and sunshine as the kids played and we would plan as the day went on. This change for me made for a great vacation. Here are some pics of our fun (I didn't take many- I was lazy).

Here are Luke and Sadie at the grocery store. They thought it would be so funny to reverse roles so they swapped glasses, hats, hoodies and voices. Sadie is Luke and Luke is Sadie. They posed like each other and I just noticed they even swapped flip flops. I was laughing harder at them laughing at themselves.

Some shots from the beach. I was too cheap to acquire beach toys so I made some eco (or ghetto) ones out of our recyclables. Owen is wearing one of the cut off milk carton 'scoopers' on his head. That works too, I suppose. Luke covered in sand.

My friend Allison took us to an awesome park up the street with some great climbing equipment. It was nice to play at a park again in cooler temps! The kids enjoyed this ring that spun around and got quite brave with their game of who-will-be-the-last-one-standing.

After a couple of beachy, dirty days we decided to go to the Sawdust Festival up the canyon one afternoon and I was SO glad we did (Thanks for the recommendation, Angie!). It was a beautiful outdoor art festival with really cool things to do with kids. Rows with booths of art all shaded by tall eucalyptus trees and cool breeze. I loved it. Here we are waiting for the trolley to take us up. It was Me, Allison and Jennie (three moms) with ELEVEN kids between us all. It was a class field trip, I tell ya.

Here is a glimpse of the environment. I love going to stuff like this! Good thing Scott was joining us the next night so I could soak it all up without him getting bored. :)
There was a great little art station for kids where they did finger painting and other projects that changed throughout the day. They sculpted wire art at another booth and one of the best shows was watching the glass blowing. Glass blowing! How often do you get to show that to kids? How's that for a job. I want his job. A shady, breezy office being creative all day to my tunes... sign me up.

But the best, BEST BEST thing that I'd read about on the website... that made me want to come the most... was a little ceramics session you could sign up for your kids. For FREE they could throw a pot with these sweet instructors and keep it OR for $15 they'd fire and glaze it and mail it to you. Done! We all did one. I just loved watching the kids get all dirty and explore this. Makes me want to take a ceramics class like the old days again.
Here is little Sadie...

And Luke (with Milo behind him)...

And Elliet. These little bowls and pots will be fun treasures from the trip.

After we got home that day, we were kind of wiped out so the kids played around the house while us Mom's vegged a bit. Then we fed them dinner and ordered Thai for us (yes!). After we walked a block away to Gelato Paradiso and had a some creamy heaven.

We swam with our friends on Thursday in Newport where Scott and I were joining Bob & MJ for the weekend. That night he drove in with the other husbands and it was so nice to have him with me again. That little spot where he was missing in Utah was also noticable here so I was glad he could join the fun for a couple of days. We spent the remaining time relaxing with them, going to the beach, getting cupcakes and more gelato and some shopping. It was a little tight squeezing in this last trip but very worth it. For sure we are doing this every August! Thanks A & J for the fun times- we loved it!