Cali

At the end of February, we headed out to Oma and Opa's house in LA for a week of fun in the sun. And California did not disappoint, not for a second. We left the cold temps and winter jackets behind and spent the whole week where the grass was green. It was so blissfully warm we were even able to do this...
Heaven I'm telling you! First things first, we headed out to Disneyland. The boys were such a perfect age to go and really enjoy every ride. Well, in Cade's case almost every ride. He was a bit...nervous...for certain rides (like maybe a mini meltdown before boarding the boat at Pirates of the Caribbean). After a ride he wouldn't miss a beat in telling me how much he loved it, how much fun he had, and how he never wanted to ride it again. Never. I really just enjoyed watching the boys and living through them and their excitement. Disneyland really is the happiest place on Earth, I'm telling you. And it didn't hurt that Oma was there to hold Delaney while Evan and I went on the rides with the boys. As you can tell by this next pic, Colt met the height requirement for every ride. And he reminded us of this fact every five minutes.

We went with Colt's BFF, Cousin Anna, who both boys think is the best thing since sliced bread. There might have even been tears from a certain six year old when we pulled away from the house to head back to Chicago.

After Disneyland, we headed out for our next adventure. If you can see past Delaney's chubby cheeks, you'll notice that I'm standing in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Well...I'm standing on a boat (not even a big boat!) in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And for those of you who know I have a certain fear of large bodies of water, especially those that contain predators of the shark variation, I felt reckless and wild and above all, I survived!

We went whale watching and actually saw them! Amazing. Colt, on the other hand, was not so impressed. I guess he thought they'd be close enough to pet (a result of his close encounters with Aunt Valerie at Sea World no doubt). On the way back into shore, we saw a huge pod of dolphins doing their jumping thing right next to the boat. Consider Colton satisfied. After a couple of fun filled days, Evan left for home to do the work/school thing and we stayed and played like it was going out of style. Some highlights included:
Milkshake moustaches. Had to get my In-n-Out craving taken care of.
Funny face sandwiches for lunch. None of your average PB&J's here!

Parks, a trip to a Noah's Ark museum, playing outside, soaking up every last bit of the sun, a green eggs & ham breakfast by Oma, playing soccer with Aunt CJ, and more playing outside.

Pretty sure that by the time we left, all of the kids had smiles on their faces like this one. Thanks to the Jones clan for a great week!