Camarillo

After spending almost 2 weeks in Brentwood (4 days for Spencer), we packed up and headed south. We opted out of dealing with airports and instead convinced our parents to each drive us half-way. Since our parents are totally amazing- both sides agreed and my dad drove us down to King City where we met up with Spencer's mom who drove us on to Camarillo (all while Spencer drove along side us in a U-haul that Aunt Fay filled with stuff from Grandma Jenkins' place in Half Moon Bay). Since the Monterey Bay Aquarium is just an hour outside of King City, we left Brentwood a little earlier and got to play at the aquarium for an hour with my dad. The girls had a blast and it was a nice break from a long day in the car.

Perfect how this picture comes just after the "stitches" post- Madi was totally insistent on wearing a lovely band-aid across her forehead every day (look for the band-aid in the many pictures to follow:)

We got into Camarillo the evening of Tuesday, April 12th- which gave us 5 days and 6 nights of play time! And play we did!! We seriously packed everything we could into those 5 days. Oh how we love Camarillo- the first time I ever visited I completely fell in love (and not just with Spencer :). Ventura county is where we hope to someday end up. Of course the beach was one of our first stops. . .

Gotta love the seaweed jewelry (and the band aid of course)!

If there's one thing that makes our entire little family completely happy, it's going to the beach. I think we went a total of three times, but would have liked to have gone every day!

Another favorite place- Santa Barbara!! Since we bought seasons passes to the Zoo on our last trip out there we figured we ought to use them one more time!

Don't know why it's so hard for me to get a smile out of Elle- she really is the silliest of us all!

And oh how we love the "Zoo slide"

More fun: Taking out the canoe and dingy followed by lunch at Andrea's.

Everyone but Elle and I got to enjoy canoeing in the harbor, but since Elle's last experience with canoeing wasn't the greatest, I was totally fine with making sure she napped instead of rowing around in the canoe. But from what I heard- this time it was Madi who had the freak-out, but only because Spencer accidently put too much sunscreen on her face and Madi rubbed it into her eyes!

Other favorite things about our visit:

* Having lots of time to hang out with Boppi and Grandpa Al. One of the top things I love is watching my kids be adored by their grandparents. It was fun for me to watch Madi help Spencer's mom out in the yard, seeing the joy on Madi's face when handed some of the beautiful flowers from the yard, listening to Boppi read stories to the girls, watching them tackle Grandpa Al on the trampoline, etc. etc.

Boppi surprised the girls with matching jammies the first night we arrived! You can't tell from the picture, but they both could barely contain their excitement of new matching jammies- with tutus and everything!

*Hanging out with Truly is always in the top 5 favorite things!

*Hanging out with friends!!! I love how many close friends we have in Camarillo. The Bells just recently moved back to Camarillo (we were so jealous), so it was extra fun to see them. I got together with Lindsey one morning for a play date. The kids were super cute together. It took a little while for Madi to warm up (she mostly just had lots of fun playing with Brooklyn's toys), but it was hilarious how Elle took off to play with Brooklyn (kinda reminded me of how my sister always got along so great with all of my friends).

But the cutest was definitely Easton! He's such an adorable, mellow, layed back little guy. I obviously wanted he and Elle to hit it off- I think the last time they saw each other they were 5 months old and just hung out in their infant carriers. I was quite impressed by his smoothness....

And I had to laugh at how all Madi's friends (and cousin) her age tower over her.

Madi and Brooklyn (almost 3 months part)

Madi and Milana (Milana's also only 3 months older)

I think this might have been taken from a weird angle or something because Madi looks crazy small next to Milana in this picture for some reason. There's one more below that looks more "normal".

I love how Madi and Milana are holding hands in the picture above. Kirk and Valerie came up (from Glendale) for the weekend and the girls got to be visitors in primary together. I snuck into back at the beginning to watch them being sung the welcome song- so adorable!

We tried to make sure we got to hang out with all our friends without taking away our precious family time with mom and dad. We always loving hanging out with Adam and Lora (thanks Lora for being my early morning running partner:). It was super fun to go out to dinner with the Stolworthy's, Barton's, and Kelly's. And then Sunday night the Bell's were able to join us for dinner in the gazebo. Lots of good times!

Ah yes, and other favorite thing- breakfast in the gazebo! Yummmm!!

Our trip really was so wonderfully relaxing. It was actually Sunday morning when Madi woke up crying about something. I snuck over to her bedroom door to hear her crying, "it's our last day." Madi wasn't the only one who was sad about leaving. Spencer and I both commented how hard it was to pack up. Thanks mom and dad for the super fun visit!!