I'm back!!!

It's been so long since I've blogged I'm going to post some pictures from way back in February. My goal when I started this blog was to keep it up-to-date, but obviously that plan didn't work out. So here I am again trying to be a better blogger ;-) I'm hoping to update the blog once a week, especially since this is sort of a scrapbook of memories for me and my family. So on to February!

We made another trip to Rachel's house. Hope flew to our house and then we all (Brendan, Hope, Justin, and me) drove to Newport Beach. Let me just say that not only is Newport Beach beautiful, but Rachel is a fantastic hostess so going there is a real treat! Brendan loves to play with the girls and it's so nice to spend time with family. We feel so fortunate to have family so close by after all these years.

Rachel got Brendan the coolest scooter. It's called a plasma car and it was a BIG hit! Brendan still rides it daily. Now if we just tile the downstairs of our house Brendan could ride that thing all over the place! While we were in Newport, we took all the kids to the Discovery Science Museum in Santa Ana. It was a really cool science museum!
Lots of hands on the giant pinwall.
And here's the other side.
Gracie and Brendan had fun going over this bridge. You could take it apart and put it back together.

We spent a lot of time outside at the Dino Quest. There were lots of dinosaur activities to do like this slide and puzzle. This is where we spent most of our time.
Dino Quest had scavenger hunts you could sign up to do. Justin and the older girls spent FOREVER trying to complete their "tasks" so that they could get their reward at the end of the mission. Apparently your reward for all that hard work is a small wooden coin. Lame. I think some cool dinosaur teeth or something would have been better!
Back inside Justin helped Brendan rock climb.
Brendan and Grace playing with a huge sand and water table. Lots of fun!!!
We ended the day with Brendan and Gracie playing the little kids area while the big girls tried out some more stuff. They loved this play area.

The next day we went down to Balboa Island to visit Olive Oil and Beyond. Rachel introduced us to some of their fabulous vinegars and we had to get some to take home. I'm really bummed I can't get their website to work because I really want to order more! It's that good!!! While we there we stopped for frozen chocolate covered bananas. Too bad I don't do bananas, but I was really tempted to get one just to pick the chocolate off and eat. So I wrote that and then I noticed I am totally taking a bite here! Well, I admit I took one bite but I think I got mostly chocolate ;-)
Here's a picture of what Balboa Island looks like. Row after row of cute houses, cute little shops, restaurants just a block away, and the beach at the end of the street. Could you imagine living here? Awww, what a life...
I know this was a lot of pics, but more are to come!