New Years in SoCal

To keep things lively and visit some family, we headed to Southern California after Christmas.  We were able to visit lots of family from both the Smith and Jensen families and catch a little sun while we were at it.  We starter our trip in Redlands and then headed to San Diego on New Years Day where we stayed at a little house about a mile from the beach.  It was close to Seaworld and left us lots to do.  We're already looking forward to our next trip!

A nice family portrait... if everyone would look at the right camera.  4 generations of Smiths

Playing in Great Grandpa Smith's front yard with 2nd cousin Abigail and Great Uncle Norm

More Smith photos in the front yard

Once we made it San Diego, we headed to the beach just in time to catch the sunset

Someone made a maze and Cole did a very good job of staying in the lines

More sunset photos.  Why not?

Seaworld the next day and we found the Sesame street playland.  Quite the kids party place.  Here we are on the tea cups... or whatever underwater being they tried to fashion these after

Our first show was the dolphins

Cole was quite intrigued.  But we did not get a smile on this show.

Visiting another dolphin pool after the show

Had to see Shamu before they shut down all whale circus activity

Noahbear liked it!

Back to Sesame Street and we found Elmo and cookie monster!

Suffocating hug defined

Noah took a 3 hour nap.  It was a good day

Coronado beach the next day.  We found a pile of sand and seaweed to climb on

And scavenged a few sand toys

Obligatory sunset shot

And on our last day?  Back to Seaworld.  We did buy annual passes as it was cheaper than a one-day

Fighting over who gets to drive the boat.  Are they teenagers already?

Big polar bear in the background, but more interested in the map

Checking out some fish in the shark tank

And one more trip to see Elmo.  Even more exciting than the first.

Cole taking a flight with mama

Noah looks on while Cole takes a big boy ride

And we finished out the day at Mission Beach for a few rides and dinner.  A great trip!

Christmas!

Not exactly a realtime blog here, but we're doing our best to keep up on the action.  We headed to Suncadia for Christmas and spent time with the Jensen ladies and the Hadley's.  It was a full house and a lot noise, but very nice to be together.  There was eating, tubing, presents, football and even some sleeping in.  So we pretty much covered all the bases.  Here is some evidence:

Prechristmas cookie decorating at home with Cade.  

Chocolate monster getting into his advent calendar

Cole cutting away his rings and counting down the days

Grandma Pam stopped by to help one week before Christmas

Noahbear doing some Christmas warmups, in his warmups

The cousins hanging out on Christmas Eve.  Cole was feeling ill, so Jack took good care of him

Present time with Aunt Kate!

Maggie, getting into something good

Cole, showing his brother how to properly tear into a present

The best gift yet

Cole, telling Papa how it is at end of a good Christmas day

We hit the tubing hill the next day.  Here goes Aunt Kate and Aunt Melissa

The marshmallow man

Cole found the snow

But that was tiring, so he chose to sit on a pile of lumber

Noah and Grandma Pam

Aunt Kate, Maggie and Uncle Jason, going for a tube

Bye bye for now!