If Home Is Where Your Heart Is. . . .

Lesley just emailed me a bunch of fun and random pictures of my kids from her phone.  Enjoy. It looks like Gabby is posing for maternity pictures. . .she's probably about 30 weeks along in this picture! Hays being a great sport with Gabby and Nell taking him to jail! What Gabby painted in art class yesterday.

 Today we headed up to Santa Monica.  I had no idea how disgusting LA is.  (At least the part of LA--the actual city limits--we saw, which consist of I-5.)  We woke up this morning to smog smog smog. . .we could not breathe.  Then we drove up through LA in the smog and it was terrible.  Gross!  (It may have just been a bad day.)  But Santa Monica was pretty.  It was cold and very foggy/smoggy, but we had a blast! The Pier was so much fun!  We had passes for all of the rides and the kids loved it!  The cold weather mixed with the time of year made it perfect for riding as many times as you want to!  The kids were laughing and running and squealing with joy!  Great day! I just had to get a picture with the pier in the background. . .I had planned on having "real" pictures taken, but it was so cold, we just snapped a couple and headed back!  They turned out fine.  Nothing to blow up and frame, but we did it! And then the trip from Santa Monica to Anaheim (33 miles) took

Today was the much anticipated Legoland day.  Big disappointment.  Oh well.  I've wanted to bring the kids out here to go to Legoland for so long and I would have taken them no matter what anyone said, so I'm glad we finally went. . . but. . . we won't be making a return trip anytime soon.  The great thing is that Legoland looks much better in pictures!  The kids had fun.  So it wasn't a total bust. Andy, super thrilled to be at a crowded theme park!  :) The kids in front of Washington D.C. in MiniLand Dax was so fired up to see all of the Star Wars scenes in MiniLand.  That was for sure his highlight of the day! San Francisco More of San Francisco China Town in San Fran NYC More NYC Maggie has always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. . .I'm not sure this one will suffice, though! I love their faces in this picture. . .playing the X-Box. . .Lego Batman! More X-Box Gabby was NOT happy to be on

Today was another great day on vacation!  The weather here is just perfect and we are having so much fun together! We started at the Birch Aquarium which was a HUGE disappointment.  In the big scheme of things, it was a fine aquarium, but somewhere I had read that it was the largest in North America and it for sure was not. . .it was maybe one of the smallest.  However, it was very interactive and the kids loved it, so it wasn't a total bust.  We also met another Rwandan adoptive family there (on purpose) and that was super fun!  They have two littles from the orphanage where Tiki was from.  So. . .aquarium. . .check. Then we came home for a quick (too quick in hind site) FOB (rest time).  And we were off to the beach.  It was perfect.  The weather was great and the water was great (cold, but after the kids got numb they loved it).  It made me really want to live at the beach. . .the laid back-ed-ness of being at the beach in your jeans and just hanging