Cali - Day 4 - Big day! Loved this day!

Loved this day.
Well, hate the traffic. Good lord.

I started the day with a run on the beach. I ran on the walk and on the loose sand. (Geezus, I have a lot of work to do before October!)
It was a good run, though.

Then, Meatball and I ate some breakfast while Bub and Peanut stayed in the room. What a cute breakfast date!
(And, yes. That's a LOT of ketchup on his scrambled eggs.... We buy a lot of ketchup...)

We packed up to go to LA. We stopped at a skate park first, and my childhood bestie, Shellie, stopped by for a few minutes. I can't believe that I didn't get a picture with her! Oops! Well, the short version: she looks lovely, and I look fat.
We took our time to get to LA - partly because we had time, but mostly because traffic is awful! OMG!

We stopped in Newport Beach. I like it. Fun little surf town.
I had gotten a screaming Groupon for a whale watch (like $15 total for four of us), so we got on our boat and took off.
The houses in Newport Beach are fun, and Peanut is all about finding super cool houses. These pictures are for him!

Then, the real fun began. This was only a two hour excursion, but it was packed with awesomeness!
First off: seals

Next: common dolphins

(Seriously - look at the water coming off of the dorsal fin in rings! So cool!)

Then, something relatively rare in this area, Risso's dolphins. Only two or three of them, but cool. Look at all of the scars on this dolphin!

Probably more photos than necessary, but it was great!
Now, a humpback whale. He was feeding, but not very seriously because he was playing, too.

Here's where he got super playful with two big tail slaps - so cool!

Bub even got to see him do a small breach. We were headed back to shore, and we were quite a ways away, but she still saw him breach. Bummed that the rest of us missed it!

Before we left, he gave us a little goodbye.

And, what do you have for dinner after watching a whale feed? Fish tacos, of course!

It's a good thing that we got so zen and relaxed while watching whales because the traffic on our way to our next place was AWFUL. Completely awful!!!
Peanut thinks that we're moving to LA when he gets famous. No. We are not.
Once we got there, we were so wiped that we stayed put for the night!

PS - I didn't take the pictures of the whales/seals/dolphins. The company employs a professional photographer. For $20, they e-mail the photos to you. Trust me - well worth the money. My phone photos were nothing to write home about. I wouldn't have written to the prison with my photos!

California - Day 3 - meh....

First thing, I got up and went for a short run around the business district that the hotel sits in. For a business district, it was very lovely! SLC's business districts are awfully dull, but San Diego (Vista, actually) is so nice!

Our intention was to go to Legoland immediately, but the siren's call of the ocean was just too much. We just had to go.
After the night before, the boys knew a bit about how to judge when the waves are going to get you all wet. Bub had forgotten everything that she learned the last time we went to the beach. She wouldn't listen to me, and that resulted in what you see below.

Then, the boys started playing with a cute kid from Austria. They had a great time just playing in the waves. While watching them have a good time, I realized that my kids were playing on the same beach that I played on when I was the same age! (It was the trip that we went on with Colleen, Shellie, Stacy, and Clint where Stacy got lost every ten minutes.) What an awesome realization that was for me. My mom was a bit younger then than I am now, but still - pretty cool!

We were warned prior to going to Legoland that the boys might be a bit too old. They were just on the verge. Some of the rides were definitely for littler kids, but some were awesome. Really, the coolest stuff are the sculptures! I only got pictures of the Star Wars stuff, but it was all fantastic.
Even though they were a bit too old, we still had a super fun time. (Next time, we'll go to Universal or Six Flags.)