The Hardy's: California

This summer Brian scheduled a ten day hunting trip with his Dad to Northern California. Instead of staying home, the kids and I hitched a ride to Fresno to visit family. We stayed with Aunt Kristy and Uncle Travis. The kids were so excited to play with their cousins. They have tons of fun things to do. One of their favorites was the huge sandbox. The spent hours building castles with moats and digging giant holes. We swam, played tennis, rode bikes and four wheelers, and went lizard hunting.

We drove to Monterey to see the coast and go to the aquarium. I was a little nervous when we got there. It was only 60 degrees and our Vegas bodies are used to almost double that. We sucked it up and had a great time. First we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We ate lunch with a view of the Ocean. Carson spent forever watching the tank with the Nemo-look-a-likes. Payton was chosen to assist one of the marine biologists to look for and chart marine life. Taylor loved watching the sharks swim by the glass. She got so excited every time they swam past. Cole and Payton loved petting the sea stars.

After we finished seeing everything at the aquarium we took the kids to the beach. It was still a little chilly out and the water was freezing but that didn't stop my kiddos. They had a blast playing in the sand. Taylor almost buried herself and the boys were successful burring Payton! Grandma and Kristy took the the kids tide pooling while I played in the sand with my babies. Taylor crawled down to the water and that was trouble. She didn't care how cold it was she wanted to keep going! She got so mad everytime I picked her up to bring her back to the shallow water. Carson didn't want anything to do with the water...just the sand and all the sand toys. Cole loved running along the tide and having the waves splash on him!

We took all the kids to the zoo. They had tons of fun running around with each other seeing all the different animals. Payton and Cole got to feed a sting ray. They held the chopped up fish in their hand and the ray swam on top of their hand and sucked up the food. It was so cool! They got to pet a llama too!

Payton and Cole's favorite part of our trip was the day we spent at the water park! They loved all the different slides and weren't afraid to go on any...they are growing up too fast. They were so excited to have Uncle Travis take them around the park to go on all the slides! Carson and Taylor liked the lazy river and the splash pad. Carson hated the kiddie water slide. He cried the entire way down and I was even holding him.

Brian finished his hunt and drove back to Fresno to pick us up. Our last day there we visited Yosemite National Park. We were thinking mountains, quiet, cool and not crowded. We were wrong!!! It took an hour to drive 1 mile to get into the park and another hour to find a place to park. Thank goodness for movies in the car and our picnic that turned into lunch and a show! Finally, we made it and we had a great time hiking and seeing all the amazing sites.