Huntington Beach

Josh and I have never been to the beach. We aren't what you would call "water people". I never learned to swim better than a really terrible drowning dog paddle. My husband is a great swimmer and he has tried to teach me many times but I just can't get it. I don't actually enjoy real swimming that involves not touching the ground. I also have a debilitating fear of swimming in water that is not a pool. The idea that something is swimming beneath me and I don't know what or where freaks me out. Especially in deep lake water the thought of so much water between me and the bottom makes me so anxious. I am hoping to get over some of these fears when I go to Hawaii in a year (I am counting on you guys to help me through it Rick and Abby). So the ocean isn't necessarily appealing. However, Josh and I needed the experience and Tyler and Sharon love the ocean so we went. It was pretty fun actually. Luckily, you don't have to like the water to like the beach. Turns out, Josh is not a water person either. We spent the day finding sea shells, digging and playing in sand, flying kites, throwing a football (Josh has a pretty good spiral), burying each other, and watching Sharon and Tyler laugh and play in the surf. Tyler got pretty good at boogie boarding and he can't wait to learn how to surf some day (maybe when we go to Hawaii next year?).



I think he may have been a little confused. Here in Utah, we make snow angels. I believe he was making sand angels. I am not sure why he thought it was a good idea. He also would randomly lay down and either "sun bathe" or start posing like a model. I guess he thought that was what everyone else was doing on the beach. Once he even laid down in the middle of playing football and started doing crunches. He is a little odd that one.

Here is Josh and my first time going into the ocean.



I would love to say that we dove in and loved it but the truth is that it was freezing and shortly after that last picture, Josh came back to me and didn't touch the water again.

This is Josh when he came back to me. I think he was giving a look of the conquering hero returning. He was very proud of himself for a kid that only got waist deep in the ocean.



Sharon and Tyler, on the other hand, spent hours playing in the waves.



We also walked on the pier. Josh was hilarious. He has always been weird about wind. Even when he was a baby, if wind blew on his face he laughed like a maniac. The wind was insane on the pier and so was he. He laughed his head off and tried fighting the wind.



We all had to have pictures on the pier.



Since Josh wasn't getting in the water, Tyler bought him a kite. It got torn to bits relatively quickly by the wind but it was still pretty fun.



On the way back to the car, we saw a little taco place. Since Tyler's only wish for this trip was a good fish taco we tried it out. Wow, amazing isn't the word, delicious doesn't cut it. I am salivating right now thinking about it. It was the best taco, the best fish, the best thing that we ate out there. And not even $3 a taco. I could have gorged myself all night. Great day at the beach.

Legoland

We had an amazing time at Legoland in California. Josh had never been to an amusement park before and we wanted to break him in before we took him to Disneyland. Legoland was awesome. It was chilly and drizzled off and on but the lines we super short (we barely waited for any ride). The rides were directed more for children and none of them were very scary. Josh loved it, we loved it, it was the perfect day. You would not believe the amazing things they made out of Legos. Honestly, the pictures do not do them justice. We could have spent the entire day just checking out all of the amazing creations.


The "Mini land" exhibit was one of our favorites and we spent forever checking it out. I will probably post too many of these pictures but I love all of them.


Oh yeah, those last two were taken from a galaxy far far away. Here are some of the guys we met while we were there!




And not only did they have cool things to look at and cool rides to go on, they had awesome things to do! Like make your own race car and race them against each other.



Just goes to show you that beauty doesn't always win!

We should have taken more pictures of the rides but we were all riding them. Josh was such a trooper. He had never been on any rides before that day and he went on everything without a complaint. He loved the little kid roller coasters the best. He did ask to go on the Beetle Bounce which is like those kid rides that take you up and drop you but just a little, over and over. Each time it dropped he grimaced and then laughed. It was hilarious! Drop,grimace, giggle, drop, grimace, giggle, over and over. He was so happy the whole time. We allowed him $15 to spend however he wanted. He chose a rock band Lego set. Three guys (one hip hop singer, one 80s hair band guitarist, and one green mohawked punk rock drummer), drum set, guitar, and speakers. He was obsessed with it. We told him we would buy it on the way out but he couldn't go more than a few minutes without asking for it so we broke down after a few hours.

Legoland also has a pretty good aquarium.



I thought that we took more pictures of the aquarium but I guess we were having too much fun.

All in all, despite the weather, we loved Legoland. Josh actually says that he liked it more than Disneyland. Only kid in America I am sure but the boy knows what he likes. Happiest place on earth didn't win out over the most creative place on earth. The only problem with Legoland is that they closed at 5pm. 5pm! What is that? We didn't know this so we didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked. Still, if our biggest complaint is lack of time to explore, it must have been pretty good.