This was our trip to Newport Beach...lots of pictures..I'll let them do the talking except for a few that need some explaining.

(I need to give all props to Candice for her pictures...I didn't have time to make a trip to mom's to get my camera, so the few I took were from my phone camera....lame! I found out it doesn't have a flash, so some of those are even lamer!
Anyway, thanks Candice for sharing your pictures with me.

We got on our way Friday afternoon with great intentions of driving straight through so we could spend all of Saturday with Katie.Kelley does pretty good at staying awake while he's driving, but we tried to keep him entertained anyway.

By the time we got to Vegas, he had about had it so we went to Chris's to spend the night.

After visiting with Chris and Maggie for a while, reading the sweet book his family had put together for his 50th birthday, and watching a slide show one of his friends had made about his life, Candice and I went up and got in bed....Oh I need to go back to when we first got there...We walk in the door and are immediately attacked by this big, long legged, yellow dog. He ran around and around us, then just hopped right up on the couch and turned around and sat down like a person. This was the stray dog that Chris's family found when they went to Mexico. It was a cute little puppy then...he told us the story of what they had to go through to get him home on the plane...very funny! Anyway, Chris begged us to take her home with us, but you could tell they were all totally in love with her.

So anyway, Candice and I get in bed and right away, we hear this little whine outside the door...then it gets louder and louder and Candice is like " you better let him in or he's going to wake their whole family up!" So I go open the door and she runs right in, hops up on the bed and positions herself right between us and lays on her back with feet up and shuts her eyes and goes right to sleep. Within a few minutes she was snoring away!

Candice and I were laughing so hard, I'm sure we made more noise than the dog! This is kind of a cool dog though....has really short soft hair that doesn't shed, doesn't stink or even have doggie breath.

Meet Cortez

We got up really early and got on our way again. Got into Newport Beach about 11:00. We went right to Kate's house (her new house is really cute and in a nice area over by Fashion Island)

relaxed and changed clothes and went down to the beach.

Kate had made reservations at this lovely restaurant called Gulf Stream for that night
to celebrate our anniversary. Super nice!

So much fun! We got to have some real conversation time with Jimmy and lots of laughs.
He is very open and and easy to talk to and I feel like we got to know him a little better that night.

Sunday was a fun day too. We went to Katie's church (well it's the ward we would normally go to, but that's her home ward now) and she spoke in Sacrament meeting. She did an incredible job...I was so moved by her honesty and sweet testimony.After church,we drove down the coast to Crystal Cove. It was quite a walk to get down to the beach, but really pretty when we did!

There is a little resort place down at the end of the beach that we walked down to to use the bathroom. Lots of little beach houses along the way...found out later that this was where "Beaches" was filmed.Went back to our condo (this place we stayed was fabulous! All the pots and pans and dishes and cleaning supplies and a big TV with cable and dvd player and one in our bedroom too. Nice beds and bedding and towels...pretty much everything you could ask for! and made a yummy dinner. Morgan came over and ate with us. She is such a sweetheart... so glad that Kate has good friends there in California.Camille, Kellen and Olivia didn't get on their way till after church...probably about 5:00....so they got there about 11:30. Liv flopped right down into bed and we got Camille and Kellen all set, then went to bed. I sleep so good down there...I don't know what it is... the fan or the sound of the ocean out the window, but it's really calming to me. Camille is growing nicely and has a cute little tummy now. That didn't stop her from leg wrestling though. I thought maybe for once, I would have a chance to beat her, but no...after asking me if I was trying yet, she about threw me across the room.

She is the queen of leg wrestling!

Monday morning was kind of cool, so we decided to run a few places while we waited for clouds to burn off. Trader Joe's, growers market. The fruit and vegetables there are wonderful!

By the time we got home, it was nice and sunny so we headed for the beach.

Olivia loved the beach... she never got tired of playing in the sand or jumping in the waves. She loved playing with Caitlin and there was a few girls a little older than her that were at the beach everyday that she loved to play with too.

Wednesday when we were down at the beach, Kelley got a call from Chris, who said he had got a message from Mark, that Fred had had a heart attack. That was all the information Chris had, and they couldn't reach Mark, so Kelley called his dad. He said he had had the heart attack Sunday night after feeling sick for several days. He had waited till Renea got home from work to go to the hospital, so it's pretty amazing that he's even alive.

They put three stints in his heart but said his other arteries were 70 percent blocked too. They surprisingly said that his cholesterol was low so you can't really count on that to determine if your arteries are blocked. So they put him on a special diet and after a few days, sent him home.

Sure glad it didn't do more damage than that. I hope he can turn his life around and lose the weight he needs to to be healthy again.

Kind of a wake up call for all of us.

We made way more visits to Cheesecake factory than we should have.

While we were waiting, Olivia started dancing. She is so funny and remembers what everyone's moves are. (this was from when we visited Camille in the spring!) We'd say "do mommy's move" and she would do the push. What's grandmas move? The twist. Kate? Roll your shoulders . chewey's move? pointing your fingers, up and up - Liv's new move was the rainbow and jump up and down!

So cute...I could just eat her.

After Camille's family left our house a few weeks ago, I got a call from her telling me that the kitty I had made for her needed a tail, so I took my yarn and she helped me sew a cute tail on "kitty"

Candice and I went for a bike ride down the board walk till you couldn't go any father. The Gelato place had a fabulous raspberry yogurt ( had to go back the next day and get another one!)

Candice got a vegan grapefruit gelato. Good at first, but then too tart!



We met Kate at the nail shop she goes to and all got our toes done. Kate came right from work and had them give her a neck massage while they did her toes to help her relax a little bit. Her job is pretty stressful, but she is good at what she does I think she enjoys doing it.

Kate's fancy new BMW
One of the perks for all that hard work!

Zonked out on beach

Kelley was cute with Liv, playing paddle ball with her. She really thought she was doing something when he would throw the ball right on her paddle and she thought she was hitting it.

There were star fish on the big poles under the pier
S0 many little clams in the sand!

We went out to the pier one morning and tried to fish. The kids were all excited about it but then about 30 seconds later, with no action on their pole, they wanted to do something different. So I walked around the pier with them looking at the fish that other people had caught. Oh boy they couldn't get enough of that. The fish were still alive and flopping around in buckets so it was pretty entertaining.

Kelley and Dan didn't have any luck that day. Dan's pole broke, and Kelley got his line stuck on a log or something so we didn't stay too long. Camille and Kellen walked up there where we were fishing, but the smell got to her and she had to leave. Probably for the best...she would have freaked if she saw the gross stuff Liv was putting her hands on. It's just not a very clean place...lots of fish guts and and gross things they are using to catch fish with. I tried to keep her hands off the rail but wasn't too successfull! Let's just say she was thoroughly sanitized when we got back to the condo.

Kate brought Olivia a cute princess crown and earrings, and the "Olivia" surfing book. She was in heaven! Kate's so thoughtful like that. She had sweet little gifts for all of us.

Such a fun week! Doesn't get any better than that except if K.C. was there! We were able to send email and read what K.C. sent on Kellen's iphone so that was really nice! I will put his letters on a different post...this one got way too long!