The days flew by so quick, I sure didn't want it to come to an end!  One day we wanted to go get a pedicure.  Grampa was a sweetheart to watch Sam and Emily.

 

Kellen had flown to Utah for a funeral of Parker's Brother in law.  It was really sad...this guy and another were hit by a truck while they were riding their bikes.  It sounds like he was a special man...loved by so many.  He leaves behind a sweet little family...can't imagine the sorrow they must be going through. Things like this always remind me how very precious our families are and to treasure every moment with them.

Camille's family headed for home on Wednesday.  We walked down on the pier and along the beach before they had to say goodbye.

Love these kids to the moon and back

Later that afternoon, we took Jimmy's surf boards back to him.  It's fun to listen to him and Kelley talk.   They are both really passionate about a lot of the same things. They could have been brothers.

We talked to him for quite a while, then went to dinner with Kate.  Shopped around a little bit with her, looking for some things she needed for her new place.  Loved spending this time with her...wishing we could do things like this all the time.

 

We headed out the next morning...uneventful trip home except for seeing this awesome van at one of the gas stations.  It had three huge dogs barking out the windows too.  I saw the owner and his family when I went in to use the bathroom. Was not hard to pick them out of the crowd.   Ha!  Today's hippies!  Jimmy would have loved this van!

Came home to a nice clean house, wonderful son and a happy dog.  KC had to fly home on Sunday afternoon for school.  Candice had been taking care of everything at home for us till he got there...thanks so much to her!  She would send me pictures of the chickens and Lizzy to make me happy.  She is just the best! 

KC got along just fine at home ( I have to remind myself that he has lived on his own for two years and is a grown up man...he will always be my boy)  he even got the mail once!  Love this kid so much!  I don't know what we ever did to deserve the  four special kids we have, but it must have been something good. 

We were so lucky to have such beautiful weather while we were in California!

 I think it was actually warmer than when were there last summer.

 Emily loved the beach...she's a sand eater, just like her brother.

We were walking down by the water and we see this big fin splashing out of the water fairly close to shore...about as far as the boogie boarders go out. We were like "Oh my heck!"  But then another big fin came up out of the water and we could see that it wasn't a shark...it was a whale!  We watched it and a second later, saw a second whale swimming with it!  It was pretty cool to see their big heads come out of the water and spout up in the air.  By now a big crowd had gathered to watch them.  I was trying to take a video of if and thought I was doing pretty well...then I looked at it and saw that I had pointed the camera just a little bit too much downward.  I was holding it up as high as I could reach to try to capture the whales behind the breaking waves.  Ha ha this is the only one where you could actually see the whale!

Its a good thing I at least got this because Kelley had gone to the bathroom and by the time he got back, they had swam away. We were telling him all about it and he was like "yeah, right!"  We had never seen whales  before.  Dolphins all the time, but never whales.

 One day we decided to go to 1000 steps beach.  We stopped at this great little Mexican restaurant  in Laguna and ordered take out and ate it on the beach.  It's kind of a trek to get down to the beach but so well worth it.  It's just beautiful.

We were able to go right into the cave because the tide was out.  Liv and Sam loved it.."Is this really a pirates cave?"

 Liv really watches out for Emily. She kept heading toward the water and Liv would keep scooting her back.  Camille and I went out to get our feet wet and realized why there weren't little kids playing in the water there...There was a very strong undercurrent, and the waves would come in and just pound you. 

 Checking on the big clam they found...they thought that was so neat how he burrowed down under the sand

Sunday was such a nice day.  We went to church at the Dover ward and they had the best meeting.  Some really great talks.  One very embarrassing incident...during the last talk ( the Patriarch!)  I hear this weird harp music...oh my gosh coming from my purse!  I had turned the volume off on my phone so I was freaking out trying to figure why it was making this noise.  I grabbed my phone and tried to swipe the front to turn it off.  My hotel key card was like magnetized to the front of my phone!  I was trying to pry it off and it was harping away and KC was trying to help me turn it off. I tried turning the volume button down but it didn't do anything...just kept ringing!  I finally got the card off and swiped it so I could push the stop alarm button.  I hadn't set any alarms but Sam had my phone the day before so he must have accidentally done it.  Oh man I've never been so embarrassed.  I absolutely despise when someones phone starts ringing in church!  I don't have a lot of pet peeves, but this is one of them.  What is even worse is that  the kid that was a youth speaker even mentioned turning off your phone in church.  And what is even worse than that is that when the girl that spoke and gave a lovely talk about listening to the promptings of the Holy Ghost was talking, I received a distinct prompting that I should turn my phone off.  I thought, "well that is dumb, cause I turned it onto silent before I came in to church" and I disregarded it.  I received the same prompting two more times before my phone went off.  I am such a bone head.  I'll tell you what...I'll listen next time.  (seriously couldn't have been any worse...we were sitting up towards the front and the Patriarch totally made eye contact with me (not in a mean way...just like he had been watching me freaking out trying to turn it off and thought it was funny) after I turned my phone off. I would have liked to crawl under the bench and hide till everyone left the building.

After the meeting a lady that was sitting on our bench told me that was the funniest thing she had ever seen. hmmm

   Later that day, we went to the Newport Beach Temple to walk around the grounds.  For some reason, the gates were all closed so we took a few pictures outside the gates.

 We took KC to the airport later that day...hated to see him go, but he had to go to school on Monday.  He really is the best kid...just a joy to be with.

That evening we drove down to Laguna to the Montage (Treasure Island Park)  It has got to be one of the most beautiful places on earth.  We walked on the beach and watched the sun set.  Lovely end to a perfect day.

 These pictures sure don't do this sunset justice...it was incredible.