New Find & 4th of July Weekend

Jared FINALLY had a day off, so we decided to take advantage of that! Plus we temporary have a car that a ward member has lent us. Only a 30 minute drive away is the Royal National Park. Because it is winter there weren't too many visitors which was GREAT! But we found a beautiful spot. Its a short hike down, which R did ALL BY HERSELF, from the parking lot to the ocean. Looking carefully at the picture below you can see the surprise. There is a lagoon(bottom left), a sandbar, then the ocean. This picture is by the lagoon looking towards the sandbar and the ocean! BEAUTIFUL!! The water was SO clear, and you can swim in it if you want. It is WINTER so we didn't jump in, but wanted to!!

This is looking back into the lagoon. The parking lot is at the top and to the left of the waterfalls!

Standing on the sandbar looking out into the ocean! I love that my husband doesn't know how to squint normal. What a geek!

R has become VERY good at writing. She has figured out how to write a handful of names all by herself. This is her practicing in the sand!

The end result with NO help from anyone! She does need help with "G", but still pretty good for someone who just turned 3!!!

Jared playing around on the huge rocks while R was writing in the sand!

We climbed up onto the cliffs, and went to a look out. During June and July you can usually see whales. So we hung out up here and saw about 8 whales. Kind-of far away, but still pretty cool!

This is near the parking lot where we had a picnic. What a beautiful view while we ate!

4th of July-

Our friends, the Dulls, from the central coast came down for the weekend. While here we cooked R a REAL birthday cake and let the 2 girls decorate it. This was taken at the beginning of the decorating, but for some reason they kept putting the sprinkles in the same spot. It was THICK in the middle, and still white on the outsides. But they loved it!

Singing Happy Birthday(2nd time, one more to come!) and R loving the attention!

After we decided to do fireworks. Ok just sparklers, but we tried to be festive. Jake Dull is an American too, so we thought it would be fun.

This is Charlie, R, and Jonah. They loved the sparklers, and we thought that we had bought enough until my brilliant husband...........

decided to multi-task and light 1 sparkler while holding the rest in the same hand. The end result? They ALL lit on fire and burned out LONG before we could even get them to any of the kids!!! Way to ruin the fun honey!!! Leave the multi-tasking to me!!! :)

Its a little blurry, but this was R's first sleepover. Wow, still a little young but fun. These 2 didn't fall asleep until after midnight. Which caused some moody little ladies the next day!

We had a fun weekend. Love that our friends were able to come down and stay with us. Even if they had to pack their whole house up just to stay the night! It was fun!!!

P.S. Still trying to come to Utah. The earliest that we(me and R) are trying is the 22nd of the this month(yes 2 weeks away)!!! The reason we don't know for sure is because we are using Jared's benefits and the tickets are stand-by. So we won't FOR SURE know until the day before when we are able to purchase the tickets! I would LOVE to see as many people as possible. I am thinking around the first of August sometime! I SHOULD be there by then!!! Let me know what you think!