California Vacay - July 2015

July 3rd, we started our long-awaited trip to California with the Sherwood family. It was the start of the best week! I took this picture of Lance, Suzanne, and Abby snoozing in the car. We started the day really early :) Noah rode in Poppy & Grandma's truck with Ellie and Roxy, and the girls didn't come on this trip with us.

Abby was prepared with her sunglasses for a week in the sun...

... and so excited to hit the beach when we got to Newport!

It was fun to be there on the 4th of July. There were TONS of people on the beach, and also tons of people circling the streets on their bikes or just walking... as if they were in a parade or something. We had fun on the beach that day, and just as much fun people watching from the porch and balcony of the beach house! That night we watched fireworks from the sand.

The next day (Sunday), we hung out around the beach house, took a bike ride down to the pier, and prepared for our variety show that night. There were some great performances at the 3rd Annual Sherwood Family variety show!

1st, Brad performed magic tricks for the kids

Next up, the Gibbons family (and Jax's friends Carson & Hayden) performed their "family fued" skit. The Gibbons played the MERCER family, that's right... Roy D. Sharon Jean, Raymond, and Lateesha. This was so unexpected and hilarious!

We also got to watch a video performance of Riggs. We missed his personality on this trip and especially on the night of our variety show!

Our family performed a skit, imitating the "thrilla killa clowns" from Saturday Night Live, who on SNL are imitating the Insane Clown Posse. We sang the song "Magical Mysteries"...

The Cummards did "EW!!" from Jimmy Fallon. It was the bomb! They also video-taped a music video to the EW song and shared it with us that night. SO funny!

 Sara, Mir-i-am, and step-dad Gary

The Baldwins pulled out another surprise with the "Dope Zebra" performance. Our kids (especially the babies) love to watch this zebra dancing online. It's a regular on Grandma's ipad. I'm not sure how it was found in the first place, but we figured out that it was a dance used for a CHUCK TESTA commercial. (Chuck Testa is a taxidermist.) There were so many awesome parts to the Baldwins' performance, including Davis in zebra dance shorts, Scott dancing in a zebra costume, and Davis being scared of his parents in the costume!

Lucy did a solo dance and it's obvious that she was made for the stage. She LOVES performing and is so good at it!

Ellie, Roxy, and Lucy all did a dance together as well...

Danielle put on her Tayler Trojans cheer uniform and performed a few cheers that she personalized for our family... including a cheer for Bryan, the 5-minute & 12 second mile runner / hall-of-famer, as well as a rivalry cheer for those of us that went to Brimhall Jr. High: "bobcats for breakfast, bobcats for lunch, bobcats for dinner... crunch crunch crunch"! She was so cute.

Next up was the sisters number. We did "Wannabe" from the spice girls. Auburn was SPORTY, Suzanne BABY, Danielle GINGER, Alisse SCARY, and I was POSH.

The closing number came from Poppy and Grandma, aka Sonny & Cher! They danced to "shake your booty" and invited everyone to get up and dance with them. It was a great night and another great variety show!

Monday, we went to Knotts Berry Farm. We were all split up for most of the day but had an easy time finding each other throughout the day, thanks to our matching shirts! Abby even got to do a few baby/kid rides and was scared for the most part. Russ and Noah participated in a basketball shoot-off challenge. We had dinner at Mrs. Knotts' and finished off the night with some awesome roller coaster action!

 

Russ and Abby ended the day on the "baby train" and took some selfies!

The rest of our week was spent hanging out on the beach, bike riding, eating lots of donuts & other food we love in California, and just enjoying being with our family. Noah had a blast sharing a room and doing everything with Jax and his friends. They walked to circle K multiple times a day to get themselves drinks and snacks. Abby loved playing with the other girls and bossing Davis around. Russ and I loved being together, away from work and home. I also loved being with my mom and sisters for an entire week. The weather was perfect and we loved the house that we stayed in. This vacation was seriously so perfect! These are some pictures we took throughout the week, in random order...

Alisse took some cute pictures of Abby while we were at the beach, to document her cute (and sassy) 2-year-old self!

Our last few nights on vacation were spent eating dinner at Stacked with our whole group, and going to Balboa the very last night for dessert...

This is a picture of Abby on the way home. When we were almost home, she kept saying "go back to the beach house". I felt the same way! One week wasn't quite long enough. Thank you to my mom & dad (Grandma & Poppy) for providing the best vacation for us! It was one of the best ever!