Merry Christmas to All!

I knew Christmas was going to be fun with a 3 year old and a 2 year old this year.  Here they are getting into the spirit on Christmas Eve.

 The boys are listening to the annual reading of "The Polar Express."  -Read by Nana the Elf

Nolan and Great Grandma reading a book

Nash ready to spread Reindeer food on the lawn

The boys could hardly stand waiting at the top of the stairs Christmas morning.  This year Santa brought them new bikes.  No snow this Christmas so Nash was able to get out and ride his for a little while. 

Nolan on his new blue hot rod

Nash on his new big boy bike

Family time

The ladies sporting our new glasses with reading lights on them..a classic from Papa Elf.

Nini and Noley

Trying out Aunt Nini's new Zumba video

Nolan playing with his new trains and the rest of us figuring out how to "transform" Nash's new Transformers

We had an awesome weekend spending time with family and celebrating the birth of Baby Jesus.  Merry Christmas to all!

Deck the Halls!

We got our tree up before we left for vacation but I'm just now getting around to posting the pictures.  The boys were such a big "help."  I think we ended up with only three broken ornaments so that's not so bad.  Nothing a little super glue can't fix.

Nash

Nolan

West Coast Explorers

On Wednesday, we didn't really have any plans.  We decided to go exploring.  Nash and Nolan helped Grama Jo get ready for the day.

Grama and her stylists

 We ended up at a park in Pismo Beach.

Daddy the Dare Devil

Grama and the boys

Nash and Nana were enjoying the photo shoot.  Nolan, not so much.

 Nana and I walked along the cliffs a little ways and discovered some sea lions sunning on the rocks.

 This lead us to a staircase that took us to a little beach.

Nana and the mountain goat

Nash loved climbing on the rocks

Nolan and Grama Jo

On the way back to the hotel, we ended up at a little barn selling produce and canned goods.  They had a petting zoo to entertain the boys.

 That night we had dinner at Rosa's, which was delicious.  It's a nice, Italian restaurant where Jason used to work when he was in college.  During our trip we got to see a lot of different places where Jason used to work and live.  It was a trip back in time for him.  We had dinner a couple of nights with some of his college friends.  It was good to catch up with all of them.  We visited Jason's college campus one day and purchased a few things from the bookstore.

We visited the children's museum in SLO for a bit on Thursday.

The children

More children

On Thursday night we met up with some friends at the San Luis Farmer's Market.  They close off several blocks downtown so the vendors can set up shop.   We had some good food and the boys ate a ton of fresh strawberries.  Friday we checked out of the hotel and drove back over to Bakersfield.  We stopped to surprise Grandma Alonna at work on the way.  We turned in fairly early on Friday because our plane left at 5:50 am on Saturday morning.  The boys did really well on all of the flights.

Passing the time with a movie

We arrived back home around 1:30 this afternoon.  It was tough to say good-bye to our friends and family in Cali.  We had such an amazing two weeks away.  And I want to give a special shout out to Nana for making the trip with us.  You were such a big help and it was exciting for us to share that part of our lives with you!  Mwah!
I have to share one last picture from my cell phone for the sake of memories.  This is a picture of one of the sunrises.  We saw many of these because Nash was usually up around 5am.  We would go down to the lobby for hot chocolate and wait for the sun to come up so whoever wanted to continue sleeping could get a little more shut eye.  For some reason Nash never quite adjusted to the time change even after 2 weeks.  Hopefully that will make for a smooth transition back to our normal schedules.  It might be an interesting week!

Back to reality!

Under the Sea

Monday morning Grama Jo drove over from Bakersfield to spend a few days with us on the coast.  It turned out to be a bit rainy so we took a little road trip to Monterey Bay to hit up the aquarium.  It was WORTH THE DRIVE!

Grama, Nash, Nana, Jason, and Nolan 

Sea otter and friends

Jellyfish.  One of my favorite exhibits 

Nasher

Sea horse exhibit.  Another one of my favs.

After the aquarium we ate at Bubba Gump's before making our way back to Avila.

A Post From the Coast

I'm not sure how to narrow this one down to a manageable size.  I'm going to have to break it up into a few different posts I think.  During our second week in California, we stayed on the coast in Avila Beach.  This is about 15 minutes from where Jason went to college at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo.  Unfortunately, the weather was pretty cool with high temps in the 50s most days.  Everyone kept telling us how warm it was the week before we got there.  Oh well, we had fun anyway.  However, we probably would have spent a lot more time at the beach had the temps cooperated.

The boys checking out the view 

West Coast Wentlands

Our hotel from the beach

Amazing sunset

 My amazing friend Jessi came up from San Diego on the train to stay with us for the weekend.  So fun!  Thanks for making the trip Jess!

Jessi and Me

We went to the pier in Pismo Beach.  Jason and I had our picture take in the exact same spot we posed for a picture several years ago during my first trip to California with him.  I need to dig that one up from the archives.

Jason and me

 Nash wanted to swim in the ocean SO bad.  This is as good as it gets with the temps we were dealing with. That water was seriously ice cold.  The boys didn't really seem to mind though.

Boys at Pismo Beach

Nash writing in the sand  "IOWA"

Nash putting the final touches on Nana's work of art "IOWA Nash Nolan Jessi Megan Jason Nana 2011"

OK, this next photo stings a little.  Jessi warned me that the next wave looked like a big one.  I still had shoes on so I wasn't prepared.  Nolan started to lose his balance and I attempted to keep my feet dry and help him stay upright.  Obviously neither of those things happened.

Mother of the Year.  Did I mention how cold that water was?  UGH!  But notice how no one else was rushing to help and someone managed to capture a photo!  :0)

Jessi with the boys

Splash Cafe: Home of the famous clam chowder

One day we went to the Port San Luis Pier to check out the sea lions. 

 That same day we went back to Pismo to see the monarch butterflies.  Nana read that there were about 24,000 that had migrated to this grove.

Butterflies clustered together to stay warm

We walked through the grove to see the ocean and the sand dunes.  Such a beautiful spot for pictures.

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Nash and Noaln

Mom and me

Jess and me

Jason testing out his ninja skills

 Like father like son.

Ninja Nash