Friday, November 11, 2011

Our last full day in Newport

This morning was a rough one. I had woke up feeling quite queesy. Then after breakfast I started to get a migraine. Took some tythenol and ended up throwing it up. But I kept on.  After a shower I was feeling better.We were disappointed to see it was still overcast.  But we didn't need the sun to go and check out the tide pools and cottages. As we headed out around 10 AM I began to get another migraine.  This is a good pic of how I felt as we are walking down to the beach.  Our Villas are in the background.  By the time we made it down, the cool ocean air hit me and I started to feel better.

We had gone further down the coast this time to view more tide pools than we had the night before.   
The scene was like out of a movie.  These old cottages dating back to 1930 line the cliffs.  I actually mentioned to Das how much it reminded me of the movie "Beaches" (that I currently just made him watch).  He agreed.  Later when we got back to the villa, I read that "Beaches" actually had been filmed there. 
These boys scared me a little.  They were going a little farther out than I was comfortable with.  But they did ok.  And once the waves finally got them, they stayed closer in. 
And this little monster.......He is out of control! 



Das put Logan on his shoulders, and he fell asleep.  Das didn't even know until Logan's head started to fall.  He really is such a delightful little boy.  I am really lucky with my 3 wonderful little guys.  I would be perfectly happy to have a 4th! 
And as you can see in the picture above....the clouds were disappearing.  The sun felt so good.  Das couldn't get us out of there fast enough to get to the pool.  We headed there and swam for a couple of hours, ate lunch and the snack bar, and came back to the room to go back to the beach.   
We didn't quite make it out.  We all got hooked on a family movie.  Now we are gonna make dinner and go to the Shake Shack down on the beach.  Another great day and sad it is coming to an end.  Especially since we head home tomorrow :(

Making the most of an overcast day...

We had planned on Thursday being as nice as Wednesday, but the sun was hidden at 10AM.  So our plans of going to Laguna Beach had to be put on hold.  It was still really warm outside, so we decided to go up to the main pools for a couple of hours to see if the sun would come out. 

The main pool is like a large country club.  Three pools, two hot tubs, snack bars, billiards, ping pong, fuseball, life size chess and checkers.  We could have stayed there all day.  They also have an activities center to take your younger children for some fun time, and a teen center to send your out of control teens to.  There they have an xbox and lots of other games only for the wild ones.  And this pool looks out over the ocean.

But we couldn't spend our whole day lounging by the pool.  So we headed back to the villa, had lunch, and got ready to go out.  We wanted to check out Crystal Cove State Park which was also within walking distance from us.  The sun never came out, but the boys had a great time scouring the beach for some ocean life.  We got down there pretty close to sunset, but we couldn't see the sun through the clouds.  So we decided to head to dinner and come back the next day.



Our boys are the CUTTEST ever!!! Loving Logan's goofy hair in this pic.  The boys didn't shower after swimming, so his curly hair laid flat.
Best friends always!  I love how close these two are. 

The hike back up was a steep one!



We headed to Ruby's Shake Shack for some burgers and then back home to watch the movie we rented from the activities room as a family.  And then we all crashed out.  It was a fun and busy day.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Newport Beach - Picture Overload

Sunday night I got a phone call from my mother.   She asked me if Das and I would like to use their Marriott time share condo in Newport Beach.  Das and I are always up for a vacation so we were interested.  But then she told us we would have to leave right away.  Das and I decided to sleep on it.

One of my sisters had put a request in for this week in Newport.  But unfortunately the time share waited til last week to confirm and my sister's fam had already made plans.  We of course couldn't let the condo go to waste....so we HAD to take it.  And fortunately Das works for a really great company that allows him to do spur of the moment trips like these.

 And those trips are the best!  So we packed up Monday night(despite my wanting to puke every 5 minutes and no help from Das who was glued to the Bears game) and took off early morning Tuesday.   We stopped for lunch in St. George, and got to the Marriot Newport Coast Villas (classy classy place) around 7:00.  Das is such a great driver.  I am thankful to him for getting our family there safely. 
The sun was setting as we were nearing the coast.  I have never seen a sunset so big and beautiful.  We hope to get to the beach one of these nights for a more clear one.  We have a pretty good view of the ocean from our Villa, and tonight the colors are just as bright.

 This morning we woke up bright and early and headed to the beach.  The weather was perfect even at 10AM.  We stayed at the beach for a couple of hours and the kids had a blast.....Including Logan!
Logan wanted to be right in the water with Tristan and Ashton.  He was fearless!  Luckily Das was right by the whole time to lift him up when the waves came in. 


Everytime we brought him back to the towels, he would quickly crawl away from us, towards Tristan and Ashton. 

Tristan and Ashton had a great time digging holes, jumping waves, and finding sea shells. 
Logan was covered in sand.  He wanted to eat it, and he kept rubbing his eyes.  But yet he didn't cry once. 



After the beach we went back for lunch and then headed to one of the many pools here at the resort.  Now we are marinating steaks for dinner and then going to go check out some of the fun activities the resort holds everyday.  We are so glad that we were able to drop everything and take advantage of my parents generosity.  Thanks Mom and Dad!