The Davie Diaries: The most anticipated week of the summer....and maybe even the year!

Last week we were in San Diego from Saturday to Saturday. With my entire family. It was a lot of fun!! It's a lot of work to feed and entertain and manage that many people, especially the quarreling children (turns out my kids are the biggest aggravators), but it was SO worth it! It was a little warm which made getting in the water fantastic, but sleeping was a little bit of a struggle as for some reason ceiling fans and AC are not common in San Diego (why the heck not?? it gets in the 90's!!). We all still survived even though I think most of us were excited to get back to the 105 temps that comes with lots of AC :)

Be ready for picture overload. If you think there's a lot of pictures, just think, this is only 64 out of 677. I brought my new macro-lens and was super excited about using it.....so we ended up with more pictures than usual.

Munching on apples on the drive over.

Sweet Peter doesn't really know how to play the i-pad, but he does know that Oliver likes it so it must be good, so he kinda begs for it.

We met up with Cody and Whitney's family in Yuma at Chick fil'a. I'm sure the employees didn't love our big group, but the kids had fun!!

Whitney and I discovered we were both traveling with large bags of M&M's (she had almond, I had peanut). We really are kindred spirits. Love that sister of mine and I'm grateful for her every day of my life. I swear if my next baby is a girl it will almost guarantee a fourth because I think every girls needs a sister!

While Claire, Whit, my Dad and I went to the store and Costco (it's kind of our tradition) Tim took the boys out to the beach. They had a great time!

After a little Costco pizza for dinner we headed out as a group to watch the sunset, and of course as per usual, the kids all got soaking wet in the tide.

My beautiful niece Elle who is getting so old!

Logan came over from Utah, Yay!! The kids love him and so do I! It's always fun to have him around! And look at Piper's eyes, aren't they just amazing?!?

I kinda wanna squish these two!!

And as always a big shout out to my parents for making this week happen. They are so generous and wonderful!! I lucked out with these ones.

Brothers!!! Logan may have stood on his toes for this one....it looks natural though right?

These two love each other! I am so grateful that they are so close in agae.

My sweet little squish and my very weird looking knee!

First sunset of the week!

Hanging out in PJ's on the balcony.

Sand!!

Lunch by the seashore!

Sisters boogie boarding....SO MUCH FUN!

Mom and Rhett

Claire and Piper taking in the splashes from a wave.

I told them to wave to the camera. Only two of them followed directions.

We walked to Pacific Beach to get ourselves some Baked Bear (ice cream sandwiched between delicious cookies). We ran into Oliver Ave. on our way.

We tend to walk in groups when we're all together.

A blury sunset pictures with our monkeys.

Crepe's for breakfast. Look at all those boys. They don't look too happy, but I really do think they had fun.

Drying out after boogie boarding.

Tim took Oliver out to boogie board.

He did an awesome job!

And even smiled when he rolled up onto the shore.

We rented kyaks for a day and Oliver was thrilled at the idea of going out on one. He put his life jacket on and waited for his turn.

Tim and Cody caught a few waves.

Then they took Oliver out.

They were having a pretty good time, and then the inevitable happened.

They flipped and Oliver was traumatized.

And he milked it for a while, but then got over it.

I even got him to smile for me at the end.

Here you have Peter yelling, "DAAAAAAD" At the top of his lungs. The boys has found his voice in what few words he knows :)

Peter loved picking up the wet sand.

Three little besties!

Logan and me catching a wave on the boogie boards.

Then, me and my siblings decided it would be a good idea to, all four of us, take the TWO man kayak out. Logan and I were both left with the child size life jackets. Mine was for a 30-50 lb child. I look ridiculous and hilarious and that about sums up our adventure.

We were laughing SO HARD!!!

I had the privilege of sitting in the front of the boat where no person really should ever sit and I have very large bruises on my bottom to show for it. #worthit

I also thought, that every time a wave hit my back, I would go flying forward and smash into Cody. It never happened, phew!

Keeping our balance was so hard, but after over a dozen failed attempts, we finally managed to make it past the waves and then turn around and "ride" one 'till it flipped us 2 seconds later.

Uncle Logan buried Oliver which he loved.

And Oliver posed so I could send his preschool class a picture of him at the beach.

Tuesday night we had dinner at Phil's. It's one of the few restaurants in SD that we feel relatively comfortable taking all of the kids.

After dinner we went to Belmont Park. The kids picked the "crazy submarine" as their first ride. The lady running the ride stopped it to let Oliver off. Not because he was crying, but because his facial expressions were making her feel like he didn't want to be on there anymore. He gave him his tickets back and we were all amused by the whole thing. I kinda love my scardie cat!

Peter wasn't as nervous as Oliver, but he also wasn't very impressed by the whole thing.

Next we went on the bumper cars which Oliver LOVED!

Oliver posing outside the men's restrooms.

All of the littles went on this car ride that was basically sitting in a car that went around in a circle, or so we thought.....As soon as the ride started, it WHIPPED the cars turning the corners so hard and fast, it surprised us all. I thought that my mom and Logan were going to die laughing. I should have taken pictures of them. Oliver didn't love it at first, but then I think he saw the fun in it and changed his mind.

The three boys in front of the crazy race cars.

The five littles.

Cody went with Elle on this ridiculous big swinging spinning ride that freaked me out! They had so much fun though! Elle said it was the highlight of her trip.

Wednesday I got together with some of my girlfriends from SD. Alice (the one in the middle), lives in Maryland and happened to be in SD the same time we were. What are the chances. And Krystle and her husband just moved back after grad school. I love getting together with these girlfriends. They are so great! (My forehead looks very bald and shinny in this picture and makes me laugh every time I see it!)

We all got together with our husbands and kids that night. To think that none of us had kids before we knew each other and now there are 8 kids between the 8 of us with 3 on the way!