CA Trip: Day 6, Beach

 So before we left Utah, I had a great idea.  I don't always follow through on all my great ideas, but this one I did.  I thought, being from Utah, which is land-locked, wouldn't it be fun to have family pictures on the beach?  Yes, that would be so fun!  I found a local photographer in Living Social that would do a one-hour shoot for $59.  That's a great deal!  She had a great portfolio which matched my style, etc.  Only thing is, to get the right light, and a not-crowded beach all to ourselves, we had to be at the beach by 7:30am.  I was regretting it the night before when we didn't get to bed until after midnight after getting home from California Adventure.  6 kids plus myself up, hair done, dressed, out the door and arriving at the beach 15 minutes away by 7:30.  Heck, we can't even do that by 9am for church!  Oh, and don't forget that they had to be ready to smile and look happy.  After all that, it would have been worth it if the pictures had of turned out great.  I don't think our photographer knew what to do with a family of 8.  She had us standing under the pier and running up the sandy hill.  The tide was in and we were all wet, some of us drenched, after the first 3 shots.  And we never did get a develop-able shot of that.  I was not happy.  Brighton whined and complained through the whole thing.  Oh well, I'll develop my 3 pictures that worked and say it was worth it:)  It was an experience though.

After pictures, we walked around a bit.  We were at Newport Beach, which we hadn't been to before.  The pier went out aways, and there was the cutest little 50's diner at the end called Ruby's.  I thought it would be fun to come back later with just Scott for a shake or something, but it was quite expensive. Walking back, we ran into a group of guys with mini surfboards.  Being from Utah, I don't know all the surfer terms or activities, so I had to ask one of them.  They were skim boards.  We stopped to watch for a little while.  I was really impressed with how they caught the waves.  I've never observed surfing in person before.  They made it look so easy.  Scott was pretty sure the guy I talked to was Zac Efron.  We never saw him close enough again to get a positive ID, and he left after 30 mins, in a Maseratti, no less.  Scott had to IMDB him right away, and found out he lives just outside Newport and loves to surf.  Too bad I didn't realize it sooner.  I could have gawked a little more:)

After leaving Newport Beach, we were going to go back, but the steepness of the beach would have made it difficult to boogey board, so we decided to go back to Crystal Cove again.  I would have loved to explore all the surrounding beaches, but I realized after the Hollywood experience, you can lose half your vacation time by trying to drive too far.  Traffic is really heavy in CA.  

This time the seaweed was not as abundant, thank goodness.  Something about coming out of the water with stuff wrapped around your legs gives me the willies.  It was a beautiful day!

 Irelynd's going to try out for the next Baywatch series:)

 This time the twins decided to amuse themselves by burying Scott.  He was such a good sport and let them bury him up to his ears...and then some.  The older kids joined in too when they heard the twins giggling so much.

 It was getting hot sitting under the sun, and Waverly kept Scott from getting sand in his mouth that stuck to the sweat under his nose.  How thoughtful!

 Scott was such a great sport and let them do whatever they thought up to torture him:)  What a great dad he is!

 Looking at these pictures, I can still hear Keaton giggling as he poured bucket after bucket over his dad's head.  Even Boston is getting in on the action.

 Savannah is saying, "yo Ninja!" a favorite saying of hers lately.  Now for the un-earthing!

We had another really fun day of sand castle-building, shell-collecting, and boogey boarding.  Can't believe this vacation is almost over.

After 3 hours, the kids had had enough sand and we left to spend some time at the hotel pool.  This time we found the main pool area, which was a series of 3 HUGE pools, plus a hot tub.  They loved going back and forth between the 3 pools and hot tub.  I was surprised they wanted to get out at all because it was freezing!  Warm during the day, very chilly at night.  As we were swimming, I was noticing that most of the other guests were older.  There were very few kids at the resort, and the ones we saw were with older people.  We were the only ones at the pool until another older lady got in.  She looks around and asks me, "which ones are yours?"  I looked around too and said, "all of them!"  I found it really funny at the looks I got from everyone that saw how many kids we had.  I'm proud to have 6 kids, and wouldn't have it any other way.  But out of Utah, we were definitely a freak show!