shred it: California Adventure- Day 29

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Today was our last California beach day. We decided to check out Malibu Lagoon becausethe Malibu beaches have been our favorites so far. I don’t know if it topped our list offavorites, but it was a beautiful beach and the perfect beach morning… cool and breezy but with just enough sun tokeep us warm. The boys were right athome digging in the sand. I swear theycould sit there in the sand for hours. When we first got here, they were both terrified of the kelp that washesup on the shore. Today they proudlywalked right through it and they were so excited to exclaim, “I’m not afraid ofthat anymore!” I wish we could say thesame for the ocean but unfortunately we still couldn’t coax them towards thewater, even on our very last trip to the beach. I guess that means we’ll just have to come back sometime.

On the beach, daddy and the boys made a giant sea turtle inthe sand, and the boys and I chased sea gulls while daddy worked on a giantsand castle. The boys love to destroysand castles the very second they are built, so it took a bit of work to keepthem away long enough for daddy to construct the mega-castle! After a few pictures, we let them have at itand within 10 seconds the whole thing was leveled! If college doesn't work out, I'm pretty sure these two have a bright future in demolition!Jon and I each took turns taking one last walk on the beachto look for sea treasures. Jon managedto find three amazing pieces of sea glass to add to our Californiacollection. When it was my turn, Iwalked down to the end of the public beach and onto the private beach of MalibuCanyon, which is actually public up to the “mean high tide line”. It was the most beautiful and most peaceful20 minutes of my life! It was apristine beach and I was the only one on it. I walked along with my feet in the water andgot to spend some time reflecting on our trip and how we ended up here. Exactly one year ago today I went in for my heart catheterization and we expected to find out just how bad my prognosis was. Instead we found out that my diagnosis was wrong and within minutes I went from dying to wanting to live more than I ever have in my life. And to think that exactly one year later we are wrapping up an experience that most people could only dream about, with two little boys that most people could only dream about having as their own... it was just so nice to have those few beautiful moments to myself to think about it all and just silently say thank you. If saying goodbye to the ocean and the beach was hard, our evening was even harder. We spent one last evening at my aunt and uncles house and at the end of the evening we had to say goodbye. We shared one last dinner, the boys picked one last grapefruit (well, two!), and skated in the driveway one last time. My uncle has lived out here in California for as long as I can remember so aside from very rare visits, I've never spent much time with him. And then he married the most wonderful woman, and aside from the slightly more frequent visits, I haven't spent much time with her either. So being here has been such a wonderful opportunity to spend the time with them that I've never been able to have before and I'm so glad the boys will have these relationships that I didn't get to have as a child. Jon and the boys and I are used to being surrounded by family at home, sometimes so much that's its overwhelming at times... so being out here alone was a very different experience for all of us. But from the first evening we spent with my aunt, uncle, and cousin, it didn't feel like we were alone here at all. We had wonderful family to share dinners and picnics with and to go on fun adventures like the zoo and a baseball game with! Saying goodbye this evening was our hardest goodbye yet. I can't wait until we are able to come back and share more adventures with our California family :)Well, tomorrow is our last great California Adventure. We are headed to Disney! Until we left for California, the boys didn't know what Disney was. We had to let them watch a few episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse to let them get to know who Micky and Minnie are. We got them two Disney coloring books for the trip and we've watched a few videos of the different rides on YouTube so that they aren't totally caught off guard when we get there. But aside from that, they know nothing about Disney. So I have absolutely positively NO idea why they are so unbelievably excited that they can't sleep!!! We put them down an hour ago but they keep popping up and asking about Dumbo and Peter Pan and running laps around their room while squealing at the tops of their little lungs! For the first half an hour or so it was kinda cute to see them so truly excited about something. But the last half an hour has just been exhausting! I hope they go to sleep soon so we can wake them up in time to get there!!!Our last beach day!