back from the oc

time for a new post i know! we just got in late last night from cali and we had such a FUN time! it went by way too fast. but the good thing is we'll be back out there in 3 weeks! ye-ahhhh! we went down memorial day weekend and it was a bit chillier than i'd planned, but we ended up having tons o fun! now that we don't live there we are doing some things we prob wouldn't do if we did live there, so it's kinda fun. we went to balboa island (i haven't done the fairy ride since i was a kid). we went to our old hb ward. sigh. and went to see indi jones (not a fan, but everyone else seemed to dig it). we had our 6 year anniv! i can't believe it's been 6 years. i'll do a post on that later. bren flew back to az on mon night and we stayed thru the week and went to the spectrum, the beach, the pool, a few diff gyms to check out the tkb class (LOVE that class), and just hung out! bren flew back on fri for his seminar (thank goodness for seminars esp in ca, i'll be soooo sad when they end). anyway, it was so great! i miss everyone already! i love that i'm bloggin instead of unpacking! now for the pics (there are quite a few)!

balboa island carousel

checkin out the sea cucumbers (eww) and stuff

ava checkin it out too

eric, laura, and ava on our little fairy ride

the bates fam

happy 6 year anniv! i LOVE you babe! may 25th!

cute kids on the swing

bren was dying to take chuckers to ca to play over the weekend and it was a big hit! funny how entertaining throwing a little circle disk can be :)!

sherri and me! thanks for letting us come to your house ALL the time to nap, shower, watch my kids (love my toes), and hang! you are great! NEVER move :), unless it's to az!

cute savanna w/ grandpa!

savanna is obsessed w/ climbing on chairs, so she was fully entertained

carter can't get enough of the beach (neither can i)

snack time (i can't go anywhere w/o snacks or i'm in trouble :)

after the beach we ventured over to newport to check out sprinkles cupcakes. it was a fun little experience. the line was out the door and here we are w/ our strollers and tons of kids, but they were good and the cupcake was YUM-O esp the red velvet. it was fun to go, but $3.25 for a cupcake prob isn't an everyday thing! it was a good treat though!

after the sprinkles sherri watched the kids, so i could get a ped and after that i picked the kids up and we went back to rsm for some pool time! they loved it and my pops joined us later. it was perf weather esp since by now it was 615pm. the kids sure went to bed easy that night :)!

the next day we went to the beach club w/ camille & jeremy, eric, laura, ava, and my dad and bryan met up w/ us later. i love that place!

my pops, me, and savvy

that night we all went to wahoos, my sister adrian just drove in from ut and we all enjoyed some grub!

we played speed uno and it was really fun. i get a little into it and prob hurt eric w/ a couple punches here and there, but hey when someone burps in your face 20 times, it's only fair, right?

sunday fun! we had our last supper at the sumans before takin off and it was beautiful outside and the little ones were just hangin out back. so cute.

our good friend bone slash michael came over for dinner too :)

meredith is getting ready for prom and this is one of her options. funny i remember when dana wore this to prom back in the day! tad smaller on mere!

takin some quick candids before heading off

love my sister! i wish we could of stayed in ca longer to hang, but we'll see her when we go to ut in july! love you homie!