More Summer Fun-stuff

We are checking things off of our summer bucket list left and right! This past weekend we went up to Ojai, CA (an amazing little town 2 hours North of LA) where Steve's Uncle and Aunt live. We actually got engaged exactly 5 years ago in Ojai (technically on Ventura beach) so that was fun to realize.
Here is what we did this weekend:
Friday we spent the day at the beach and Steve and I got fried...but that is beside the point. The point is, the girls LOVED it, especially Avery. She really loved the waves and searching for seashells. We also got to see a lot of dolphins jumping around close to the shore line. Through our Arizona-touristy-eyes, it was the coolest thing to ever see, ever.

I even boogie boarded in the cold ocean water, not as much as Steve did, but he's a freak. But before I ventured into the ocean, methunk to myself, "Self, take your wedding rings off so you don't lose them in the ocean." So I took them off an put them in the outside pocket of our beach bag, a zipperless pocket.
That evening we were eating a delicious meal that Steve's aunt made when I noticed our beach bag laying on their back patio...empty. So I said to Steve, "I forgot to tell you, I put my wedding rings in the outside pocket of the bag. You didn't shake the bag out, did you?"
Long story short, he did shake the bag out and neither of my rings were in the bag. Happily he quickly found my main wedding ring with the big diamond just laying of their lawn, but my wedding band was no where to be seen. We looked for that ring for hours. Steve eventually drove half and hour to find a Harbor Freight and bought a metal detector and went back to the beach which was another half hour the other way...at night...and he forgot a flashlight. Needless to say, he did not find it at the beach.
When he returned with the metal detector we were testing it out, and Steve's aunt was shining the flashlight on the lawn and saw something sparkling, my ring! It was literally in the very spot we had been looking for the previous 3 hours. Steve was a little sad we didn't find it with the metal detector he just spent the last 1.5 hours procuring.
I felt so stupid during the whole ordeal. I told Steve the lesson to be learned here was, "Communicate with my husband!" and he said the lesson was "Don't put expensive rings in pockets that don't zip." Touche. Touche.
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The next morning, Saturday, we got up at 5am, loaded the girls up and drove 2 hours South to the one and only Disneyland. Avery turns three next week, so we figured we better take advantage of her free admission while we can, because after next week, a fairly cheap Disneyland trip will no longer exist for our family.
It was a really fun day, with about a billion other people, and two impatient toddlers. In our young parenting years fun=exhausting. There is no way around that one, toddlers are work, especially in a place like Disneyland.
Steve and I have concluded that we are the worst at taking vacation pictures, so we got virtually no pictures worth sharing of our Disneyland adventure, but here are a few that {sort of } made the cut.

As you can see, we have problems getting Avery to LOOK at the camera.

Just waitin' for the Jungle Cruise, might as well pick your nose, right?

This is what happened, literally 5 minutes after we got in the car to drive home. I swear she was out before we were even out of the parking garage.

Avery's favorite attractions were: "Mickey's Magic Map" show where several princesses sang and danced (her absolute dream come true), Its a Small World, Mad Hatter Tea Cups, the Train Ride, Jungle Cruise, the Tiki Room, and the Carousel.

Steve and I wished we could sleep the whole drive home like our girls did, well, I sort of did, but poor Steve had to drive the entire 6 hours. We didn't get home until 12:30am, aaaand we have 9am church...aaaand today is Steve's birthday. We are tired, to say the least, but being tired from too much fun is pretty much the best.