While in California, we managed to make it out to the beach with Joseph. It was his first time seeing the ocean. We met up with Paul’s brother to have lunch and then headed to the water. Paul and I thought that Joseph would have some sort of cautious approach to the water, since it’s big and rather loud, but he had no inhibitions, whatsoever, thank-you-very-much! In fact, he ran straight in, and we had to run after him to pull him back a little, lol. After that, we spent most of the time keeping him from diving in head-first. He was in Heaven! He kept say, “More, more, more!” The only fit he pitched was when it was time to go home. His teeth were chattering from the cold, and yet, he didn’t want to leave. I think we have a few pictures showing what it took to get him out of the water, which was me and Paul dragging him out, with him throwing all of his weight back, trying to stop us, lol. He played so hard that he slept the entire way home!
Walking out to the waterPlaying in the wavesDigging in the sandWater babyTrying to escape so that he can run into the wavesHe broke free!After getting a face-full of salt waterUncle Jason keeping the runner under controlJoseph kept losing his britchesWanting more wavesHe kept trying to sit down in the water, which would have been fine, had it not been deep enough to cover his head at points.Leaning down to splash the waterDiscovering that he could kick in the waterLooking back to see if he could get away from Daddy and get back into the waterWith Uncle JasonTrying to escape my graspTrying to escape Daddy…again…Uh-oh…time to goAlright…5 more minutesAnd we’re going home nowNope, we’re really going now. Can you see the resistance in his stance? lolAbout 2 minutes into the drive home, and he’s out. You can see his poor head where he fell while running on the sidewalk. That red spot is what eventually turned into the huge scab you’ll see in other pictures in the next posts.
One great thing about our trip was that we were able to spend a lot of time with family. We got to see Mom and Dad, of course, but we also got to see Aaron and Dusty and their family, along with Aaron and Tara and their family. One of my favorite memories is hearing Joseph shriek, “Go, go, go!” as my nephew Andrew pulled him in the wagon. 🙂 We also celebrated my birthday and Joseph’s birthday since it was almost time for them. 🙂 AND we introduced Joseph to Ralph, my parent’s desert tortoise, that they got when I was very young. He’s definitely older than I am!
Birthday cake!Yum! Carrot cake!He LOVED the wagonSeriously…we couldn’t get him out of itThis…is Ralph…the best desert tortoise, ever!Checking out RalphSmiles for DaddyFeeding Ralph one of his favorites: tomatoesRalph LOVES tomatoes
In this video, you can totally hear Joseph saying, “Go, go, go!”:
This is a video of Joseph “hula-hooping” with the help of one of his cousins:
I’m going to break up our vacation fun into three different blog posts: Travel and Toys, Family Time, and Beach Trip. There are just so many pictures and videos, I didn’t want to overload anybody, including myself. Paul had some Army training to attend and he got the go-ahead to drive out so that Joseph and I could go with him. We left on August 23rd and drove through the night, getting to Mom and Dad’s on the 24th. Joseph had had enough of the car (understandably), so we were fine letting him just discover all of the fun toys that live at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Here are photos of the drive and Joseph playing with toys. He’s in his church clothes for some of the pictures because we were there for one Sunday. It was cool going to my “home” ward and seeing people that I hadn’t seen in a very long time. 🙂 Oh, and you’ll notice a huge scab on Joseph’s head. When we went to the beach, he fell on the sidewalk and scraped his head. Poor guy learned that it wasn’t best to run on the sidewalk. 🙁 We left CA on the 31st, drove through the night again, and got home on September 1st.
Trying to stay awake while drivingOn the road: he was SO done with the carCheese!His favorite toys were the blocks…by far.He loved the blocksI don’t know what was so funny…My menCuddle-timeMega block funSharing a jokeBlocks with DaddyMore blocks with DaddyWe took a trip to the mall…he loved this cart!Joseph and I met up at a park to hang out with friendsMore park timeWalking in Daddy’s bootsI guess we brought the crazy TX weather with usTrip to In n’ Out with friendsDoing one of the things he loves best: bath time!
